Lockwood Restaurant & Bar

This place is located in the Palmer House Hilton hotel. The hotel wreaks of elegance and the Lockwood Restaurant and bar compliment the feeling. I was in town for business and after work we would just hang out in the hotel lobby next to the bar and have drinks and appetizers.

So if you don't plan on eating in the restaurant, you can just have a seat in one of the comfy chairs in the lobby and someone from Lockwood will come and ask if you need anything. They have a nice assortment of alcohols and spirits.  If you're here you should try the Pear Essence Cosmopolitan. Ketel One Citroen Vodka, pear, Triple Sec, Cranberry, and Lime. The pear is flavorful and it goes down smooth. It made me feel all Fru-Fru. Another drink to have is the Manhattan with the Palmer House Made Select Bourbon. Very manly and Billy Dee Williams-like.

The appetizers I tried were the Wisconsin Fried Cheese Curds, I mean, since I was in the area I had to get them. Was it mind blasting? No, but fried cheese pairs nicely with beer. The Charcuterie platter was good. It came with 3 types of Prosciutto/Salami, complimented with dijon mustard, tiny dill pickles and spicy pickled vegetables. The Prawns are basically Shrimp Cocktail. Can't really go wrong there. The east and west coast oysters on the half shell were pretty good. Slightly salty and slippery with a squeeze of lemon. They always remind me of eating p*$$y. And who doesn't like that?

The Champion of the appetizers and small plates though, is the  Roasted Bone Marrow. Oh my god! It comes out as a split femur (or something) with Red Onion Jam, Toasted Baguette slices, and Lemon Confit. You spoon the marrow out of the bone, spread it on the bread with the condiments, and let me tell you, it tastes SO F*****ING GOOD! The $13 that it costs just seems so cheap for what it is.

The service is really great too. During the snow storm, we were hunkered down and our waitress "Stella" took care of us. She chatted with us and made recommendations on the menu and was very prompt with refills and our needs. There's guy there (I don't remember his name) that had tended to us on another day, who was fantastic as well.

So even though the place looks pretty swanky, it has a great casual atmosphere and the service was really good. It's worth checking out.

I was leary to eat here at first since it was attached to the Palmer Hotel, but the food was delicious.  I had a whitefish with artichokes as my entree and it was cooked perfectly.  Also, we got a great deal on their special wines.  Normally you're paying an insane amount of money for a bottle, but $30 for a solid wine was a steal!  Our server was also extremely nice.  I recommend it!

Thanksgiving was a bust!  This year we opted out of doing thanksgiving at home and thought it would  be easier to enjoy it while staying at the Palmer House.

We were seated at noon and the buffet was picked through. The green beans with crispy onions was more like cream beans soaked in cream if mushroom soup with no French onions. The sweet potatoes tasted only like nutmeg. The shrimp cocktail was empty and took 10 minutes before refilled and finally my wife's biggest complaint was no cranberry side!  

The upside was the meats were good and so was the turkey gravy. The chocolate layer cake was outstanding. I think for the price it was just underwhelming.