Commander's Palace
1403 Washington Ave, New Orleans, LA 70130, USA
Vibrant spot with a unique vegan and refreshing watermelon salad, plus a bold hot sauce drink that locals rave about!
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Matthew Novak
First, the good: the food here is pretty excellent, at least for the entrées and appetizers that we ate. I would say that the entrées were the star of the show, and the appetizers we had were very good to good. The cocktails we had were average, there are plenty of other restaurants that have a better cocktail program based on what we had. The wine appears to be an excellent list, however, we only had one glass of wine.
Second, the bad: unfortunately, the service situation detracted from our dining experience. Putting aside minor details like watching other tables seated after us receive their complementary bread before us and slight delays and taking our order, a bigger issue involves one of our parties request to not have any gluten in their food being treated way too casually. After it was asked and confirmed whether a certain dish did not have gluten in it, one member of our party ordered that dish. After it was served and in the middle of eating it, a member of the staff came up to clarify whether that party member had a gluten allergy or just a gluten intolerance. The member of our party only had a gluten intolerance, as it makes them somewhat ill for 24 hours after they have gluten. After confirming the nature of the intolerance, the staff member said nothing and walked away. Our server then returned and asked us if the other staff member had explained the issue about the dish, and we responded that he had not. The server then explained that the dish did have a component with gluten in it, after the dish I’ve been mostly eaten. The server then said that the dish would be comped on our bill, which it was not.
In this day and age, a restaurant should take gluten allergies much more seriously. Their menu is totally silent on what dishes are gluten-free, so you have to ask. And when we did ask, we were given false information. Had the member of our party suffer from celiac, would’ve been a much more serious situation as opposed to a brief illness.
Please keep this in mind when you choose to dine at this restaurant, as their staff does not appear to be trained to take the issue of gluten intolerance seriously. For example, at other restaurants in the city, the staff would make on the fly corrections to the menu to indicate what dishes were gluten-free , which I believe is now the standard for upscale dining.
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