Liliana’s: A Tale of Two Restaurants
Liliana’s Restaurant
2951 Triverton Pike
Fitchburg, WI 53714
(608) 442-4444
Hours:
Lunch Monday through Saturday 11am-2pm
Dinner every day 5pm-9pm
Liliana’s: A Tale of Two Restaurants (It was the best of meals, it was the worst of meals…)
Liliana’s Restaurant has opened in Fitchburg. Owned by Executive Chef David Heide, the menu focuses on recreating the ambience and the flavor of the French Quarter in New Orleans. And, for the most part, the restaurant succeeds. We’ve now been to Liliana’s twice, and each time we’ve come to the same conclusion. A trip to Liliana’s is like a tale of two restaurants.
We’ll start with the overwhelmingly positive aspects of Liliana’s; the inventive flavors. We had expected this restaurant to successfully launch a unique, flavorful menu when we first heard that Chef Heide was behind this establishment. We first ran into him way back in 2004, when he put on a wine dinner at Picasso’s. We became believers that evening. And so with eager anticipation, we made reservations for four, heading out into the pre-Christmas restaurant rush for our first taste of Liliana’s.
The food did not disappoint that evening, but the logistics did.
Our party made reservation for the evening with the knowledge that we had a “must attend” event to go to afterwards. And so we planned for two hours at Liliana’s, assuming that this would give us an ample, leisurely window for dining. We were wrong, but more on that later.
We ordered our meal, including appetizers (hush puppies and onion straws) and entrees. The entrees ordered included Andouille-crusted Tilapia with Sweet Potato and Mushroom Ragout; a Black Angus Sirloin served with a Creole salad; Jambalaya with Andouille, Tasso, Lardons, and Shrimp; and Sea Scallops with Orecchiette in a Saffron Cream Sauce.
We settled in with our drinks, and quickly realized that we had a logistics problem. The tables are so small that once drinks, wine, water and bread were deposited on it, there was no room to maneuver. It became a challenge to sit and relax, while awkwardly trying to reach for food or beverages without knocking anything over. This became much worse as the appetizers were served, and dinner changed from a pleasant evening with friends to a stressful and frustrating exercise of moving items around the table in an effort to find space to place everything. The very small size of the table was compounded by the fact that the restaurant serves their food on over-sized serving dishes. Additionally, we were seated in an area in the middle of the room, where many people were crammed around small tables which were so close together that the waitstaff was unable to adequately serve without bumping into the neighboring diners.
But the food was wonderful. The appetizers satisfied, the salads were excellent, and the curry-laced carrot soup served up unique and interesting flavor.
Then the next snag was hit. After the soup and salad course was completed, we sat for a significant amount of time awaiting our entrees. While we had planned a very reasonable two hours for our dinner, we actually had to eventually call the manager over to tell him that we were afraid we were going to need to leave in order to meet our social obligations before our entrees were even served. As we were discussing our options with the manager (one of which was to get the entrees to go and eat them for breakfast the next day!), the entrees were finally served to us. And while the food was wonderful, the stress of the very small table which was unable to hold service for four adequately combined with the fact that we were now officially late for our next social obligation created a situation where enjoying our entrees was simply not possible. We raced through our very good entrees without the luxury of savoring them, and ran out the door.
Accepting responsibility for the fact that we had gone to Liliana’s shortly after newly opening, and compounding the opening-glow rush with the Christmas holiday rush, we acknowledged that it would be unfair to hold the logistical challenges we faced against the restaurant. And so we tried it again.
This time, our party consisted of two diners. We were lead to a very small table. We came within a heartbeat of demanding a bigger table, but to our regret, we chose not to push the issue. Here’s the rule of thumb if you plan on dining at Liliana’s comfortably: If you are a party of two, try to be seated at a table for four. We looked around the dining room floor and noticed that there were many parties of two who were comfortably seated at tables for four. We were not fortunate enough to be one of those parties, and we once again settled in for a crammed and logistically challenging dining experience.
We perused the menu and noticed that it had changed slightly from our previous visit. On this trip we skipped the appetizers and headed straight into the salad course. Salads ordered were a Truffled Salad of Belgian Endive, Field Greens, Toasted Walnuts, and Stilton Cheese ($8); and Liliana’s House Salad of Mixed greens with Creole Vinaigrette ($5). Both salads were spectacular, with fresh produce and very well balanced dressings.
