Restaurant Revisit: Hook
We all know the adage “all good things must come to an end.” But when it comes to Hook Restaurant we didn’t realize how quickly the “end” would arrive. Okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but by now we’re all aware that the restaurant has hit a major bump in the road with the sudden departure of its founding chef, Barton Seaver as well as the recent departure of Chef Joshua Whigham.
It seems like only a little over a year ago we welcomed this delicious sustainable seafood restaurant into our bellies and now we’re not so sure we can stomach it anymore. After our recent revisit of the place to see how they were holding up, we were left wondering what the future holds for them and if they would ever be able to rebound back.
When we first visited Hook we were impressed with many of the appetizers, particularly the crudo selection and the grilled calamari. Unfortunately this time around the crudo left us disappointed. The former set-up would allow diners to choose any three types of eight types of seafood for $8 and each fish came sashimi style with an interesting topping. This time around there were only three types to choose from: oyster, uni (sea urchin) or Coho salmon. The diner chooses one type and it comes with three different toppings. We chose the Coho salmon, and rather than the elegant sashimi style, it came diced up. The toppings were so minuscule that the dish was virtually flavorless.
Image courtesy of Bsivad
On the other hand we decided to give the grilled calamari another try since we liked it so much last time. This dish came out exactly the same. The serving was a generous portion of smoky calamari, which was cooked so that it didn’t get that dreaded rubbery texture, served on top of potato salad. Other appetizers included the Caledonian shrimp with coleslaw and burrata salad. The mozzarella was fresh and gooey - just the way we like it. The shrimp, like the calamari, had a nice smokiness to it.
For main courses we decided on the halibut with smoked couscous, barramundi (an Australian fish similar to snapper as it was described) with sautéed greens, bluefish with zucchini bread pudding and sablefish. Three out of the four dishes came out correctly. We received the salmon instead of the sablefish and after going back and forth with the waiter and finally convincing him that we did not order the salmon he took it away. While we waited for the sablefish to come out, we began on the other dishes. The bluefish being the richest of all the dishes with its creamy texture and the heavier bread pudding was tasty. The halibut, while not quite as rich as the bluefish, was served over a flavorful layer of smoked couscous.
Contrasting those two items was the barramundi, which was served simply seared over some wilted greens. While the other two items were heavy with starch side dishes and lacking vegetables, there was no starch component at all on the barramundi and it seemed like it could have been balanced out a little better. After we finished the first three entrees, the sablefish finally came out. Although it had that delicious buttery texture to it, it did seem that it was slightly undercooked. We did inform the server that we didn’t mind waiting for it, but perhaps it was still rushed out of the kitchen to make up for the mistake.
We do have to admit that we were a little nervous that the quality of the food might have gone down since the restaurant is still without a permanent chef. While the food was executed well - proper seasoning, cooking temperatures, etc., - most of the dishes were carried over from the previous menus.
Obviously the kitchen was able to hold things together, which is much more than we can say for the front of the house. We endured extremely painful service. Rather than subjecting you to the same torture we can sum it up for you. We were immediately greeted by “You’re all 21, right?” (we had brought champagne to celebrate a 30th birthday) and “Bottled sparkling or bottled still?” That’s about the only conversation we had with our server. Throughout the evening we would go through 20-minute periods without seeing our server and have to wave him down. This was in addition to the mix-up with the salmon and the sablefish, which is usually excusable except that he tried to convince us that we ordered the salmon. To top it all off he “recommended” (by recommended we mean brought over) a glass of rosé saying nothing else other than “It’s Spanish,” so you can imagine the surprise when the bill came and that non-descript glass of rosé was $23! The service has never been outstanding at Hook, but from our experience it’s always been efficient. We decided to voice our complaints to the manager. But he, like our waiter, could not care less - he interrupted as we tried to explain, and not did not listen to the content of our complaints. But he did remove the glass of wine from our bill, in addition to the sablefish and the salmon that we never ordered.
You can always tell when a restaurant is in turmoil. The food, while still tasty, left us bored because we had seen it all before. And the front of the house did not take up the responsibility of maintaining the ambiance in the restaurant. Our experience completely let us down and overall the whole evening felt very chaotic. We want to believe that once a new chef is put in place order will be restored.