The Empire

"The food here is amazing and well presented. Great flavors and dinner combinations. The lobster bisque was full of lobster meat and the table side bread was fresh. Our server, Monica was pleasant and attentive. They also had crème brûlée!! Perfect date night."

"Picked up my order today from the Empire. The $7 Caesar salad consisted of 4 small leaves of burnt Romaine lettuce and less than a teaspoon of bacon and Parmesan combined. That’s it. Although the kid’s burger and fries was good, if your kid likes ketchup with their fries you can see that what was in the order is NOT ketchup. So, if you must eat here, get the burger and fries and bring your own ketchup! Won’t be going back."

"TLDR: disappointing. Good; - Service was great, Tori the bartender was very nice and friendly and explained things well. - Fries were excellent - Atmosphere - very nice, upscale feel (unfortunately not matched by the food, see below), love the exposed brick and art. Needs Improvement: - Cocktails - very limited options, did not even have Aperol or Campari so classics such as an Aperol Spritz, Negroni or Boulevardier are off the board. Poor rum and Tequilla options as well. - with the cocktails that I wanted not available I went with a glass of wine and here I have issues as well - wine was served extremely cold (a problem in a lot of restaurants) but worse in a tiny glass that did not allow for the wine to have much of a nose at all. they should invest in some glasses with a larger bowl that will allow the aromas of a wine to be enjoyed to the fullest extent. - Food: - recurring theme for me: aesthetics - we eat with our eyes first and there were some very unappetizing choices here. - 1. French Onion Soup - broth was tasty but the cheese looked like unmelted bits of Swiss cheese floating in the broth- very unappealing to the eye and not what I expect with French Onion, the croutons were complete soggy as well and had clearly been sitting in the broth for a while… gross. 2. Side salad - this tasted good but aesthetics could be improved. Here the problem was the vinaigrette which had a look like bright pink toothpaste (and kind of had that texture as well). A good vinaigrette should not have that texture. 3. Croque Madame - the biggest crime here was the bread - soggy toast that looked straight from the grocery store. Invest in some sourdough or even and English muffin would have been better. Eggs were cooked okay but again aesthetics were an issue - the béchamel (looked more like just melted cheese) was haphazardly mangled across the eggs and the limp toast, this was crying out for a garnish of some kind (or maybe even put the eggs on top of the sauce?). See pic below. Overall hugely disappointing for the price, seemed like diner fare. I was told that dinner is better, but I would have a difficult time going back after my first experience here."

"They do have a new menu. Server Lexi was great, food delicious and we were the only people (party of 6) there for quite some time. We were in/out in an hour. Our meal was : Beet salad Farmers salad Chop steak Filet 6oz Lg crabcake French onion soup"

"The atmosphere was pretty open, which means loud. Nicely decorated. Staff was friendly. Cindy our server wasn’t completely knowledgeable about appetizers,but aware of main entrees. Diligent on acknowledging seafood allergy, and was carried out with caution. The appetizers were ok and the bread was just ok. The entree the potatoes had a great flavor but a bit on dry side. The steak was cooked to perfection and had nice flavor. The brûlée was absolutely delish. Great addition to Tiffin downtown district."