Berryhill & Co

I was told this was a nice restaurant. A joint that provided the best of service and great food. I expected something like Seattle’s Canlis. Unfortunately, it wasn’t even close. The Kenny G style music isn’t my preference but I was willing to give it a shot. Then the 16 year old hostess informed us bluntly that the kitchen was closing in an hour. She then reiterated it again as we looked at the menu.
We left without trying the food. To be honest, we are old (late 30s) compared to much of the college scene on the other side of downtown. We had too much money too spend since we were on vacation. Close your kitchen, seat us or don’t… we know the establishment allows bad service and that there are a dozen other places (including room service) for a bite.

This may be a biased review. But you know what… its also honest.
I went there once. Food was great. Staff is amazing… and the owner… downright degrading. How can someone who supposedly owns a hospitality bussiness call their employees, «stupid mother fuckers» when the owner doesn’t seem to do anything but nagg. Sure he wheres a chef coat… but I’ve never seen him cook!
He sits at the bar to eay and drink when his employees are stuggleing and then yells at them for making a minor mistake. Seriously… who the fuck has the right to do that???
I will never give my money to him again.

When I heard earlier this year that John Berryhill was changing his entire restaurant, I was concerned! I remember his little café in BoDo before it was BoDo, next to Chicago Connection. That place was good, so I followed him to Broadway, in what used to be a Condom Shop. That was pretty good too, first date at a cooking class with my wife, even proposed there (she said yes) with the ring in her Chile’ Chocolate Soufflé’. *Note-​If you put a ring in a desert, they will always be disappointed in the dessert every subsequent time. Good thing that dessert was delicious.* Then we followed him Downtown, and that was great too! Plan B with the awesome happy hour, Bacon for Bloody Mary’s, Sunday Brunch, Catering my Business Lunches. Hell, he even Catered our wedding. So how in the world is this new change going to work out?
Fantastic! It is a completely different feel in there now. Some of the Fine Dining Favorites are still there on the dinner menu with new additions that have a southern flair. I have eaten the Catfish w/​Fried Okra and cheese grits. It was quite a generous portion of all and the Catfish was surprisingly moist and had more flavor than I had remembered. Next time I came in I had Pork Etouffe. 3 bacon wrapped Kurobuta medallions in a spicy shrimp étouffée sauce on rice. Delicious. I have been in for Lunch, Fried Chicken Sammy on a non-​crumbly bisquit with a side of country gravy. (I need to try that as a hangover breakfast). I have also used them for Lunch Catering. Still kicks ass and they still have Johnnys famous Tomato Basil Soup.
Never should have doubted him!

Wow, I can’t even to believe how I unacceptable the service in this place is. They brought the wrong sandwich or and took it back. Which was fine, it happens. But after waiting for a long time, and my friends had almost finished eating their lunch. I went up and my sandwich was just sitting there. The server didn’t even apologize for the inconvenience. Not only that but she had the audacity to scoff when I took my plate and didn’t politely thank her for allowing me to eat at their establishment.

Because it is on one of the more quiet downtown street in downtown Boise, it is easy to forget that Berryhill & Co. is there after many years putting out great meals and service. They recently went through a renovation but the food remains a masterful combination of Northwestern cuisine with some southern flair. Delicious, homestyle bacon is a signature add on in many dishes and will be found in many dishes as an enhancement. It is a great place for a date or a business dinner as the noise level is at a comfortable level for conversation. The staff is welcoming and attentive.

Very expensive and marginally tasty.
The standout is the bacon from the place across the way as An appetizer.
There are way better choices.

Berryhill and BACON have been revamped into a shared space and the marriage of these two restaurant is nothing short of a fairy tale. The new, more southern items are delicious. My favorite being the fried chicken and croquettes. We actually ordered the croquettes twice because they are worth it.
Then there’s BACON and yes, the Berryhill bacon is worth the hype. Put it on a sandwich, in Mac and cheese or wrap it up for the road and eat it along the street as you walk back to work. However you chose, just know that your tastebuds will be satisfied and begging for more.
With a brighter dining space and a more New York vibe, this is a great restaurant for all day dining, guests, date nights and more! Cheers!