Next on tap were our entrees. On this visit, we ordered the Andouille, Chicken and Blackened Shrimp Papardelle Pasta with Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce ($16); and Country Fried Chicken with Jalapeno-Cranberry Cornbread and Creamed Spinach ($16).
We’ll preface this next rant by saying that we don’t want to rant about this restaurant. We really like this chef. We really like the atmosphere. The food is truly great food. But. We were completely flabbergasted to see what passed for the Country Fried Chicken entree. The expression on our faces as ONE chicken LEG was place in front of us must have been priceless. We understand that one of the goals of this restaurant is to keep the price of the entrees down and to provide value, however we can not even remotely consider a serving which consists of ONE small chicken LEG to be of any kind of value. We’ll throw out a personal plea to this chef - charge a few dollars more (if you must, though we consider $16 for a chicken leg to be outrageous) and serve a more reasonable portion.
To top the situation off, the approximate four bites of edible food on the chicken leg were greatly reduced once we cut into it. It was cold to the touch, red, and and had the texture of undercooked chicken. When this was brought to the waiters attention, he first explained that the chicken was slow roasted and so this was to be expected. We countered this statement with the fact that we use the slow roasting technique often in our personal kitchen, we know what it entails, we understand the end results, and what we had cut into was simply not the result of slow cooking. Our waiter checked with the kitchen and came back to confirm that the state of the chicken was not due to slow cooking, it was due to the fact that the chicken was organic. Again, we know organic food. We work with organic food often. The chicken was undercooked. The waiter was very helpful, and offered to get us another piece of chicken despite the fact that it was “prepared properly”, but it was really rather irrelevant at that point.
To summarize our tale of two restaurants:
The tale of the best of meals tells of a restaurant with unique and inventive flavors, a very attractive ambiance, and a chef who is creative with incredible potential. We would recommend that you try this restaurant to experience all of this.
The tale of the worst of meals tells of a restaurant that experiences logistical issues of tables too small, serving plates too big for the tables, and some kinks to work out in the kitchen.
We would still recommend that you try this restaurant if you like Creole food with an upscale New Orleans atmosphere. We will go back again, and hold hope that some of the kitchen issues are addressed. And we’ll ask for a bigger table.
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Dear Reviewer
First, thanks for the kind words about us. We really appreciate them. And thanks for your constructive and kindly-worded criticism. As a brand new restaurant, we’re still ironing out a few kinks—and we want you to know that we’re working hard every single day to get everything perfect. Anything less than exceeding all of our guests’ expectations, every time, would never be acceptable to us.
I’ll do my best to answer your specific concerns.
As far as table size and overcrowding, we researched tables and decided on fairly typical sizes, especially for restaurants seeking an intimate atmosphere. Still, if the tables seem too small, we need to address that concern. What we are working on now is a better system of keeping the table cleared as much as possible and streamlining the plating/presentation side of things. We think you’ll notice the improvement the next time you visit us.
You may be happy to know that we’ve also added an expediter to facilitate kitchen/wait staff communications and make sure the time between courses is less. It’s one of the great challenges of restaurant management, and we think we’re getting better and better at it—but seamless, streamlined perfection is what we’re striving for.
We took very seriously the comments you had for each of our dishes you tried, and rejoice about the things you loved. But we want every dish to be perfect. As far as the chicken entree you wrote about, we have implemented changes in the kitchen to ensure that the dish is consistently as good as it was meant to be, and we’ve increased the portion size. As for the doneness of the chicken, one of the problems we have run into with organic birds is that the meat will be fully cooked to temperature, but as the meat rests the blood will leech out from the bone. This gives the impression that the chicken is undercooked, but I can assure you that no matter how long the chicken is cooked, there will still be blood at the bone. I’m hopeful that our guests’ palates will confirm that the chicken is properly cooked, even when their eyes can’t. In any event, I can personally assure you that quality in the kitchen is absolutely foremost at Liliana’s—we take your concerns very seriously.
Thanks for giving us a second chance. Every comment you’ve made pushes us to do even better, to try even harder to make every dining experience at Liliana’s a perfect and memorable occasion. We’re grateful you’ve stuck with us so far, and promise that each and every subsequent visit will be even better than the one before.
Sincerely,
Dave Heide
Owner/Chef, Liliana’s Restaurant
I was a first-time visitor to your restaurant on Fat Tuesday. You must have had a limited menu because the onion straws were not offered, which would have been my choice.
