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| - Just not good enough to earn 3 stars from me.
For a few days last week I stayed in Cleveland with a friend. Friend and I wanted to meet up with my brother and his fiancée for dinner while I was in town, and I selected Luxe from a short list of suggested restaurants. The main reason I chose Luxe was because the place has a tapas thing going on.
The food? Hits and misses.
* The gnocchi dish with "braised short ribs, Gorgonzola Dolce cream sauce, wild mushrooms, spinach" was tasty and satisfying, but there's no denying that the super-chewy gnocchi wasn't executed properly. The short ribs, while flavorful, were far from fall-apart tender. Just 3 nights earlier I'd enjoyed incredible short ribs in San Diego, and Luxe's short ribs just didn't do the cow justice.
* The side of Blue Cheese Gnocchi came with mushrooms and spinach like the $15.50 gnocchi dish. Very good, but, again, the gnocchi was chewy.
* The Eggplant Fries were insanely over-seasoned, greasy, and nearly reduced to mush.
The service? Disgraceful.
* The very young-looking mumbling hostess appeared miserable--a bad first impression of Luxe within 15 seconds of walking through the door.
* Servers had been running around frantically all evening, dropping things everywhere. Near the end of our meal a server rushed by our table and, barely stopping, refilled my brother's water glass. When she pulled the pitcher away from the glass, still holding the pitcher at a tilt, a good half cup of water and ice splashed onto my foot...and, amazingly, the employee didn't even notice!
* Some members of our group ordered entrees and others ordered multiple small plates, but our waiter tried to persuade each of us to order courses, saying things like "Don't you want a salad to go with that?" I found his shameless attempts to up-sell incredibly rude being that Luxe is a tapas restaurant.
* When my brother's soft-spoken fiancée communicated her menu selection, the waiter found it appropriate to bark "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" versus something to the extent of "I'm sorry, what was that?" or "Excuse me?"
* Our waiter bent from the waist across our entire table to set down our food, had his armpit in my face, and bumped into me. No apology. I even felt my hair brush against one of the dishes in his hands.
The décor and ambiance? There's some interesting wall art to admire, but Luxe is trying too hard to obtain the trendy-rustic look. Both the dining room scene and post-Happy Hour crowd on the back patio--we checked out the packed patio after dinner but didn't stay--were rowdier than I expected.
Would I give Luxe another try? Probably, but to say the service here needs some major work is an understatement.
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