The Orchard Townhouse
I love a good farm-to-table restaurant because even though the dishes are simple, they always use the freshest ingredients. The Orchard Townhouse was created by the same team that built The Fat Radish, which is actually a British restaurant that also has a venue located in Savannah, Georgia, in addition to its NYC venue that closed in August of 2020. While this isn’t a vegetarian restaurant, the menu is very vegetable-centered.
Like many restaurants in this new paradigm, the Orchard Townhouse asked that patrons please wear a mask while speaking with staff and using the restroom. And because I know so many restaurants have been struggling during this pandemic, just wanted to share that you can help support the restaurant and its staff by purchasing a $5 blanket to keep you warm while outdoor dining. And if you’d like to give it back, the restaurant will donate it to a local shelter.
Starters
The starters really kicked off the meal! I am obsessed with carrots and enjoy cumin seasoning on basically anything, so the Cumin Carrots were a hit with me. And the Watercress & Endive Salad was good. You can’t really go wrong with a salad starter. In case the picture below doesn’t do it justice, the salad had pears, blue cheese, toasted pecans, and pickled cipollini onions tossed in a creamy house vinegarette dressing.
Entrées
For our main dishes, I ordered the Monkfish and it was amazing from flavor to texture. This was my first time trying monkfish and this dish did not disappoint. My boyfriend ordered the Blue Crab Pasta, which tasted great but lacked more than a few small pieces of crab. The lemony parsley breadcrumbs were a nice touch though.
Drinks
I kept my drink selection interesting this evening, starting from zero-proof to tequila real quick. The Whiskey Smash is made from an American whiskey base (obvi), mixed with some of my favorite Fall cocktail ingredients like pear puree, anise, pressed lemon, and torn mint for a refreshing finish. The Passionfruit Margarita was finished with a spicy tajin-salted rim, of course. The Pear & Ginger Smash was a refreshing, non-alcoholic mix of pear puree, lemon, orgeat, and ginger beer.
Dessert
All of the desserts at the Orchard Townhouse are made in-house. I loved the Pumpkin Pie, which had a graham cracker crust and fresh cream, and my boyfriend enjoyed the Cheesecake, which was “basque” country style with a side of market berry compote.
The Check
So, here’s the deal with the bill… “A COVID-19 recovery charge of 10% of your bill will be applied to all dine-in checks. This optional City law was passed to help restaurants cover the costs associated with PPE, health & safety products and equipment, outdoor dining setups (including barricades and heaters), that we must continually supply in order to provide a safe and comfortable environment for you to dine in. This does not go towards the staff and we ask that you kindly tip generously to our wonderful team who work very hard under strenuous conditions.” This statement is directly from the restaurant’s menu. Honestly, I’m not sure why restaurants wouldn’t just raise their menu prices or automatically add a 20% gratuity to all checks, regardless of party size. In any case, this is the “new normal” for dining out these days. I’ve seen this additional fee, being referred to as the “COVID Tax” on lots of restaurant bills within the past few months since outdoor dining was permitted in New York City.
The Tea
So here’s the tea, which is basically just my honest opinion, or what some might consider criticism, of the overall dining experience. I like to include this section at the end because if the restaurant was truly terrible, I wouldn’t even waste my time writing a bad page-long review like a food critic. And I don’t want to cloud the blog post with negativity.
In my opinion, the food portions were small, so I thought the dinner was over-priced for what you’re getting. We ordered dinner based on the waiter’s recommendation of two appetizers to share and two entrees (one dish per person). This was not enough food! That being said, we could have done with one more appetizer or small dish, and I probably would have chosen the Cauliflower from the “Starts” section of the menu. On the bright side, we had plenty of room for dessert, which is pretty rare.
While I enjoyed each of these cocktails, some of them were pretty heavy on the ice. But the saving grace for some of the cocktails was the generous amount of punch they packed. The average price per cocktail was about $16, which is pretty comparable to most NYC bars and restaurants, and most of the mocktails were a very reasonable $7 or $8. One of our drinks, the Whiskey Smash to be specific, was extremely light on the alcohol.