Lightfoot Restaurant

[Faboo]

After a little Christmas shopping today, we tried Lightfoot Restaurant to see if it was the same as it used to be when last we went, several years ago...

That's not us...but that is our waiter in the background before he was plunged into the weeds...

For those who don't know, Lightfoot used to be a bank. Some Swedish sisters renovated and now it is

quite glorious...

We started w/the Fried Green Tomatoes topped with Jalapeno Cheddar Cheese & sautéed Shrimp with Szechwan Chili Cream sans shrimp. The chili cream sauce on the side really made the dish.

I had a cup of the Lightfoot Spicy Creamy Tomato Soup with Roasted Garlic & Sweet Basil topped with Parmesan Cheese & Pumpernickel Croutons , intensely flavorful...

Hubby has the Soup Du Jour, Apple Pumpkin, sweet & creamy...

Then he had Fresh Tomato over Angel Hair Pasta finished with Rosemary Roasted Garlic Sauce, Parmesan & Fresh Herbs, as good as you'd find in Italy...

I had the Café Cobb Salad ~ Fresh Grilled Chicken Breast set on Mixed Greens with Crumbled Blue Cheese, California Avocado, Fresh Plum Tomatoes, Hard Boiled Egg, Crispy Fried Bacon & Onion with Blue Cheese Dressing chicken & bacon served on the side...every ingrediant high quality

Verdict: Lightfoot Cafe is reliably delicious.

[Malawry]

I've dined at Lightfoot many, many times over the years. They have a delightful bar where I usually eat alone before a concert. I only had lunch there once, which I regarded as merely acceptable, but dinner is another story. The sandwiches on the bar menu (especially the seared tuna with watercress) and the starters are universally excellent. Entrees are more likely to fall down on the job in my experience. I almost always order a bowl of that spicy tomato soup and a spinach salad with dried cherries and Smithfield ham as my meal when I go there.

[Faboo]

The menu didn't seem much different from the last time I'd been there, about a year or so ago but it's definitely worth the trip for the Tomato Soup alone.

[jm chen]

If it weren't so far out of town I'd go there just to sit at the bar and eat housemade potato chips and dip. On my one visit to Lightfoot they were exceedingly delicious.

[Malawry]

That's the jackpot bar snack there. Unfortunately, they rotate their bar snacks. The in-house chips and salsa aren't bad (really, none of the bar snacks are bad, but none of them touch the chips and dip!).

These are freebies on the bar, btw, not a menu item. So if you're lucky, you can sit at the bar and eat chips and dip with your cocktails before dinner rather than crappy Sysco snack mix. Nice touch.

[Faboo]

Hubby enjoyed his angel hair pasta w/tomatoes so much he'd been craving it all week. Unfortunately, they made it in a different way today, with very little tomato sauce, so now we wont be going to Lightfoot again for a while . However, my Eggs Benedict were good.

[Malawry]

I had dinner at Lightfoot in the bar last night. Their bar menu has undergone some changes since the last time I ate there--there are new sandwiches and salads available, and some of the old favorites like tuna with watercress are gone. I had a cup of the creamy-spicy tomato soup, which was excellent as always, and "Chef Ingrid's Favorite Sandwich," a sort of Reuben with crab and Smithfield ham and 1000 island dressing grilled on marble rye. It came with slaw, pickles and fries. I wish there had been actual kraut on the sandwich because it was sooooo rich and salty, it needed something tart to break it up--the pickles helped but weren't enough to handle it. I was only able to finish half my sandwich--my spouse scarfed the other half late at night with gusto. Next time I'll get the flank steak salad off the bar menu instead.

BTW, Lightfoot serves their bar menu continuously during the day. I arrived at 5:20--the main dining room does not open for dinner till 5:30. I could have ordered off the main menu if I'd waited 10 minutes, but the bar menu appealed to me more. The bar was super-busy the whole time I was there, and the dining room was filling up--there were no reservations available. Just a heads-up if you're thinking of going on a Saturday night in December...go early and eat in the bar, or reserve well in advance.