Brett N.
Yelp
Why 3 stars? Because I found the food to be original but a tick off.
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After discovering the Restorative via their amazing Yelp reviews and stunning Instagram photos, I was incredibly excited to check them out. It's not often that I find myself in Dunedin during the early evening of weeknight's, but I went out of my way to get here so that I could experience this place first hand.
We arrived around 5:30p on a Thursday and were able to grab a seat at the bar. My friend and I made some pretty quick menu choices and our orders were taken within a couple of minutes. Here's what we had:
Meatballs - This was the first thing we had and it ended up being the best. There was some veal meat mixed in and some sort of bread crumbs on top that really set these apart from most of the meatballs I've ever had. 5-stars.
Ceviche - This was solid, but a bit pricey for the portion size. 4-stars.
Salt Cod with black squid ink spaghetti - Definitely very flavorful and tasty, but just too salty. Obviously the name of the dish is "Salt" cod, and while I love salty things, this was just a bit too much of a good thing. 4-stars.
Poached Chicken - This contained fermented black garlic puree, mushrooms, asparagus and foie gras-truffle jus. To be honest, I like all of those things individually, but I didn't love the flavor that the combination of all of those things produced. My dining partner liked this more than me, so it could have been more of a personal preference. 3-stars.
Double Creme Brie - A pretty big miss. This contained a pasty, some pineapple chunks and a giant slice of brie. It honestly didn't even really taste like a dessert. I definitely wish we would have gone with another option. 2-stars.
Overall, I'd give label our experience 3.5 stars, but I'm rounding down to 3-stars because this was our third trip to the Restorative, but the first time I was actually able to patronize the business.
Trip #1 - I went to the Restorative's website to see if they took reservations. Their website is very basic - it's pretty much just one page with a few facts about the restaurant. One of the things noted is that they do not have a phone, but answer emails quickly. I shot them an email that I was driving from Tampa, so I'd love to know what time they recommend I arrive by in order to secure a seat. They are only open 4-9p with 18 seats, so I knew it might be tough to just show up at any time and expect a seat. One of the owners did end up responding right away and said that there's no way to guarantee anything, but they recommend I arrive between 4-6p. Sadly, I ended up not being able to leave my house until after 6, and even more sadly, they'd run out of food by when we got there at 7:30. We were bummed, but completely understood that this was a risk we took.
Trip #2 - The previous visit was on a Friday, so on Monday (they next day they were open) we made sure that we were going to get there much earlier. We ended up leaving the house around 4:30p, which allowed us to arrive at 5:20p. The tough thing about leaving at that time is that it was during awful rush hour traffic, but we were happy to finally eat here after all the build-up. I walked up to hold the door open for my wife, who had our 3 month old in the stroller, only to be told by the owner that they don't allow kids under 5. I told him that we just got turned away on Friday and that we drove from Tampa just to come here twice, but his mind was made up. He said that their rules are written on their website.
We got back in the car and were really upset. I thought it was really crappy of the owner to turn us away when we'd driven that far to check them out twice, but I also understood that if they posted the rules on their website, it was really my fault for not looking. Once we were about halfway home, I pulled up their website on my phone, which only made me more upset.
The website said, "Well-behaved children five years and up are welcome to order off our dinner menu."
First of all, that verbiage does not say, "kids under five are not welcome." And secondly, when I saw this text, it triggered my memory. I, in fact, had already read this information a few days earlier when I went to their website to contact them. If they clearly stated that they did not allow babies, I never would have wasted nearly 3 hours commuting back and forth to their restaurant. I emailed the owner about this, and he said, "sorry for the confusion," which of course, annoyed me even more. Because in this situation, they used poor verbiage to get their point across and it cost us a lot of wasted time. I checked the website again a few days later and it was changed to, "Well behaved children over the age of 5 are welcome join us for dinner."
The fact that I made this commute a third time after this says that I really, *really* wanted to experience and enjoy the Restorative. Unfortunately, I didn't end up loving the food, but I am still glad I was able to check them out.