Saison - Richmond

Drinks and eating were fantastic, and we loved the atmosphere.

Our server, beth was great. eating was not what we expected. my son ordered the fried pork with chorizo. the pork chop was a little fat, but the chorizo was really good, just not enough on the plate. the lachs crudo was not as tasteful as expected. it was so loud with entertainment and loud music that you could not conduct a private conversation.

Great intimate restaurant with stellar staff. The food and beverage programs are adventurous, bold, and well executed. Specific shout out to our server River for her knowledge, descriptive abilities, and pacing. Highly recommended.

Great, helpful staff and delcisious food. We sat outside and it was a great night. Was really looking forward to the duck, which they unfortunately ran out of.

Based on all of the reviews we 'd seen about this restaurant, my wife and I were really looking forward to our dinner at Saison. Unfortunately, our experience was nowhere near what we were hoping for. Both of the menus look great. Things started going south when our first share plate arrived at the table before we even had our drinks. As it turned out to be a cold dish anyway there was no reason to rush it out of the kitchen. But back to the dish, the menu said nowhere that it was cold. The Shaved Cauliflower dish really just felt like a lot of disharmonious ingredients tossed together in a bowl. None of the flavors really worked together, and the raw cauliflower of wildly varying size was rather unpleasant. The pickled onions tasted practically raw. The whole thing just didn 't make a lot of sense and the flavors didn 't blend at all. Add to that the fact that the dish included sliced chili peppers that were not listed in the menu and made it too spicy for my wife to enjoy, and that one was a bust. We next tried the Squash Dip, and again we struck out. The dip itself was not bad, though we were again surprised by the fact that it was a cold dish. The issue here was the fact that the Spiced Riced Tuille again had so much ground chili pepper sprinkled on it that neither of us could enjoy the dish. If the food is going to have that much heat, you need to warn people in the menu or verbally when ordering. Perhaps the entrees would have been better, but given the experience with our first two dishes we decided to cut our losses and call it quits without wasting any more money on food we didn 't enjoy.