Sharon M.
Yelp
There were high highs and low lows on our dining experience to St. Bernard's, but the lows beat the highs out.
The dining room is small and cozy, and although we had a reservation and there were tables available when we arrived, it took 10-15 minutes to be seated.
The four of us (two couples) started with a few orders of the caviar pillows and champagne. Perfection! They were just right.
Then when we were ordering our dinners, we asked for suggestions from the maitre d' -type guy, who said that the short ribs (on the special Wednesday wine menu) were the best thing he'd ever tasted. Two of ordered those, while another ordered the Ribeye and another the salmon, and we ordered the special salad of the day. We also ordered a bottle of a Pinot Noir from Burgundy. While we were waiting for it to arrive, the maitre d came back and said they were out of it, but recommended another wine (he said he'd offer it at the same price. When we tasted it, we should have sent it back, but hoped it would open up. It turned out to be from Chile, and extremely mediocre. It never opened up nicely, and had an astringent taste. (OK, our fault for accepting it. )
The salads were pretty good, with blood orange and pomegranate seeds, but too many croutons, in fact the salad didn't need croutons at all, they didn't seem to work. Also, they didn't offer bread on the table, which seemed odd for high-end European-style mountain resort dining.
When the dinners came, the short ribs looked pretty unimpressive, however, the Ribeye & the salmon were standouts. They looked and tasted wonderful, and the ribeye was perfectly cooked.
But the "shortribs" were a few pieces of what looked much more like gristly pot roast on a pinkish orange sauce over decent polenta. The beef was really awful, didn't look or taste like shortribs at all (and they weren't presented with the bone). The sauce was sweet with no depth of flavor at all. Neither of us ate very much of them. No one came back to check on us, perhaps knowing our dinners were an embarrassment. Although we were all engaged in great conversation, I do think we would have sent them back if a server had asked how things were. It was the worst thing I had eaten in memory. Again, I suppose we could have gotten up and found someone and asked for something else, so we bear some responsibility here. And I wonder if they ran out of the good shortribs and made a poor decision to substitute something at the last minute? Anyhow, it was so horrible, I could not get the taste out of my mouth and mind until the next day. (By the way, I had shortribs just the week before at Park City's High West Distillery, and they were SO good, I was ready for more.)
Service was just okay. The ambience was nice, nothing overly special. The fire was nice, but tepid, it could have used more logs.
My suggestion is definitely order off the main menu, don't try any special dinners.