Kyle W.
Yelp
For this current month (August), $60 tasting menus on Mondays (normally $85!) I made a reservation here for 2 people to, of course, dine on Monday to take good advantage of the deal. The tasting menu is 4 courses, but the first course is a selection of 6 small bites as appetizers so you get quite a good amount of variety. As we dined at 5pm, it was happy hour so we opted to get the Cocchi Americano spritz and 3 glasses of wine (white, rose, red), $10 each which is good value. The food quality versus the value is high up there, and service exceeded my expectations for the price point, so it was a 5 star experience for me
First course:
- Proscuitto with melon ball: fairly light, charcuterie type of format
- Cucumber gazpacho: refreshing, a little herbal and floral
- Tuna crudo: sharp peppery notes and the tuna itself is fairly fresh
- Green salad with blueberry dressing and breadcrumbs: I am a big fan of this dish and will get this in the future if I come back. The dressing has very small hints of fruit but just works well with the slightly garlicky breadcrumbs
- Smoked salmon bruschetta: fairly solid, bread slightly toasted, but overall a little bit of a heavy dish
- Fried oysters with fennel salad: decent overall, nothing outstanding
Second course: lumache (pasta with pork belly and pecorino): cooked to al dente perfectly, quite creamy and a little heavy, but pairs really well with the red wine
Third course: ribeye, cooked to medium rare and quite tender. Served with smashed potatoes with rosemary which I delightfully enjoyed
Fourth course: dessert course, tiramisu. A nice finish to the meal. The almond crackers on the side is very almondy and flavorful.
Service is excellent. Despite a mandatory 22% service charge, they well deserved it. They let us sample even the happy hour wines first to see if we like it before we commit to a full glass, even though a glass is just $10 and acceptable to yolo it. They clear out our plates each course. They wiped down the table in between most courses. They brought out the dishes at the right cadence and the associated glasses of wine for the most optimal pairing experience, even though we opted to not do the wine pairing for $50/person.
Overall, for a tasting menu format type of restaurant, the price is well justified and this is one of the better value ones out there. You won't be missing any elements of fine dining here just because it is cheaper than other fine dining restaurants. While in general Ethan Stowell restaurants are fairly consistently average / above average and of mediocre value outside of happy hour prices, targeting different clientele across the restaurant group, Staple and Fancy definitely sets itself at least one tier above the typical ESR restaurant.