We ate dinner at Autumn. Although the food was cooked well and presented well, it wasn't anything special. The dishes lacked dimension. For the price of these meals (about $45 a plate), I expected to be blown away. The best part about the place is the waitstaff- they are top notch. However, a great waitstaff cannot make up for sub-par food. Â In a nutshell, quality and value are not aligned. I wouldn't eat here again.
Review Source:Had breakfast here on our last morning at Nemacolin. Yummo! Took a little bit to find it in the lodge but very pretty inside once we found it. Portions were large and appropriately priced. We enjoyed the make your own omelettes, cheddar and chive potato cakes, french toast and the farm house omelette. Coffee was very good as well.
Review Source:Had dinner here. Absolutely wonderful! Â 5 ladies w/5 seafood entrees and we were all pretty much happy, w/the exception of a crab cake that tasted off. Calamari was very flavorful & lightly battered. Scallops were great but for $18, only 3 small ones was a little pricey, & I live in the DC area, where things are pricey. Â The waitress was helpful & knowledgeable. The brownie a la mode was melt in your mouth delicious. Caramel mousse was also tasty, although more pudding consistency than mousse. Â Jamaican hot chocolate was great too!
Returned 2 other times for breakfast. Â The first time I had crabs eggs benedict. Â Felt that the hollandaise sauce was thin, but then discovered it was a citrus hollandiase, so may not be what I'm used to. Â However, it did not taste citrusy. Â The peach brioche french toast and the oreos pancakes were hits. Â The 2nd breakfast I had were the grits. Â The waitress was so kind to bring me out a sample as I was hesitant that the grits were supposed to be sweet (I like mine savory). Â It was NOT sweet at all, but rather, creamy. Â I ordered it with cheese & chopped bacon. Â I enjoyed it so much, I asked for the recipe. Â Was surprised to find that it was made with Quakers brand; Â but this was a great discovery as this is what I use....just made with water, but ended with cream....YUM!! Â The homemade granola was tasty and the fruit plate was plentiful to share amongst the 5 of us.
We enjoyed three breakfasts and one dinner at Autumn, and we were pleased with all three meals. Â If you have breakfast there be sure to try their home-made pork sausage. Â Absolutely delicious. Â
Our dinner was competently prepared and presented. Â I really enjoyed the pike en Pappiote, made with crab, fresh veggies, white wine and basil butter. Â The missus had a lobster tail served with a grilled asparagus and roasted red pepper pilaf. Â She was very pleased.
Autumn has an outstanding wine list, comprising pages and pages of wines from around the world. Â
There really isn't anything at Autumn that knocked our sox off, but there really isn't anything bad about it. Â It's good food served by a friendly and accomodating staff in a comfortable atmosphere. Â Nothing pretentious about Autumn, and that's sometimes a welcome change in a world where things are not what they profess to be.
We just had a very pleasant dinner at Autumn. Like everything at Nemacolin, the restaurant was expensive and the staff extremely gracious. As appears to be the case with most of the restaurants at the resort, there was a fair amount of BS on the menu: side dishes were referred to as "opportunities" for some reason. Maybe it's a fad I somehow missed.
Martinis were competently prepared and reasonably priced for the size of the drink, which was on the small side. For a starter we shared the crab cakes, which were excellent, as was the slaw they were served with.
My wife's entree was a pike en papillote. This was the first time I've seen the bag made out of plastic wrap rather than paper or foil, but it didn't impart a flavor to the dish, so I guess it's OK. This preparation is always on the subtle side, with the idea being to highlight the fish itself. My wife thought it was bland but I thought it was fine. The fish was from Lake Erie and very fresh.
My entree was broiled cod with harissa. After the server's cautionary explanation of harissa I expected something authentically fiery, but no such luck. It was tasty, and freshly made, but didn't really resemble the Moroccan original. The fish was OK, reasonably fresh given its long trek from Alaska, and properly broiled. It was accompanied by a risotto that was flavorful but unfortunately undercooked.
The wine list is very extensive (1500 bottles, we were told) and has lots to choose from in the $50-75 range. I expected the sommelier to be more flash than substance but I could not have been more mistaken. We described what we were looking for and after determining our price point he suggested an Austrian Gruner Veltliner. This was a wine I had never heard of let alone tried. It was exactly as described and was the perfect choice for our meal.
The overall experience was good, not great. A chef bold enough to pair harissa with cod should serve the real thing. Otherwise, stick to the basics, like the truly superior crab cakes and the fresh local fish. As noted, the sommelier was a gem and the wine was fabulous. The food prices were high but not out of line with the product. Tomorrow night we are looking forward to dinner at Aqueous, the Nemacolin steakhouse.
We looked at the menu for Lautrec, the very expensive top tier restaurant at the resort, and were taken aback by both the pricing and the approach to the menu. I can't review a restaurant I haven't tried, but I'm not optimistic about a restaurant that expresses its prices in words, as if numerals were somehow déclassé. More importantly, the menu offers a significant change (truffles! foie gras!) as an expensive supplement to many of the dishes. In my experience, if the chef thinks a dish is supposed to be made with truffles it will come that way. The chef at Lautrec is ex-Inn at Little Washington, so presumably this wasn't her idea. The next time I stay at Nemacolin I'd be more inclined to take a chance on Lautrec, price notwithstanding, if management dialed back on the menu stunts and let the food speak for itself.
Theme: green, organic, etc....if this is what they are going for, then they need to look at some of our model restaurants such as Talula's or look to San Francisco. Â If you promote yourself as a restaurant that prides itself on natural cuisine, your servers need to be well versed.
We shared the calamari and truffle mac n cheese. The mac was on the salty side. Â We asked for spoons to serve with and they gave us one spoon when we needed two. The bread was fresh baked and the tomato butter was crazy good.
I had Seared tuna and it was definitely tasty, three different sauces all were good. I was disappointed with my apple crisp-it was a huge bowl of cold hard apples and crumbly oatmeal crust on top and a mini scoop of ice cream. It needed to be better.
As the first dinner of the weekend, I think we were off to a good start. Little did I know how much better it was going to get at Lautrec.
Autumn is still coming into its own. Â A relatively new concept at the luxe Nemacolin Woodlands Resort about an hour and a half south of Pittsburgh, PA, Autumn is a restaurant "going green" and focusing on regional, organic cuisine. Â The menu backs this up- every food item has a description of where the ingredients come from and an overall mileage indicating how far the food had to travel to your plate.
The concept was great but the execution isn't quite there yet. Â The server couldn't tell me offhand which menu items were vegetarian. Â The beer and wine list were nicely edited but could use many more local and organic options, in keeping with the restaurant's theme. Â The decor is also sorely in need of an update to go with the new concept- the current carpet is a riot of primary colors that looks both cheap and childish, and nothing on the walls or the lighting expressed "green," "elegant," or "new."
My chilled asparagus soup appetizer was delicious, and the red pepper boursin in it took the flavor to a new level. Â My husband enjoyed his seared diver scallops. Â When the entrees came, my chopped salad and truffled mac n cheese were delicious, but my husband's order of the seared spice lamb rack was only so-so, and the mushroom bread pudding side was overcooked, dry, and completely disappointing. Â Overall, it was a good meal- better for me!- but it is not yet up to par with the other "fine dining" restaurants at Nemacolin. Â I have high hopes that it will continue to improve.
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