I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was nervous after the review thread from last week. In fact, I almost cancelled our reservation. I snagged a rezo when they first became available because I’d watch the Chef’s TikTok videos whenever they came up on my FYP and generally enjoyed his content. I’m glad we didn’t cancel. We had a good experience. Still, Feld is a bit of a mixed bag.
The Good: We thought the aesthetics of the restaurant were outstanding. The plates, stemware, and utensils were all gorgeous (minus the chopsticks which were surprisingly cheap). Service was relaxed and enjoyable.
On the food side of things there were some absolute bangers, notably, corn panna cotta with ham crumble, peach with bacon (also, my only good photo), the mushroom dish, and the lamb belly. The wine pairings were fantastic and I thought the pours were fair.
I also am convinced the chef saw last week’s post and made some much needed adjustments. I put that in the plus column.
We left full. No after dinner burgers for us. Though, to be transparent, we did share some onion rings at The Golden Years about an hour before our dinner (they were fantastic, btw).
The Bad: Salt. This is annoying. So many dishes could have been VASTLY improved with just a few sprinkles of salt. Both fish dishes had none(???). The lamb dish was served with salt on the plate, for us to add ourselves, but chef wanted us to try without it first. Nope. Just season my food please.
Plating. Y’all can see. This food doesn’t photograph well and the plating doesn’t help (oddly enough the plates look so much bigger in photos than they actually are – hence the photo with my hand for perspective).
There has to be a better way to plate that cheese. There has to be.
In general there was a lack of precision and consistency that I expect from these kinds of restaurants. My partner and I got bites that were different sizes, with different levels of seasoning and different cuts. Sometimes the knife work seemed….off.
The pickled mackerel, boquerones and “donut” was not for me…and my donut was burnt.
The Rub: We had a genuinely enjoyable meal at Feld, but wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to anyone that was looking for a “fine dining” experience. For the price, there is just no reason to go to Feld over any of the other great tasting menus in the city right now. But also, I think I’d definitely go back during another season? We’re lucky in that we’ve had so many tasting menus at this point that repeats are an option.
We also never felt the connection to the Midwest- which I thought was kind of their thing. There was more seafood than farm animals which doesn’t make much sense to me. There are other restaurants in the city that make me feel the connection to their sourcing better.
Overall, 3.75/5 experience. Next remains our least favorite tasting menu experience and Oriole the best (in the city). I could only post 20 pictures and I’m a bad photographer. My apologies to you and Feld.
by wine-n-dive