Splendido still marginally deserves its 5 stars from us, but it isn’t quite as fine a restaurant as it used to be. We were there for my wife’s birthday dinner, which we have celebrated at Splendido a few times in the past. Before, we had...to order her chocolate soufflé dessert a couple days in advance, but when we called we were told it wasn’t necessary this time since it is just there on the menu. (It also wasn’t quite as good, with little or none of the dark molten chocolate we were looking forward to after having had it several times before at Splendido.) We also explained that because of Covid we wanted a window table well-separated from other tables. Our seating request never made it to the male employee who greeted us when we arrived and intended to put us in a booth close to another table in the same booth. We had arrived early so we were able to point to a window table well-separated from others, which we were given.
At the beginning of our special birthday dinner, we were asked if we wanted a cocktail and were shown a list of five specialty cocktails, each costing over $30! One looked especially inviting for my wife, a “peach regalia,” so we splurged and ordered it. Our Serbian waitress Ana returned several minutes later to say that it wasn’t available that evening; of course, we should have been told that before we ordered it. So my wife asked for a sweet manhattan instead; our waitress didn’t know what that was. When it arrived, it had no garnish. At an ordinary bar, one might get a bright red maraschino cherry, or just an ordinary cherry, or maybe a grape. But at a place like Splendido, one would expect a Luxardo cherry. My wife has never before been served a manhattan with no garnish at all. Not a good start! But, after we remarked about the lack of cherry, three Luxardo cherries were brought to my wife.
There were minor errors in timing. Ana said she would bring the bread, but it didn’t arrive for at least 15 minutes. After she put out spoons for the soufflé dessert, it was about 20 minutes before the soufflé arrived. The rest of the dinner was fine – my wife had the sea bass and I had the duck breast, after scrumptious appetizers. It was all very expensive, as expected. We sat at a window table, looking out at lovely flowers on the patio.
We overheard a waiter at a nearby table stating how happy he was that Covid was gone. It isn’t. According to the N.Y. Times database, on that day our chances – as seniors – of being hospitalized with severe Covid were as high or higher than most of spring, summer, and autumn of 2021, when the pandemic was being taken more seriously. That is for the U.S.; things are a bit better in Colorado and Eagle County. But the restaurant’s customers that evening looked mostly like seniors and were probably from many places in the U.S., having journeyed there through major hub airports. Even though no longer required, we believe that a fine restaurant should set a higher standard and have their staff masked…certainly not spreading disinformation about Covid being over.More