Stone House at Stirling Ridge

[Gastronomic]

A very strange night this past Thursday. I had read about their prix fixe in the NYT, and decided to try it out Thurs. for an "early" Valentine's day dinner. I called Thursday am, to confirm. We arrived at 7pm on Thurs and proceeded through a well lit bar, to a very dark dining room. We were seated by our hostess and handed a liquor list and our wine list. The dining room, which everyone had said was beautiful was almost completely black, except for lit votives. The votives provided insufficient light, although serving as a useful reading light for our menus. After inquiring with our waitress, we were told that:

a.) There was no power in the dining room

b.) They were cooking out of the catering kitchen

c.) The prix fixe menu was NOT available

d.) Pasta selections were NOT available.

The food we did order was good, but it was dark enough that we could not identify certain components of our dish(es). Nonetheless, it was an uneasy evening.

My complaint is that if they knew at 5pm that they were out of power in the dining room, why were guests with reservations not called and informed of the limited menu and the lack of power in the dining room? If that could not be done, why were we not informed by the hostess or the manager on duty? We could have then made an informed decision whether we wanted to stay or dine with the establishment at a different time. Not good customer service in my opinion........

[fershore]

Did you bring up your complaints while you were there? Were you comped on any level?

In this economy, my guess is that they couldn't risk not being open and did their very best under unfortunate conditions. Imagine the day the staff must have had.