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Review content:
The room is beautiful, the wine list is excellent, unusual and relatively affordable, the bartender made a killer Bloody Mary (almost worth the $14 price tag), but I finished my meal utterly bewildered as to what type of restaurant Eleven Madison Park intends to be and why anyone judges it as successful in whatever it is doing. With truly haute haute cuisine prices, one expects superior service and exquisite food. Instead, the service was both confused and inept, if somewhat friendly. Our first course arrived before we had been given bread, condiments or, oddly, silverware -- all of which we had to ask for. The 25 minute wait between appetizer and main course was ridiculous. No one came over to move the table when an inside diner wanted to get up, no one folded the napkins of those absent from the table, no one asked if we wanted more bread and no one offered to refill our coffee. At $98 prix fixe, the service should be impeccable, not something that would be inadequate at a diner. Thought the food would compensate, but it was no more than ok. The amuse bouche of a dry, salty gougere came across like a Cheez Doodle compared with the delectable ones at Per Se. Soup and appetizer were good, not great. The entree I had, combining beef tenderloin and beef cheek was better, with the tenderloin perfectly cooked and the cheek meltingly soft, if a tad cloying. Vegetable accompaniments were no more than little smears on the plate. My chocolate desert was nothing special, extremely difficult to cut and featured only a dab (how I longed for as much as a smear) of the salted caramel cited on the menu. There have to be far better ways to drop $300 on a meal for two. Might have rated this average had the charge been, say $40/person or below, but the disconnect between expectation and reality drops my review from average to below average.
Pros: Beautiful room, great wine list, super cocktails
Cons: Inept, unfocused service, merely so-so food, a swindle at those prices
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