I had the Andouille, Chicken, and Shrimp with parpadelle past in a roasted red pepper cream sauce. It was way too spicy, which I wasn’t expecting in a sauce that doesn’t specify “hot”. My partner had the jambalaya, which he also said was too hot for him to thoroughly enjoy. We both ate a small portion and took the rest home, where we doctored it up with some milk and rice to cool it down.
We sat at a table for two, and I agree it was too “cozy.”
We left the restaurant not sure we will return.
I ate at Liliana’s and thought it was very nice. I think the atmosphere is very nice and we also had good food and good service. We DID ask for a 4 table, even though there were only 2 of us. But I do that pretty much everywhere. I don’t think the table size is a “Liliana’s” problem. I run into that in most restaurants.
My favorite part of the meal was the dessert. For only $4 I got a perfect size portion of Banana’s Foster. My favorite, and it was delicious.
For a very moderately priced restaurant (as well as being new and still improving) I thought it was a very nice place to go. I will definitely come back and would like to make it in for lunch… your entree salads look delicious.
Good Luck and I hope everything works out for you.
Patty
I visited Liliana’s today and was very impressed with the feel of the environment. I had the crusted calamari, shrimp and crawfish etoufee, and beignets. The presentation of the food was lovely as well as the portion sizes. However, I was disappointed with the flavor of the food. As a frequent traveler to the French Quarter, I expected more “pop” from the etoufee. There was not a lot of seasoning to the food which made it rather bland. The atmosphere brought back pleasant memories for me, but I am not sure that I will return.
Oh Boy, not enough time you say ? How about an hour for lunch, 45 minutes of it spent gazing out the window waiting for our meal to arrive ? As it arrived, the waitress informed my wife to “Be careful, the plate is hot…: It wasn’t it was cold.
My chicken sandwich was fine but my wifes etouffee was a dissapointment
Did I mention that when we entered, no one greeted us or took note ,finally a waiter was kind enough to show us a seat . When we left one of the waitress’s sitting at the bar eating told a couple that were coming in the door that they were closed for lunch, boy, some people have all the luck
I came here for my birthday. While I must say the food was outstanding, the rest left something to be desired.
First, the table size was pretty poor for a party of four. Second, we were told that Liliana’s was in the process of changing their drink menu so I was left without a suggestion for a birthday drink. Second, it took probably 30-45 minutes for our appetizer to come out (a dozen oysters) and another 25 minutes for our meals once we had finished. I will take partial blame for this, but although I was asked when I made a reservation if it was a special occasion (and I informed them of birthday) this was never once acknowledged. I did not remind the server (I suppose I thought some of the gifts would tip him off) because every time he came by we became side tracked wondering where our appetizer/entree’s were. Lastly, the parking. Oh the parking. We ended up parking in a bank parking lot a few buildings away because there must have been 10 parking spots available. It wouldn’t have been too bad of walk, except the fact that it was 5 degrees out or less.
Overall, I truly enjoyed their food and would love to go back. But at those prices I would hope for more prompt service and at least a mention of a special occasion at the host stand when we checked in.
My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed our wedding anniversary dinner at Liliana’s. I’m glad I had not read some of these comments first, otherwise we may not have gone. We were given an excellent table, near the music as we had requested. The staff considerately asked the excellent guitarist/vocalist Cliff Frederiksen to play an anniversary song for us, which he did not hesitate to do. The food was excellent. Although not as spicy as I like, it’s hard to please everyone, and when we go again I will ask for my dish to have more zing. The appetizer of crab cakes was great, and the two dishes we had were both excellent -
Andouille, Chicken & Blackened Shrimp Papardelle Pasta with Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce - $16
and
Roasted Red Peppers and Wild Mushrooms with Buccatini Pasta in a Pesto Cream Sauce - $14
As I said, though, next time we’ll ask for the dishes prepared spicier. Both my wife and I heartily recommend Liliana’s.
We too enjoyed the excellent food at Liliana’s, but will have to say that by no means was service prompt. If I had truly been going to Liliana’s during my “lunch hour” I would have left with only having the the tasty bread and olive oil. We only ordered entrees and were there for 1 hour 45 minutes. Keep in mind it was not crowded (went about 11:45 ish), we were immediately seated upon our arrival and left immediately upon finishing our entrees (I was now running late to a meeting). Table size seemed fine, but it was not crowded, so that may be different when the restaurant is full and people are there for dinner. I will likely return for dinner (or lunch on a day off), as the food was excellent, but I would defintely not recommend going for lunch during the work week or if you have any type of time constraint.