May Good Dinner: Avenue

From the President:

I was looking forward to dinner at Avenue.  It is the newest restaurant from the owners of Pomme Restaurant and Pomme Cafe.  While I did not often dine at Pomme, I remembered the food was excellent so I was excited to try Avenue.  It was my turn to host, I have to admit that I later decided to change my choice  after making a reservation at Avenue.  But when I called to cancel the person that I spoke to was so pleasant and genuine that I decided to stick with Avenue.

Parking was easy, the new location on Meramec has street parking as well as a lot across the street.  With the closing of the bar nearby, there does not seem to be much competition for parking.  Furthermore, there was a very nice young woman who was handling the valet service offered.  The host (who I later learned was the manager) was polite and I enjoyed sitting at the bar until the rest of the party arrived.  The decor is modern and elegant.  However the brightly colored ceiling suggests an element of whimsy that we did not find in the menu, food or vibe of Avenue.  Aesthetically I would have preferred a pop of one or two of the colors on that ceiling but there were too many for my taste.  We were able to have a comfortable conversation at our table as the noise level was comfortable.  As the sun set the light became uncomfortable for various tables.  The staff was quick to adjust the shades to alleviate the diners' discomfort.  The specials of the day were presented on a small folded card on the table.  The presentation seemed awkward and quite informal.  I would prefer to hear the specials presented by the waitress rather than to have them listed on the table as they are at some chain restaurants.

Diners gave Avenue 4 stars for having a good atmosphere.

The quality of service we received was mixed from one extreme to the other.  I have already mentioned the warm and polite service we received from the manager who was acting as host and who I now presume was the pleasant man who unknowingly convinced us to dine at Avenue.  He truly is the bright spot in the service at Avenue.  Our waitress was pleasant but had little knowledge of the food.  Ordering was labored as she had to continuously ask questions about the ingredients.  At the end of our meal, when I asked whether the Apples for Olivia contained nuts, she told me they did not.  While technically that was true, I feel it would have been appropriate to mention that the dessert did contain pine nuts.  Once we were able to order, service moved along smoothly.  Once finished with our entrees, we requested boxes to take our leftovers to go from the man who cleared our table.  There was some confusion as to whether the chef/co-owner would allow us to box our own food to go.  Ultimately he came out to address the issue with us and unfortunately that discussion did not go well and he waved at us dismissively and walked away in the middle of our conversation.  We were allowed to box our own dishes but felt humiliated and insulted by the way we were treated.  It seemed that after that happened we received no further service.  Although we wanted to order dessert, the waitress promptly brought us our check, our water glasses were never refilled and our entree dishes were not cleared from our table until they had been there so long that the manager came to clear them.  It was at that time that we shared our displeasure with our experience to the manager who did everything he could to make us feel better about things.  While he offered to try to get authorization to treat us to our desserts, I declined and simply asked him to have our waitress bring us the dessert menu so that we could complete our dining experience.  If there was anything that could have made me return to this restaurant it was this gentleman.

I had recognized the chef/co-owner in the dining room greeting customers as we waited for our food.  While I think that is a really nice touch, it went a little awry at Avenue.  There were not that many tables in the restaurant that night so it did not take long for the chef to make the rounds.  Our party had become engaged in a serious and intimate conversation and I noticed in my peripheral vision that the chef was waiting for a break in our conversation so that he could approach our table.  It felt like he was lurking over us and we would have preferred the he return at another time or perhaps, even miss our table.  When he did come over the conversation was inconsequential as he simply asked if our food was good.  This was fine as we were anxious to get back to our conversation (which he may have picked up on) but I would normally expect the chef to speak a little about the concept of the restaurant, his own background and make an attempt to get to know the customers in hopes they will return.

Diners gave Avenue almost 3 stars for service that was slightly disappointing..

The menu was described in reviews of Avenue as the menu from Pomme with a few additions.  In fact, the additions were a little strange ranging from Italian dishes to schnitzel and the bar menu (also available in the dining room) had American entrees.  I would have a hard time describing the cuisine at Avenue.  The best I could say would be that they have a little bit of everything.  The menu severely undersold the offerings.  For example my schnitzel came with this delicious lemony sauce that would have sold me on the dish but when I ordered I almost got a different entree because there was no such enticing description.

The food, however was delicious as I had expected.  This chef does an excellent job with the food and quite frankly our experience at Avenue would have been entirely different if he had remained in the kitchen.  He truly has created some well-crafted dishes with balanced flavors.  I really enjoy strong flavors and his were truly a delight.  While my favorite, as at Pomme, remains the Apples for Olivia, I could definitely do without the pine nuts.  I have no criticisms about the food and would return for the dessert if our experience with the service had not been so disconcerting.  I do want to mention that the chef reached out to our Twitter account two days later after I tweeted that we had a poor experience.  I felt this review should be based on our dining experience at the restaurant that day so I did not allow him to further discuss the issues we had.

Diners gave Avenue 4 1/2 stars for having really good food.

Overall, we will not be returning to Avenue because of the way that we were treated by the chef/co-owner.  The restaurant otherwise is a good one but the way we were treated was unacceptable and our decision is one of principle.  It is interesting how the components of our review sometimes factor into the overall impression of the dining experience.  In this instance we had some really good food in a pretty restaurant but the experience we had with the chef/co-owner truly tainted our dinner.  We really did not have a good dinner at Avenue and left feeling hurt and angry.

Diners gave Avenue 2 1/2 stars because overall we had a fairly disappointing dining experience there.