so restaurant-bar

the best restaurant in little rock. every detail is made for your comfort. the service is always wonderful, and the food is incredible. highly recommend the french onion soup and any fish entree. desserts are delicious, but large! make sure to share.

i really want to like so.

i have dined at so four or five times in the last two years. i might have dined there more, but the price rather limits it to a "once in a while"/special occasion restaurant. all of my visits to so have been with the same friend, and all have been on sunday evenings, as it is one of the few upscale places open in lr on sunday night.

i will say that i generally love the ambience at so, and the laid-back but knowledgeable vibe that the staff has always given. at our previous visits, the food has always been good, and at times great. on our most recent visit though, there were definitely more lows than highs. and the things that were disappointing were such that if they were not understood by the staff even before serving them that something was amiss, then my saying something about it probably would have just been seen as griping rather than a constructive or legitimate complaint.

the first point was that we both started with a manhattan, made with makers mark, and served up. the drinks were presented beautifully and well chilled, but upon tasting them, they were seriously dry, whereas any standard manhattan is a fairly sweet although strong drink. it did not taste like just a lack of the normal amount of sweet vermouth, but almost as though these drinks were actually a perfect manhattan, with half sweet and half dry vermouth, which is another cocktail altogether.

for our appetizer, we ordered the seafood fondue, which we have ordered every time we have dined at so, and tonight was possibly actually the best dish of this fondue we have had there. i would offer one note about the fondue though; there is never enough bread to finish it when it is served, and when you request more bread from the waitstaff, it takes so long to carefully warm the delicious little loaf of bread that the rest of the fondue is cold by the time the bread to finish it arrives at the table. this has been the chain of events every time we have eaten the fondue.

then we ordered a bottle of wine. so is known for having an extensive and impressive wine list, but the same thing happened on this visit that has happened at least once or twice before, that the bottle of wine we ordered was not in stock. the waitstaff is always happy to make another suggestion for wine, even at the same price point, and of the same style of wine. the wine we ended up with was by no means a disappointment, but it seems like it might make more sense to have a smaller wine list of things to actually keep in stock.

then we both ordered the chicken pontalba, which i believe might have been a new addition to the menu since the last time we had been there. i was looking forward to enjoying their take on this traditional new orleans classic, and i always love a good béarnaise, which is getting more and more rare to find in a restaurant. we certainly did not find it on this dish. when it arrived, the chicken was actually very nicely prepared and crispy, with the garnish of mushrooms and ham and tomatoes, but the béarnaise sauce was not the rich delicate emulsion that one would expect, but rather an oil slick poured over everything on the plate. the béarnaise had obviously broken at some point along the way, and any employee in that restaurant who knew what a béarnaise is supposed to be should never have brought our plates to the table.

lastly, we ordered the strawberries and cream crème brûlée. the most exciting part of any crème brûlée is the glassy sugar on top, that you should be able to hear break when you crunch through it with your spoon. this desert had obviously just been barely torched or put under the broiler at all, as the sugar on top was still granular, rather than glassy or caramelized in any way. also, my dining companion was surprised when he got to the last bite to find barely a teaspoon worth of strawberry jam in the bottom of the dish, because he had forgotten about the strawberry part of the description, and thought he was just eating a regular vanilla crème brûlée. both of us actually liked it better before we tasted the strawberry jam.

i do not mind paying a high price tag for a fine dining experience, but when i do choose to pay that price, i expect and hope that things will be as they should be. the manhattan, béarnaise, and crème brûlée that we were served on this last visit to so certainly, and sadly, did not reach that mark.

so bad. been eating at so off and on since they opened and it was usually pretty good but i've had three really bad lunches at so in a row. the last time the crab was bad the tomatoes were weird and the avacodos black. for the prices i expect fresh and some form of quality control. never again....

super quaint and lovely....date night approved!

never disappoints! ...including tonight!