Let’s take a trip. Close you eyes. I am going to paint a picture.
It is Friday night in the city. You want to step out for happy hour with the best of your friends. You want ambiance, you want bustle, you want great food, and you want great drinks.
You find a place to stop in the middle of the block. As you approach this hot spot, you hear the buzz of happy people and piano. You proceed forward and open two very large doors. As you do you, are greeted with a grandioso view, a two story high waterfall feature, and a beautiful fake holiday tree for the season!
On your left through another set of doors you see laughing people, lit candles, and a piano man.
Enter my friend, enter!
Once you get through the set of double doors there you are, approached by fancy light fixtures, table tops with cool chairs, low tops with unique chairs, a couch sitting area, and fun wall hangings. While looking around you see the piano man with a gentleman playing a steel guitar. Wonderful! Wonderful music!
Go, go sit! Get a drink! Enjoy this bustle and energy. Listen to the relaxing yet vibrant music! You worked hard this week, go treat you!
Fast forward three hours to you sitting in the couch lounge area full from a delicious slider with fries, some shared torta, or maybe some calamari you just paid $ 5.00 for during the happy hour! You are laughing with your friends, you have a cocktail in your hand and you look out the window.
Look at that view! For a fleeting moment you think you are in a huge city. The local bus just passed and beyond that is a stoop lit from the lights surrounded by a few dimly lit street lights. But then you snap out if it when your friend says something funny and you reflect on your fun night. You think to yourself, Boise is so wonderful!
Ok, You can open your eyes! That was great! What a great trip! So here is the plan, you can either go back to the top and read this again to escape OR you can just go down to Berryhill & Co to have your own real life fun experience!
No brainer!

So, I truly wish I could leave 5 stars for the concern and commitment of the owner & the delicious food. My family and I came here for my 25^th birthday, service was horrible I feel like our server may have been new. It took us 20 mins to be greeted and another 20 for our drinks, our food order I won’t even get into. When we finally received it, the food was delicious, if it weren’t for the service this place would’ve been great. I got in touch with the owner after that experience, he was awesome, he took care of us, apologized, and invited us back after comping our entire meal through a gift card in the mail. I was extremely impressed with him, you can tell he’s very passionate about his restaurant and takes a lot of pride in providing good experiences. Unfortunately, when we returned (same size party 8 people) we sadly sat again for 20 mins. As we were about to leave one of the servers who tried to step in during our last experience recognized us and starting chatting, and we proceeded to tell her the experience was starting out the same. She stepped in and took great care of us, food was great. Not sure what the deal is with forgetting big parties? Maybe better trained hostesses? Anyways, foods great, atmosphere is good, service, could be better. Communication between staff is key. I wish I remembered the name of the girl who took care of us, because she genuinely cares about her job.

My husband and I came here for our anniversary. He got the Kobe beef steak and I got the NY baseball steak. Both were fantastic! But the Kobe beef hands down was better. The grilled veggies that come with it were to die for. My husband even mentions if he just had a plate of them he’d leave happy. They were that good. We started dinner off with the macaroni starter. It’s clear why food and wine rated it the best!!! We finished dinner with cheesecake. It’s was rich and a perfect ending.
We will be back to sit on the patio and have lunch one day. The atmosphere was perfect.

Nice, not «wow» but overall nice.
Just had a nice dinner and drinks here. The atmosphere was mellow and waitstaff was very attentive. (I dont know if it’s because I was here on a week night, but it was not crowded).
Food was good, good portion sizes.
I need to go again as there are more items on the menu I want to try.
I had the buffalo burger, not bad.

Was not impressed with this place… service was good but food was disappointing. We had Bloody Mary’s — mine was watery and my husbands was super spicy. It was Valentine’s Day so there was a fixed menu — I had Filet Oscar — was $ 51.00, entrees came with soup or salad, my plate was so small for my salad that I made a mess trying to eat it — soup tasted like heavy whipping cream — steak was very bland — I actually had to add salt, asparagus was limp and overdone and potatoes were overlooked and dry — nothing had flavor. Crab was not good, tasted so fishy that I couldn’t eat it. My husband had halibut risotto — same dance as mine but sauce tasted like beef broth which is not well paired with fish… We got cheesecake for dessert — nothing special and tasted like the pre-​made ones from winco. Total bill was $ 120 — super bummed.

I was really let down with this restaurant. It was good, but it wasn’t amazing. The reason I felt let down is they do everything thing right in the marketing as a high end chef experience. Unfortunately three entrees at the table, and not one was great. Scallops were dry and rubbery, the forgetful hunk of meat slid off the bone nice, but it left me searching for ways to flavor it myself, and so on. Nothing to praise, but that’s what I wanted.
I’m sure it’s great if you’re hungry, but if your expectations are high, you just might get let down here, unlike many other restaurants on the next street over.

John Berryhill’s restaurants perpetually underwhelm and often disappoint me in terms of service and cuisine. And, that said, it doesn’t really matter how good the food is when you’re treated like trash. That’s exemplified by the fact that I’ve waited at a table for one hour to be brought water, let alone have an order taken without apology, and had three in a $ 1000 work party served raw spareribs, making me refused to come back or take any corporate business to his restaurants.

