Hive Living Room + Bar @ the Renaissance Westchester Hotel – Outstanding Service & A Perfect Location for A Business Meal

Thanks to some of my closest business friends, I was at the Hive Living Room + Bar at the Renaissance Westchester Hotel for a wonderful, fun-filled evening. This was the first time I had ever been to the Renaissance and it exceeded expectations in both service and attention to details. I had a subsequent visit since then – read the review here. Now I will tell you why they exceeded my expectations for customer service.

There were eight of us and five of us ordered steaks and asked for various temperatures. Unfortunately all the steaks were done a little too well from what we asked for. I was the first one to realize that my medium steak was in fact well done. So I started asking my colleagues whether their steaks were done correctly. As soon as we started checking our steaks and communicating, the chef ran out of the kitchen and wanted to know what was wrong. Once I explained that mine was well done vs. medium, he offered to re-fry my steak. He then went down the line and asked everyone who ordered steaks whether they wanted their steaks to be re-fried.

Out of politeness and also because we were already half-way through our steaks, we all declined his generous gesture. The chef then offered free dessert platters as an apology. That was #GoodCustomerService! So even though our steaks were a little tough, we all felt happy at the end.  And my friend, Wally, even wanted to order a steak as his dessert!

Below is a quick recap of what we ate.

MEDITERRANEAN PLATTER: red pepper, kalamata olives, caramelized onion, roasted garlic hummus, and pita chips.  This was average.

FRENCH BAGUETTE: with sundried tomato butter, herb olive oil, sriracha honey, hummus smears. The sriracha honey was very interesting; the combination works.

CHEESE PLATTER: soft goat cheese, Roquefort, brie, sweet onion jam, grilled baguette, seasonal berries. This was average.

CHEF JEAN CLAUDE’S CLASSIC FROM THE PAST (with a very long description of how it came about, quoted below, directly from the menu):
“Coq au Chiron” this is my mother’s recipe, at age of 11, when she opened her first restaurant near the city of Chinon, her popular dish was the coq au chinon, after school I was always in the kitchen and helped my mother cook. It was then I knew that I wanted to be a chef.

We had no idea what the dish was from the description.  My colleague, Mike, was brave enough to order it.  Can you guess what protein it is?

Special that night – a 9 oz steak!  Way too big for the little woman (Danielle) who ordered it. The rest went to a beloved Rottweiler.

“STEAK FRITE” seared rib-eye, home-made french fries, maitre d’ butter. Pretty good. Just wish it were medium versus well done for me. For people who ordered medium rare, their steaks were medium. Darn! The fries were good.

MISO GLAZED SALMON: steamed baby carrots and bok-choy, forbidden rice. Very respectable. The forbidden rice was a nice touch. The color scheme (dark pink, green, orange and black) was very pleasing to the eye. Interesting though – they did not ask whether the salmon was cooked to our liking.

SPAGHETTI CLAMS: white wine, garlic, basil cream, parmesan cheese, toasted pine nuts. “Pretty Good!”

This is the dessert platter the chef put together for us. It included: WARM CHOCOLATE LAVA CAKE, CLASSIC TIRAMISU, spiced pumpkin bread and mixed berries. The aspect of a complimentary dessert is nice but the desserts were just ok.

Overall, you cannot go wrong because of their service and how much they want to please the customers. The wait staff were very keen to meet our every need and paid very close attention to every little detail. It made a great evening with friends.

This experience took place at

 

Hive Living Room + Bar @ the Renaissance Westchester Hotel

80 West Red Oak Lane

West Harrison, New York

10604 USA

+1-914-694-5400