My wife and I have been die hard supporters of Niche Restaurant in it's current form and in its previous life at 302 West. We have been to the restaurant over 25 times and had a great experience virtually every time at least until the new chef appeared. Unfortunately this New Years Eve dinner was a disaster. At $100 each and an additional $30 each for wine tastings for each of the 4 courses the cost to dine at Niche was high. If it was the food we were used to it might have been ok, still overpriced, but ok. But based upon the four courses we received it was purely a pedestrian experience that was basically a rip-off. Think about paying $25 per course and $7.50 per 1/3 glass of wine when you read this.\r
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Course 1 was a minimalist cauliflower soup with croutons.It was supposed to have caviar in it but mine was missing in action. It was tasty. Unfortunately, this was the best course.\r
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Course 2 was a hard boiled egg and a very small piece of chicken breast with a piece of crispy chicken skin. This was their best effort???\r
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Course 3 was a baked filet mignon, tasty, but baked with a demi glasse sauce. The steak was flavorful, but not in any way anything anyone and I mean anyone could have done.There were also some mushroom stuffed pasta that are easily bested by Trader Joes' Frozen. Bland and barely luke warm. It lacked any imagination whatsoever.This was the main course.\r
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Course 3 was strawberry shortcake. I leave it to your imagination, because none was used here.\r
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The service was, as always, excellent. But you don't pay $300 with tip to visit with the servers. It almost breaks my heart to write this review based upon the fantastic experiences my wife and I had before the new chef appeared, but I will not be planning any more dinners here.
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