1875: The Steakhouse--French Lick

Another road trip—and I have had a lot of feedback from my previous post on one of the restaurants at French Lick, so here’s the other marquee restaurant at the resort. This trip we went to 1875: The Steakhouse (which is named after the date of the first running of the Kentucky Derby).

It is a nice looking restaurant, although there are some weird looking rooms off to one side that would not be my first choice, so we requested a table near the window. The whole restaurant is weirdly shaped because it is actually placed in a room in the resort that was the original drop off spot for one of the trains, and so basically it was a hall that was converted into a restaurant space. One thing we noticed is that people tend to dress up a bit more here than often in Indy, and it was sort of fun that way. Sweetly, we sat next to a couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and were toasting with martinis. Cheers to them!

Anyway, 1875 is your basic steakhouse, you could probably guess pretty much what is on the menu, and you could probably get about 75% of it right, but it is executed pretty well, and they do add some seasonal items to the menu to keep it somewhat fresh. I went with the classic steakhouse dinner—a blue cheese wedge to start, a filet with Bernaise sauce and a chocolate molten cake to finish.

The wedge was pretty standard, almost enough dressing for the lettuce, but not quite (there can never be enough salad dressing on these wedges, there is just so much lettuce). I never eat it all anyway, so I had plenty, but if you actually ate the whole half head of lettuce, you would need more. The chunks of blue cheese in the dressing were tasty and nice little pieces of bacon as well. Nothing spectacular, but hey it was a wedge. They don’t vary that much.

Hubby had the fried green tomatoes to start, which I had a bite of. They were quite good as well, very thin and lightly fried with a cornmeal crust. The drizzle of remoulade was a nice flavor combination. I would order these next time over the salad probably.

The steak was fine, perfectly prepared medium rare and served over a little demi glace. I think demi glace should be disclosed on the menu when it is on your food, and if you read my review of Sinclair’s at French Lick, it really bugged me how much they used there. This was not as bad and not as much, but I would still ask for it without it. If you order one of their sauces on the side (as I ordered the Bernaise) I don’t think you need more.

We also ordered the creamed spinach and lobster mac and cheese as side items (although the lobster mac and cheese is actually technically an appetizer on the menu). The spinach was really pretty good and the mac and cheese not bad, although the chunks of lobster were quite small (and I mean, quite small).

Hubby had an enormous ribeye which he thoroughly enjoyed.

We had passed on the soufflés which I regretted later—had the molten chocolate cake with cream….I don’t think it was molten so much as cake just covered in chocolate sauce, but we ate it anyway (it was chocolate after all).

Ok, when you’re going to French Lick, you’re not going for the food. But for a generally decent meal with good service in a nice locale, 1875 is a good choice.

1875: The Steakhouse
French Lick Resort
8670 West State Road 56
French Lick, IN 47432
888-936-9360
http://www.frenchlick.com/hotels/frenchLick/dining.jsp