Susan M.
Yelp
Stellar setting at the Farm. Romantic. Memorable. Extremely professional, friendly service that was *almost* impeccable, and paced well for five courses. (Please don't remove dishes until *everyone* is finished, and if you spill something please replace our linens.)
OVER-PRICED: 5 courses with wine pairings and bread service for two, plus one foie gras macaron, taxes and tip ran us $527.
COMPARISON: Our 7 course meal at a 1-Michelin Star restaurant in Lyon, France cost us $396 USD.
Amuse bouche surprisingly good. We scoffed at the trendy parmesan shell, but in the end the flavors won us over.
Bread service left us sad and scratching our heads. Additional $12 for 4 pieces of room temperature crostini coated in salt. Over-generous serving of otherwise really delicious butter, but we were also given olive oil that was adulterated with basalmic vinegar. Bread is the lifeblood of any meal. So greatly misunderstood and underappreciated. Fresh. White. Crusty. Bread. Warm. Sliced. It isn't difficult, chef. Bread course should be simple and consistent.
Oysters super plump and beautiful, but way past their prime, caviar lackluster, lemon zest totally lost on our palate. It should have been "briny, zesty, fresh & tastes like the sea" and it sadly disappointed.
Challenge: It takes courage to flat out refuse to serve the client seafood that is fishy and dull. Be brave and spare us, please!
Foie gras appetizer was truly good!! Superb foie gras, but sliced imperfectly. Delicious and chewy macaron! Nuts on top distracted from it, otherwise slice very thinly and creatively distribute, along with more tiny mint leaves. One leaf was not enough.
Zucchini soup bright and delicious. Confusing to need a fork and knife on our soup, but we were game for it! Just please make sure we can cut through the skin of that delightful brined cucumber shaving because we really struggled. Note: Not everything requires a "sweet" with the savory. Cranberry unnecessary. Focus on that fantastic soup base! It was a winner! The smoked salmon bite on top was perfection, btw.
Squash blossoms lovely, crunchy. Great texture and flavor. Way too much relish on the plate and not enough of that delicious hot oil.
Salad fail. For a farm to table restaurant a salad *should* be a luscious gem. Salad eaters expect a bowl of gorgeous greens. Garden varieties can really be showcased here. A better surge of creativity could have been accomplished by using multiple COLORS (sorrel, beet, yellow squash, orange squash, citrus, carrot, parsnip, edible violets, etc.) used decoratively. But people want salad, not a stick farm with tired goat cheese. The lone radish dipped in melted butter is a fail.
Gnocchi course produced four or five inconsistently shaped tiny bites lost among odd- sized chunks of fennel sausage. There was more sausage than gnocchi, and what gnocchi was there was flat, doughy and flavorless, certainly not the lofty pillows we prefer. This was our biggest disappointment.
Beet sorbet...interesting. Curious, in a good way. If the provided spoon was intended for it to be one bite, that bite was too big. We attempted to halve it and it made a huge mess, staining our linens.
Pork shoulder phenomenal. Large portion, and cooking technique spot on. But PLEASE use salt. The black eyed peas were also perfectly cooked, but made a strange accompaniment due to lack of ham flavor (again - no salt in there!). Once more: "Sweet" to savory falls flat here. Didn't need the cherry unless it was paired with a savory herb---but there was nothing to off-set this. Rosemary, perhaps?
...or basil in some of the other courses, for that matter. We have volumes of these herbs here in Phoenix.
The wine pairing option was $65 per person-- five 2.5oz servings per person which amounts to $13 per glass, which was only 1/2 glass per serving! Absolutely no value there. The wine quality was low/average. Nothing special, and a few were downright "meh". When choosing wines for the pairings, TASTE them first. None of them were bright or complex, and that is expected at these prices.
Overall rating a 2. Would return for another try. We sense the strongest desires here to create, and the technique is definitely there. Prognosis: HOPEFUL!!!
We'd love nothing more than to have a James Beard worthy team in South Phoenix. The potential is definitely there. Want to give more stars, but rn we think chef isn't tasting dishes or wine pairings, and is not focusing on basics: Good bread, using salt.
By comparison our side trip from Paris to Lyon to lunch at a 1 star Michelin restaurant set us back a total of only $395.71 (403€), and that included: 7 courses, wine pairings (full glasses) desert and coffee. And simple, sliced crusty fresh white bread, of course, and four formally dressed servers solely devoted to our table of two.