Location: 9.2
Just off the square in Oxford, McEwen’s location is the envy of restaurants all over the south.
Atmosphere: 6.8
There’s an attempt at sophistication to the decor, but the overall effect — not helped by the interior’s odd layout — is a bit disjointed and not as harmonious as it could be. Still, it manages to be slightly upscale without pretense, and comfortable without quite slipping into shabbiness.
Food: 6.3
On our first visit we went for lunch. The burger was on the dry side, and a little lacking in flavor. The Cobb Salad with chicken was run-of-the-mill. We had high hopes for the fish and chips, but the fish couldn’t figure out if it was breaded or battered; it was somewhere in between. The fish arrived at the table hot and crisp, and the flavor was fine, but it wasn’t traditional English-style battered fish. While it wasn’t bad, it would have been better if it had been. The chips were very thin and almost flat, and were overcooked to the point of being distracting, with a slightly burnt taste to many of them. We expect to see traditional fish-and-chips served with a side of malt vinegar, and even if you’re going to do a southern twist on the dish, a nod to the traditional accompaniment is a good idea, but the vinegar was nowhere to be found. Overall, a disappointing effort that could have been made much better with more attention to technique and a more traditional preparation.
On our second visit we took a look at the menu and felt a surge of hope. With a couple of excellent-sounding fish dishes and some classics like filet mignon and veal osso buco, we hoped to have our previous lunch experience proved an anomaly, but it was not to be.
We ordered the Classic Wedge Salad and the Veal Osso Buco. Like Eggs Benedict, we consider both to be a test of a kitchen’s skill. They are deceptively simple dishes that require experience, attention to detail, and a dash of bold technique to pull off well. We were disappointed on all counts, on both dishes.
The wedge salad was a dud both in presentation and in taste. Wedge salads offer even the least inspired chef an easy palette for visual creativity. Spoon a little dressing on the plate to keep the wedge in place, then cover it generously and a little wantonly with more dressing, crumbled bacon, finely diced tomatoes and red onion, and you have a thing of beauty. It’s a dish that defeats most attempts to gussy it up, but rewards the straightforward assembly of high-quality ingredients and originalist preparation.
McEwen’s gets none of this right. The dressing was watery and lacking the sharp bite of a good bleu cheese. While no change of china could have saved its drab taste, serving it on a simple white plate could have at least improved its appearance. Plus, a wedge salad has to be cut by the diner almost like a steak; serving it in a bowl makes this more difficult than it has to be, and we believe results in a less elegant experience.
When the osso buco was set down before us, our hearts lifted again, but only for a moment. While we were grateful for the very generous portion, and meat that was nearly falling off the bone, we were immediately hit by a wave of allspice. We expected this quickly to give way to a more complex mix of curry aromas — cumin, coriander, maybe a hint of cinnamon — but it was not to be. So allspice it was, and a lot of it. The aroma and flavor dominated the dish from start to finish, and the result was a disappointing, one-note slog through mediocrity.
The rather large cut of bone-in meat was surrounded by an equally generous portion of chopped and roasted vegetables, and while there were several different types, they all tasted more or less the same. Why the tough love for veal osso buco, a dish that’s still pretty good even when it’s bad? We know how this may sound to some people, but we’re being serious here: We finished the osso buco not because it was good, but because to us it’s a sacred cut of meat. If you’re going to slaughter a calf to enjoy its super-tender meat, it borders on a sin to do anything with it that’s less than spectacular, yet that’s exactly what McEwen’s did. It almost makes us wish there were a licensing procedure by which restaurants had to prove, say once a quarter, that they deserve to purchase and prepare veal. If there were, we don’t believe you would see it on McEwen’s menu,
The restaurant’s website and Facebook page promises “farm to table,” which is what drew us here in the first place, but we couldn’t tell from the menu what was actually farm-to-table. Perhaps all of it was, but that seemed unlikely, so without some kind of indication of what came directly from the farm (and which farm it came from), there was no way for us to evaluate and appreciate anything on those terms. We would have appreciated seeing at least a few dishes highlighted that way. It just seemed to us that if you’re going to place such emphasis on farm-to-table, it follows that you let people in on what came from where, and why it’s special.
Service: 7.7
On our first visit, our server was attentive and professional. We had to ask for a tea refill only once, but we appreciated his efficient service without hovering over us or checking in too often. On our second visit, service was even better than on our first. Our party was larger, and when it came time to deliver the entrees, our main server was joined by two young ladies who appeared out of nowhere, placed their plates on the table, and disappeared as quickly and professionally as they had appeared. We remarked that the service at McEwen’s is more akin to what you’d expect at a top-level restaurant in Nashville or Atlanta. We just wish the kitchen would put out as good a product as the waitstaff.
Overall: 7.5
The harsh truth: The location and the service kept McEwen’s out of the sixes. Otherwise, we just didn’t feel like the food and the experience came together into a coherent or particularly memorable experience.
The food didn’t seem to be the expression of a talented chef’s vision, but rather a hodgepodge of competent, but not outstanding, items designed not to offend, and thus please as many different kinds of diners as possible. At many good restaurants where not everything is stellar (which is to say, most of them), it’s often possible to say “but the __ was out of this world!” We weren’t able to say that about McEwen’s. We hope somebody brings a coherent vision to it and then executes it consistently, because Oxford’s dining scene is better off if McEwen’s is good, not gone.