Restaurant review: The Statehouse, Edgewater's fine dining flagship, remains a work in progress

The newly reborn, $100 million Edgewater Hotel on the shores of Lake Mendota has been under construction for more than two years.

It still is.

True, the Statehouse, Edgewaters fine dining flagship restaurant, opened its doors to diners in late September. But on many levels, its just not ready for prime time.

Some of the problems are physical. During lunch last week, diners raised their voices to be heard over the installation of doors somewhere in the kitchen. A utility cart bearing the name of Edgewaters developer, Findorff, loitered next to a ladder in the bar area.

As one approaches the restaurant through the lobby, the design is sleek and modern, paying photographic homage to Madison icons like Ben Sidran, Harry Steenbock, Oscar Meyer and Mike Leckrone.

But during the giddy debut of Edgewaters ice skating rink, one of the slick interactive digital lobby displays had stopped, frozen on an error screen.

Service, too, felt under-rehearsed. During dinner more than two months after the restaurant had opened, everything was late.

One cocktail took an hour and fifteen minutes to arrive, by then watery and weak. Another didnt arrive at all as we learned later, the bar didnt have the ingredients.The whole endeavor took two and a half hours, including the hour we sat, waiting to place an entre order.

To their credit, servers were friendly, quick to suggest replacements for items no longer on offer (duck fat tater tots), and compensated for slowness with free wine.

But they couldnt answer basic questions.What comes on the Statehouse burger, for example? (Its not mayonnaise; its chili aioli.) One fumbled, apologetically, after losing our order.

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Restaurant review: The Statehouse, Edgewater's fine dining flagship, remains a work in progress