Stonehill Tavern

Came here with the GF on a Saturday night for a belated Valentine's Dinner. We were really looking forward to this as we have been to several Michael Mina restaurants in other cities and have not been disappointed.

This place is great. The design is akin to what you would expect in LA, SF or NYC. Great wine cellars greet you at the entrance, high ceilings, slick lighting fixtures...it's nice.

Tables are a little close together if there are only two in your party, so either try to reserve a booth or do one of my favorite tricks, which is to make a reservation for three and tell them there are only two of you when you show up (this way you get a table for four). We didn't do this, so were squished between other diners...

Service was fantastic. We love long dinners, frequently order only one course at a time so they don't rush us, but had no worries here. The staff was on top of things, but never tried to push us along to turn the tables. For example, my lady went to the restroom between the appetizer and the main course, and staff waiting to bring our dishes to the table until after she sat down. Very impressed. They clearly were watching and zoomed in literally the moment after she sat down. Nice touch not many places would do.

The food was equally great. We started with oysters and some champagne. Wonderful. Amuse bouche was a sip of cream of mushroom soup. Moved on to the Wagu beef carpaccio, which was wrapped around a truffled egg and brioche. Spot on delicious. Main courses included the filet with sweetbreads and the duck with fig compote. Both were very nice, but the earlier dishes stole the show.

This could have been a 5-star evening. My only complaint was the lack of dress code. This place is pricey. Dinner for two came close to $400 after tax and tip. The decor, food and service were all at levels that supported this price tag. However, mid-way through our dinner they seated a couple right next to us and the dude was wearing shorts. Seriously...830pm on a Saturday night and wearing shorts. Call me crazy, uptight, too particular, whatever. For a special occasion $400 dinner, I don't want the guy next to me wearing shorts. It's disrespectful to the experience. Now the restaurant may say "we're in a hotel and need to take care of people on vacation." BS...those people on vacation can simply walk upstairs to their room and put on a pair of pants. I really waffled on giving them a 3-star rating because of this, but the food and service were so good, I went ahead and gave them 4. However, while we will definitely be back one more time, if we see people in shorts on a Saturday night, the place will be off our list forever.

TO THE RESTAURANT MANAGEMENT: I am all for a good casual dinner...but don't charge what you do if you just want to be casual place...

So as not to end a review of an otherwise wonderful evening on a bad note, this place really is nice. Try them out...just please wear pants!

My husband and I come here for almost every special occasion and we always ask to be seated with Chris as our server! The service is always top notch and Chris makes dining here so fun. One of the best things about Stonehill Tavern (and other Michael Mina restaurants we've been to) is the "compliments of the chef". They bring by little appetizers that allow you to try new and interesting things.

I definitely recommend this restaurant to all my friends looking for a great dinner out. If you're looking for great food, great service and beautiful atmosphere, visit Stonehill and ask for Chris!

Hubby and I were so excited to come here because our first fine dining experience together when we first started dating was at the eponymous Michael Mina restaurant in San Francisco.  We were staying at the St. Regis resort right before Christmas and it was going to be great to be able to have dinner without having to leave the premises.

Both of us were sooo incredibly disappointed by this experience.  We've dined at many expensive, high end restaurants since that first Michael Mina dinner, but this is the most outrageously bad experience ever.  

The service was so lackadaisical, it was basically non-existent.  I don't really know why, and I wonder if it's because the restaurant is in the OC and people just don't ask for as much service.  Anyways, we brought two special bottles of wine with us, one red and a sparkling to be had with our dinner.  We knew about the corkage fee but the sommelier made a point of pointing this out (I thought in a rude condescending way).  He should know if we have the kind of taste in wine as evidenced by what we brought in, then we were not rookies and he did not have to mention this.  Anyways, we were willing to pay the $35/bottle corkage fee to be able to enjoy these bottles with our meal.

Dinner started out great with some champagne, amuse, and beautiful appetizers.  My husband was very impressed by the special of the night which was a smoked prime rib, that was brought to your table to show in a big Le Creuset oven and whisked away to be plated.  

Once our entrees came out, we were waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the Sommelier to open our wine.  He had completely disappeared.  We were also searching for our waitress hoping she could help, but she didn't even notice or come to check on our food.  We hadn't taken a bite because we wanted to start with our wine pairing.  FINALLY, after at least 10 minutes, we flagged down the waitress and she realized our wine hadn't been opened and she opened it for us... we were finally ready to eat.  This isn't a big restaurant so I don't know what the deal was.  The waiter for the tables next to ours was very friendly, attentive and really seemed to be going the extra mile for his tables.  Our waitress and sommelier obviously were not.  

So we're eating our entree...after a few bites hubby realized how overcooked his steak was.  He asked for medium rare but it was somewhere between medium and well done after he cut into it in a few places.  It was such an expensive steak at an expensive place, it was pretty ridiculous that they couldn't get it cooked to the correct temperature. He asked for it to be taken back, but decided not to get a replacement since I was almost done with my entree.  I felt so bad!  Thankfully our waitress handled this situation gracefully with the help of her manager.

Finally, as we are on to our dessert course, I realize that we might still have some of our sparkling left, and that it might be in the ice bucket next to the Sommelier stand.  It just didn't seem like we had consumed a whole bottle yet.  So  I ask hubby to check it out.  And lo and behold, it's half full still!  Still no sommelier to be seen.  And we had finished our dessert by that point, so we didn't have the bubbly to accompany it.  We were both so furious at that point!  It is unbelievable that a restaurant purportedly of this caliber, that charges $35/bottle corkage has a sommelier who not only does not pour your wine, but potentially causes you to lose half a bottle of wine that costs almost $70.  This was a very unsavory end to our evening.  My husband had to ask the corkage fees to be removed, it just didn't make sense to pay for service that was not provided.  All we wanted was to have a nice meal with good service and were willing to pay for it.  How hard is that??  Apparently that equation just doesn't work at Stonehill Tavern.  

We are NEVER coming back and I highly question the standards of all other Michael Mina restaurants (which makes me very sad, when I compare it to our first experience it doesn't even hold a candle to it).  I guess that is what happens when your empire grows and grows, you can't keep an eye on things like this.