Tree House Restaurant

Went for dinner and had a wonderful gluten free polenta with Japanese mushrooms which was on the specials of the day. It's nice when a restaurant has an espresso machine, but one thing that could be better is offering decaf espresso.

I am baffled by all the good reviews for this place. We arrived at 7pm on a Wednesday evening. About 1/3 of the tables were free when the hostess asked if we had a reservation. We are visitors to St Louis and didn’t know we needed one. She scowled but seated us anyway. It took 15 minutes for a waitress to come over and ask for our order. I had questions about the Maitake mushroom dish, which said it was vegan and also that it had choirizo and feta. The waitress did not know anything about the dish. Could not answer basic questions but said she would check. She did not. She did say it was a large quantity of food though. Someone else came to take our order. She also did not know any answers to the questions. It was the only item not sold out on the menu right then that said vegan so I took a chance and ordered it. My son ordered a beyond burger. It took 45 minutes for our meals to arrive. No one checked on us or refilled our 8 ounce water glasses. When the food arrived the mushroom dish was about 2 cups of food. The menu said polenta, but what came was grits. The entire dish was sitting in at least a half inch of orange colored oil. The grits had a couple spinach leaves on top with a small amount of mushrooms and sour cream on top. The whole dish was small, oily and tasteless. It cost $23. My son’s beyond burger was on Aldi gluten free bread with Aldi vegan cheese and an anemic salad. It was supposed to come with fries but instead came with chopped potatoes. This meal would have cost $1.50 to make at home. Here it was $20. This meal was awful, overpriced, too little food, and ridiculously expensive.