Chills Bistro

3^rd anniversary dinner and Chills Bistro did not disappoint! Oysters on the half shell, while pricier than needed, we very good. Warmed olives and bread stared the meal nicely and the entrees were beautifully plated and very tasty. Dessert was less than spectacular but it wasn’t bad. Crab crêpe was outstanding and swordfish steak was great. Probably won’t be back regularly due to price, but definitely worth the splurge for an occasion.

I have eaten here many times and find early in the season everybody is on their best behavior, wait staff are good, food is very good and then somewhere along the way through the summer things get somewhat lost. They can’t find your reservation, the food becomes not quite so lovingly prepared, the wait staff need to be more on their toes, maybe lack of good management. Yet, I still go because I am wanting to have that great experience I sometimes do! Go figure.

I was so looking forward to dinner at this place, but I’d have to say I was seriously underwhelmed at the quality of the food at the bistro. The oysters had obviously been shucked hours earlier and the mignonette was chocked full of shallots, rendering it mostly inedible. The flounder was terribly seasoned, over cooked and oddly paired with sugar snap peas. The sea scallops were the high point of the meal, perfectly cooked and seasoned. Our waitress was also a delight, but didn’t make up for the food.

Four of us had dinner last night. Hostess Virginia and waitress Julie were terrific… friendly, personable and attentive. Bus girls were vey attentive and efficient. We ate outside on a beautiful night and it was wonderful… highly recommended location. The food, however, was only average. Caesar salad appetizers were just Ok… somewhat boring. The wedge with bacon bits and blue cheese was very good… fresh and tasty. The tuna entrée should be radically improved or taken off the menu… it was requested to be very rare but was prepared very overdone. The replacement was tasteless. The scallops were excellent… cooked perfectly and very tasty. The porterhouse veal chop was delicious tho could have been a thicker chop. Duck breast was just average. Profiteroles were a disaster… one large piece with very little ice cream with thick stale pastry. Too bad. It came highly recommended.

Hmm, I’m trying to figure out how I had such a different experience than other reviewers, but I recently visited for dinner for 5 and had a fantastic meal. I think I eat pretty well, and certainly I’m not afraid to pan a place when it falls short of expectations…
Anyway, we sat in the Julia Childs room (Which I found to be a kind of a weird shrine… but the rest of the place is very nice looking) and I had the fig salad, tasted the four different entrees that were ordered (linguine w pesto, papardelle bolognese, lobster w basil cream {sub papardelle}, and tuna, and I thought each savory dish was excellent. Fresh pasta, bright sauces, quality fish. By the time dinner was done, I was completely stuffed… but the profiterole was worth finding extra room (aka forcing it on myself).

Recently ate dinner at the Bistro with another couple as a birthday celebration. It was NO celebration. Service was marginal, but the food was awful. Four different dinners… all four unsatisfactory. We should have learned our lesson on the last occasion when we were similarly unhappy with the food, but wanted to give it one more chance… our mistake. Never again!

Chills bistro located next to chillingsworth was much more casual. The food was great even though they were busy, our server gave us a complimentary lobster bisque while we waited for our appetizers. The server did her best and was very apologetic, it was busy which was not her fault. Worth a visit, definitely take a walk into the fine dining area, worth a see.

Since about 8 years back when we had a great meal at Chillingsworth, we’ve tried to find time to visit Chills, the casual restaurant with similar fine dining pretensions sharing the same sprawling old house (and presumably kitchen) in this Brewster dining destination. With a tantalizing menu and 3 course early prix fixe dinner and great expectations, we reserved a table for 3 before heading to a 7:30pm show in Brewster. We expected well prepared, fresh flavored dishes with some dazzle and instead had bland, often just barely overcooked selections that even the clotted salt shaker could not enliven.
There were a few hits. My wife, a gnocchi fan, comparing all versions to her aunt’s home recipe, found her gnocchi appetizer above the standard with good potato flavor– often lacking in other versions and almost as serenely light as Aunt Jen’s. The mushroom with «butter fondue“sauce was tasty if a little heavy. Careful eating though allowed the potato flavor to survive the impulse to sauce each bite. Her chicken entrée though was short of expectations. The thin cutlets were overcooked, dry slabs of protein closer to cafeteria or diner treatment with no chicken flavor. The marsala sauce was pleasant if indistinctive. But the bed of linguine seemed infused with the sauce leading us to question the advance prep methods.
Our daughter did well with the lobster bisque and local striped bass both with some subtlety and nice texture. The bisque had strong lobster flavor and though a little thick, not so much to make the spoon stand up on its own. (In fairness, my daughter liked the texture and recalls it as thinner than I’ve described). The striper, in season that week, was fresh and well cooked, holding the moisture and flavor of this local catch, the sauce a repeat of the gnocchi’s. She commented on the same restrained careful eating technique required to allow the fish to hold its own. Her choices were the winners for the meal.
My gazpacho appetizer had a good tomato flavor but could have used some herbs to make it stand out from standard versions. My flounder however came rolled with a hard leathery overcooked surface requiring more effort than should be required to fork a piece. The interior of the roll crumbled into surprisingly intensely overly mild fish, not helped by the overcooking clearly evident from its top hard shell. A tomato based sauce did nothing to enhance the fish relatively tasteless with none of the promised herb flavor. My first attempt to add some needed salt unsuccessful because of the mostly solid salt in the shaker. A few shakes made the dish tolerable but not worthy of the place and well below expectation. The accompanying «melted leek orzo» was an overcooked tasteless mess. In fact I just had to tax my memory to recall its presence. There was an attempt to blend flavors with some type of lightly vinegared sprouts on top of the fish. Fresh and flavorful, they were probably the best part of the dish and could have worked wonderfully if the fish had not been as disappointing.
Desserts, were well received. An intense warm chocolate bread pudding with small scoop of vanilla ice cream was a respectable version and table hit. I now regret calorie counting concerns prevented me from finishing that last spoonful. The cakey contents were full of chocolate flavor with a nice light feel in the mouth. Our daughter’s seasonal fruit tart was tasty. Though peach is not my favorite she was pleased. The blueberries though seemed an after thought, unfortunate since they are in season locally. My pistachio crème brulee was tasty and light. The glazed topping crisp but dissolved nicely on the tongue. Coffee, served table side from a beautiful pot, was hot and fresh, though no one ever came by to offer a refill.
Service was pleasant and helpful, though our waitress had to resort to a cheat sheet to answer a few questions on some of our choices. Her recommendation of the chicken over the pork loin made my wife wonder how bad the loin might have been, considering her disappointment with her dish.
The room is casual with caned breuer chairs, one of which had seen better days. The severely depressed seat required my wife, not a tall woman, to play a short game of musical chairs as we all stood and shuffled the chairs to find one to suit her. Our efforts went unnoticed by the staff who offered no assistance. Tables are relatively close so our conversation and the other diner’s were not private. The aforementioned salt shaker, was a petrified mass allowing a few shakes only after a few wraps on the table.
Even at the prix fixe price, the tab for 3 with a glass of wine each (nice versions all) came to just under $ 160 with tax and tip. A similar meal ordered from the a la carte meal would have easily exceeded $ 200 that would have added more sting to the lackluster experience. For those seeking a casual fine dining Cape dinner, with dazzle and taste, this would not be on our list.