Restaurant Review - Cooper's Hawk Ft Myers

We’ve been here a bunch of times and have always liked it. This visit was a little interesting, but all in all it was good and we’ll go back again and again.

So what happened? One of our party ordered Chicken Picatta with mashed potatoes instead of the pasta that normally comes with it, but still got the pasta. Was that a kitchen mistake or did the waitress not put the order in correctly? It has been my experience that the wait person will always blame it on the kitchen so as not to impact the tip! We did’nt ask. She did get him a side of mashed potatoes. So all was good. He also asked for extra capers and boy did he get extra capers! Too many in my opinion. It kind of reminded me of an irate chef saying, “you want extra capers, I’ll give you extra capers!” Check the picture. That’s a lot of extra capers.

The plate of the Chicken Marsala could have been wiped to clean up the presentation. I’d never let a plate go out that was this messy. Plus way too much sauce and thickened with way too much cornstarch. But the dish tasted good.

My wife’s dish was supposed to have a lemon butter sauce, but it looked very dry. she asked for more sauce and got it! Problem solved! Thoce mashed potatoes were very good!

Next is my dish. I ordered the Chef’s seasonal special of Scallops in a brown butter sauce for 30 some dollars. I was not impressed with the size of the scallops. A little smaller than what I’m used to, plus I got some broken pieces. But anyway, the dish was delicious. Nicely seared and the Jasmine rice was very flavorful. So I just had to pace myself eating the scallops. Its a good thing I listened to a Mindefulness podcast the day before about slowing down your eating and relishing every bite so you don’t overeat. I did not overeat! The butter sauce didn’t look that brown. Maybe I got my wife’s lemon butter sauce!

I had to have a salad to start things off, so I order a house salad with bleu cheese dressing and shared it with my wife. It was excellent, but the lettuce was a little too wet. It could have been spun dry a little more. But my wife and I ate it all. Hit the spot to start off!

I wasn’t in the mood for alcohol, so I ordered one of thier spirit free mixed drinks. It was fantastic! It had jalapenoes in it, but it was not overly spicy. I took a pic of the description on the menu so you could see the ingredients.

We finished the meal with some chocolate tryffles. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture, but I did take a pic of the display case out front that has truffles in them. Here was where I had to exert my stubborness on the waitress. Under the dessert section you can order the chocolate truffles with 3 matching wines, so you get 3 truffles that are matched to the 3 wines. There is and option listed right uner that on the menu to get the truffles without the wines for $9.99. There is also a seperate chocolate truffle item on the menu to get an individual truffle for $5.99 or $6.99, I can’t remeber the price exactly. Well, as you can see and do the math, to get 3 truffles using the individual truffle price, you’re going to pay at least $18. I wanted the 3 truffles for $9.99. So the waitress and I went back and forth a little bit with me showing her what was on the menu. I also told her that I’ve ordered this in the past and there was no problem. She said she’d have to talk to the manager and left. A few minutes later I was delivered the 3 truffles on a long dessert plate with the special sauces and a raspberry and a blackberry. Very nice presentation. Truffles were delicious. And I got billed the $9.99 for it. Thank you manager! The truffles are good! Buy some and take some home!

Here’s one iteresting thing that happens to us every time we go to Cooper’s Hawk. When we walk up to the hostess stand to let them know we’re here for our reservation, we wait for at least 5 or 10 minutes to be seated. That’s if the place is empty or if the place is bustling. This time we arrived at 4pm for our reservation, waited for 5 minutes and were seated in an almost empty restaurant! Why do they make us wait? I just don’t get it. Usually, at other places, the hostess looks to confirm the reservation, grabs some menus and says follow me, or right this way. I will ask about this the next time we go. Inquiring minds want to know!

All of these are minor complaints. We love this place! And we’ll go back many more times. There’s a wine bar up front as you walk in where you can do a wine tasting. There is also a full bar. Plus, they have a wine club you can join and get a free wine tasting or two a month. But you are committed to buying a bottle of wine or two every month. We joined the club at first, enjoyed the free wine tatsings and other perks, but could not keep up with the wine. Plus, my wife would like to select the wines instead of having to take what they offered, so we quit the club. Correction: You can select different wines, if you pick them up in person. If you go to a premium selection, you’ll have to pay the difference. If you have the wines shipped to you you can’t change the selection. Thank you readers for the correction!

Overall, very good! I highly reccomend Copper’s Hawk Ft Myers.

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