I was really disappointed in Berryhill given the amount of love I’ve heard expressed for the food and service. Granted, I came here for a wedding, so add a grain of salt since it’s a unique dining experience, but the whole reason my friends picked this place for their event was because of the food.
The best way to sum it up is that every plate was a lackluster experience. The grilled cheese half sandwich and cup of soup starter was decent, the salad was ok, but the main course was awful. I think that the bride and groom factored that the meal was about $ 60 a head (not including the booze) and after trying the overcooked, randomly hacked up pasta drenched in oil with passable mushrooms and a curiously buried sliver of flattened chicken, I’m genuinely puzzled as to how they came up with that number.
Not only was my plate less than awesome, when I looked around, every setting looked very different. Some of the party said the pasta was spicy, others had next to no mushrooms, and a few had more chicken than they had noodles. All I know is that I’ll never waste my money here, I could, and have, made better fare at home!

This review is intended to laud solely the bar Plan B and its happy hour. My god, what an awesome happy hour! This is the way I feel a good happy hour should make you feel; as if you’ve stolen something or gotten away with something your waiter didn’t notice. Everything we’ve tried off of the happy hour menu was awesome and affordably-​priced. Drink prices also struck me as killer, especially as we sat in Prom finery (yes, I had to chaperone) in this extremely classy atmosphere. We’ve only made it back one other time, but it’s constantly on our list. Here’s hoping the menu for Plan B never changes, so wifey can modestly sip her champagne while we snack out on some spicy fries and other hot bites.

Sit outside if the weathers nice. Pick a seat in the shade if you can.
Service is a little slow at first but worth the wait once the food arrives.
The hostess accidentally gave me a dinner menu in the lunch hour, but the server and kitchen prepared what I ordered from that menu anyway. Bonus points.
The food is fragrant, fresh, and aromatic… appealing presentation.
The low noise level makes it easy to hold a conversation (or eavesdrop on someone elses… don’t judge).
Casual, upscale atmosphere.
Overall recommendation: high, nice restaurant to be at with friends or a date.

Your taste buds will hate you for leaving this place.
Your stomach will forever remember the awesomeness.
Your wallet will gladly pay what it needs (which isn’t that much actually)
The grilled cheese rocks.

Without a doubt, this is the worst meal I’ve had in Idaho to date. Granted, it was on Valentine’s day, so my party and I had to deal with the prix fixe menu, however it was disappointing even for that.
It started with the apparent arrogance from the hostess on the phone, to the expected condescending tone from the server (although that resolved itself by the end of the meal).
We ordered the baked Brie as a first course, however it wasn’t baked. It was really just a slab of Brie with pesto and apricot purée on top. Apparently they did offer bread, but it didn’t come until right before the second course, and tasted like they just picked it up from Albertsons. They could have at least thrown it in the microwave before serving it to us.
I had the Truffle/​Sage/​Wild Mushroom ravioli, in which the truffle and sage were nonexistent. The menu advertised fresh truffles, yet they were obviously from a can. The sauce also had a strange sweetness to it.
The rest of my party had the Scallops with cilantro cream sauce and linguine. The linguine had ZERO seasoning in it. Even if you had no classical training, that’s cooking 101. The scallops had a strange sear on them, almost as if they were cooked in a microwave then hit with a torch afterwards. To their credit though, they were cooked to the proper temperature.
What seemed like the FOH manager did come to the table and apologize for the Brie, and did remove it from the check, however being that they bill themselves as a fine dining establishment, there is no excuse. It isn’t difficult to heat cheese.
All of this, and I didn’t mention the price. Clearly the most expensive restaurant I’ve been to in Idaho.
I won’t be coming back to Berryhill and will advise against others doing so.
Update:
Definitely got food poisoning. Ruined my night and Saturday.

Seriously! I happened to dine here last weekend and had horrible service. Just so happens my kids prom group picked Berryhill for their prom dinner this weekend. Story goes like this…
Reservation was for 7:30, didn’t get seated until 7:45. Service was bad and it took them 2 hours for dinner which made them really late for prom. Prom was 15 minutes from being over by the time they arrived.
The worst part however was that Mr. Berryhill himself was there and apparently wast taking pictures of all the girls in their dresses with his phone because there was a cash award for the winner of the best dress. (No award was ever handed out.) One girl in the group happened to also be celebrating her birthday and Mr. Berryhill gave her a small dessert that had chocolate in it. He mentioned to her date to be careful because if his wife was there she wouldn’t approve giving that dessert out because it is like an aphrodisiac! REALLY! These are high school kids and your taking pictures of the girls and saying inappropriate things to them. CREEPER!