stole money!!. tried the restaurant for the first time the other night, everything seemed great at first. we ordered a steak, rare; it came back well done. not the biggest deal, we sent it back and 20 minutes later finally got a rare steak, but this time the polenta was undercooked. we decided not to make a big deal about it, paid the bill, left a 20% tip anyway and left. couple days later, we checked our bank statement and noticed we had been charged an extra $100. after calling multiple times and being promised the money would be refunded promptly; it wasn't. a week later, part of the bill had been refunded. tried calling again, and this time they wouldn't answer our call, so we went in and confronted them about it. we got the money back finally, but never again will we go back.

advise: check your bank statement

seafood fondue. fantastic!

worth the money. so has turned into our traditional anniversary restaurant. though a bit pricey, the quality of the food and impeccable service makes the cost well worth it. i still have dreams about their gigantic steaks served on a butcher block.

i love so for lunch and dinner. they recently got a new head chef and i think he is amazing. the cocktails are also very good. i recommend it to anyone who wants a special dinner.

$22.80 for one drink???. i dropped in for a retirement party in the back room. a colleague had a drink that looked tasty, and i asked the waiter to bring me one of those. it was a double vodka gimlet (don't know the type of vodka or if my colleague had specified when she ordered hers). it was quite good, i must say. the waiter took my credit card and returned it before i left. i saw no paperwork. today i checked my credit card statement and was floored to see that i was charged $22.80 for that one drink. i called and spoke with a bartender to ask the price of this drink, and he said $16-17 (if you order a double, it's the same price as if you'd ordered two regular drinks separately), but he sounded like he was guessing. i asked if there's any way it could be as high as $22.80, and he said, "oh, yeah." i'll be leaving this place to the clientele with money to burn, thank you.

an anniversary meal not to remember. good food horrible service.

absolutely phenomenal from start to finish.... every single aspect of my experience at so was amazing. the food was perfection in every way. the environment was comfortable yet intriguing. our server, kyle, was knowledgeable, hilarious, and personable. the food? oh, the food... i had the chicken apricot marsala and can attest to it being the best (by a long shot) chicken dish i've ever experienced. i questioned my decision to order a chicken dish multiple times up until the point i put the first bite in my mouth. my date's meal was equally delicious! while we planned to share our dishes with one another because of our lack of decisiveness, we both selfishly devoured all but one shared bite. i highly recommend this restaurant for a great night.

first visit to so. i would give so an overall favorable review. the halibut, my entree, however, has no business on their menu. it looks out of place next to the rest of the culinary creations that i saw that night. the halibut, which was very small, was perched on top of about an ounce of spinach leaves. there was a citrus glaze and a peppercorn sauce drizzled on top, but that's it. it was also pretty dry. i don't blame the chef for that. i am sure it is hard to cook such a small piece of fish and keep it from getting dry. before ordering, i asked the waiter about the necessity of ordering sides, and he said that all entrees came with a side and were a "full plate." after hearing this, i decided not to order a side. that was a mistake. mine came with a side, it was just a side of an ounce of spinach. i was finished with my appetizer, i mean entree, in maybe three minutes. my fiance ordered the tuna, which was excellent. and at least twice as large as the halibut. in closing, i will probably go again. i will just stay away from the halibut.

long wait for undercooked, over priced steaks. all at the table had underdone filets and rib-eyes. but the fries were good. waiter was pleasant. hostess, not so much. so restaurant is so over-rated.

pretty much a waste of my money. appetizers were horrible: escargot was dry and didn't have flavor. brie was not as delicious or gooey as it should be. my friend ordered the lamb and it tasted like body odor- sent it back twice, got a filet instead and the filet was medium well when he ordered medium rare. there was no explain action of the menu or suggestions on what was popular. we wanted to order cocktails and were handed a cocktail menu of "ones to come" and couldn't order a specialty drink. above all, it was my birthday and my husband had it stated on the reservation and there was absolutely no mention of that... normally i give a place a second chance, but there is wayyyy too much to fix for me to even try to come back to pay way too much for something i could get a chilis. hell... chilis could do 2x better!