Hotel Du Lazy (restaurant review)
My wife and I dined at Hotel Du Village this past weekend for our first wedding anniversary and were rather disappointed in the food and service we received.
For starters, the restaurant is very old world and romantic, as advertised. The dim lights, candles and fireplace add an incredible ambiance and make it a space that couples will definitely love for special occasions.
Unfortunately the sophistication and appeal ends with the location and décor, and does not extend to the food or service.
We each ordered a cup of soup for starters. On top of the small portion, both the asparagus soup and onion soup would have been more aptly named “chicken with vegetable,” due to being flavored almost exclusively by the stock they used.
Most onion soups will start with a base of extremely caramelized onions that cooked low and slow for color and sweetness, and infuse the broth with a pleasing, if not overpowering onion flavor and aroma. This soup had none of that distinctive onion flavor that I expect from the dish. The asparagus soup was similar, with only slight trace of asparagus flavor, and an overwhelming broth flavor that made the cup come across as lazy and completely uninspired.
The entrees, veal in a Madeira sauce and “green herb” seasoned lamb chops were next and equally forgettable. The dishes lacked the refinement and composition that most chefs today strive for. Instead, the plating was reminiscent of what you’d expect to get on your mother’s dinner table growing up: seasoned and sauced protein on one side of the plate with two afterthoughts as side dishes arranged clumsily around it. The problem here isn’t the plating…it’s the simple concept that a protein is the star of the dish and that it just needs a starch and vegetable to complete the meal…any will do.
The problem with the entrees didn’t end with conceptualization. The execution was poor as well. The “green herb” seasoned lamb chops were the victim of far too light of a hand with both the seasoning AND the flame. One of the three chops in the far-too-small portion was significantly larger than the others, but was obviously removed from the heat after the same amount of cooking. The result was three bland chops, two cooked medium-rare, and the third cooked medium-raw. Once again, the laziness and lack of attention to detail were painfully obvious.
The veal was just as poorly executed. Although cooked to the proper temperature, it was poorly seasoned. The Madeira sauce featured little flavor of its namesake…and little other flavor as well. When coupled with the lazy potatoes and green beans, it amounted to another regrettably forgettable dinner.
The service was yet another black eye. The waiter who served us knew little to nothing about the food he was serving. My wife’s dairy allergies kept him shuffling into the kitchen to answer even the easiest questions about which dishes did and did not have a liberal amount of cream added. He also could only recommend dishes based on what is frequently ordered, a clear sign that he had never truly tried any of the food. With such a small menu, it’s only reasonable to assume that the individuals selling the food to the guests would have tried all, if not most, of the dishes.
Overall, the Hotel Du Village is beautiful, but seems to suffer from archaic, lazily conceptualized and executed food. With New Hope and Lahaska offering such an abundance of restaurants, we truly regretted spending our one opportunity to have a nice, romantic celebration dinner at this establishment. I would recommend spending your time and money elsewhere, where the meal and experience is more than just good ambiance and a romantic fireplace.