Taylor B.
Yelp
Date: 3/24/23 * Food: 3/5 * Ambiance: 2/5 * Service: 4/5 * Management: 4/5
TL;DR: It's Guy Savoy, but if Guy Savoy was in Oregon. In other words, ostentatious but without the stars needed to successfully pull off such pretense. What purports to be fine dining of an elite class instead comes across as a decently disguised chain restaurant eternally hoping to sell itself to the masses as something more.
I went to Newberg to eat at this restaurant. After all, it has four Forbes stars and four AAA diamonds. Their Instagram is impeccable, their menu inspired. I mounted the Victorian house's wobbly stairs that evening with knees equally wobbly from the thrill that comes before engaging in a truly magnificent dining experience. When I walked back down those same stairs almost three hours later, the only thing wobbling was my gut.
I will say this: The food is pretty. But not as pretty as one might believe based solely upon the restaurant's Instagram content; any aesthetic value it has results from a vain attempt to "paint" with ingredients. Each "composed" dish is so artistically deconstructed that it has to be subsequently re-composed, bite by bite, by the diner if there is to be any hope of its flavor attaining the chef's original intent.
Several courses were borderline flavorless; a verdant green swoosh across the plate of my seafood course made me question whether my taste buds were operating it was so bland. The bread, while warm, somehow seemed stale. And anything crispy (of which there was a fair amount; nearly half of the courses included a fried element) tasted...well...like fryer oil.
Credit must go where it is due, however. The coconut cake and pineapple sorbet dessert was yummy, as was a certain parsnip puree. The miso custard was creative, as were the rest of the courses...but what they boasted in originality, they gravely lacked in seasoning. Salt, sweetness, spice, and sourness were noticeably absent in every course, making for a one-note dining experience. The mignardises were just gross.
My biggest "beef", so to speak, was with the so-called wagyu, which, as we overheard our waiter explaining to another table, was not wagyu at all but a locally raised knockoff variety. While we appreciated the waiter's honesty, we couldn't help but feel as if The Painted Lady was attempting a culinary sleight of hand, marketing perfectly delicious local beef as coveted Japanese wagyu. Should it have simply been listed as premium locally raised beef, it would have been celebrated rather than scorned.
A quick note on ambiance: If you're going to call yourself fine dining, then please, for the love of brie, put a cloth on your table! I can forgive unnecessarily large and awkward-looking chargers, but the clatter of silverware against a naked table between courses is a far greater sin. Don't get me started on the visually disruptive placement of speakers and heat vents amid awkward attempts at decor or the haphazardly folded napkin squares. The electro/country music blend was also a head-scratcher.
The management gave us an extra dessert in honor of our honeymoon (never mind that it was made with chocolate so bitter and peanut butter so oily it turned both of our stomachs) as well as copy of the evening's menu with a special message from the chef as a keepsake. However, the service was sporadic at best---our waiter was with us for several courses, then disappeared and was replaced before returning toward the end of the evening.
While generally pleasant, our waiter was also disappointingly condescending when we asked for two nonalcoholic, uncarbonated drinks. He promised us that he would whip up two "fruity drinks", as if we were toddlers in search of sippy cups. The drinks he came up with (do they have a bartender, or is the waitstaff just expected to mix drinks?) tasted like canned juice with a bit of egg white whipped in. It was sour, funky, and overall disappointing. Just like the rest of the night.
