We had to give up an Oleana rez (because they doggedly wouldn’t add a 7th even though they do parties of 7 with a prix fixe menu).
Margaux seemed different and fun, and had the dubious distinction of having a table for 6 available online at the last minute — and they had no issue adding a 7th without forcing a set menu on us.
Their menu is both interesting and confusing. The concept is to have your own “tasting trio” based either on their groupings or by creating your own. (There are also reasonable wine pairings for each grouping, if that’s your thing.)
I LOVE the idea of half portions of mains, so you can get a couple of different things, because I am always torn between at least two different dishes.
However their “trios” are illogical – who wants 3 half portions of MEAT? Or 3 half portions of FISH? It would make much more sense to suggest a trio of a fish, meat, and vegetable, for example, for a balanced tasting.
Also, the idea that one needs to eat 1.5 entrees as the suggested portion is bizarre.
Anyway. Most of us went with 2 half portions from different sections (per logic). We should also have gotten a salad or app or soup to start, but the confusion of trios took over and that didn’t happen.
The food was surprisingly good despite all this.
Where they really stumbled (failed?) was the service. It took 45 mins for our server to take our food order – yes, I looked at the time. When I finally got her attention to come back, she told me she would take the food order when she came back with our drinks – NO, the whole table almost shouted in unison. Because it had been 30 mins since our drink order went in, and those facing the bar could see that the drinks were not coming anytime soon. The drinks finally showed up just before the food, so the bar was either horribly understaffed or completely incompetent.
The bread service we ordered did not show up even after the mains. Then she came back to ask if we still wanted the bread, since it had not come out and she didn’t know why. ??? One person had ordered tea at the beginning, with the drinks. The tea finally came out halfway through dinner.
The server then decided we didn’t want dessert. We ordered it anyway. Chocolate pie was excellent, as was the banana bread pudding. The cherries jubilee were… misnamed.
When we were well and truly done, and ready to leave, she decided that instead of giving us the checks, she wanted to guess who was whom from our names and return our cards one by one. ??? Also – it wasn’t not stereotyping. We put on forced smiles to get through it (with explanations such as “you have the only Asian last name!” and “you don’t look like a < insert Jewish name >”) to have it end with her soliciting us for positive reviews via a QR code because “the servers have a competition going”.
I’m going to guess we just had really bad luck with the server assigned, because other tables seemed generally satisfied. And the food was pretty good overall.
Would I recommend it? Yes, as long as you don’t get our server, don’t order drinks, and construct your own “tasting trio”. I am still a fan of the ability to order multiple mains in half portions (despite their doing their best to convince me otherwise).