Browntrout

My understanding is that this new North Center spot is the project of a former Bin-36 cook with a passion for local, seasonal food and neighborhoody places. Based on my meal tonight, I'd call it a welcome addition to this neighborhood, and a big improvement over what was in the space before.

The kitchen seems focused mainly on executing mass-appeal dishes well, but thankfully isn't afraid to risk offending overly timid palates. The housemade merguez is the perfect case in point, as I was surprised at how gamey it was, implying that the kitchen is willing to use intense, flavorful parts of a lamb that squeamish patrons might balk at. With natural casings and a just-right hint of hot pepper, this was a heck of a sausage. Served with sweet oven-roasted tomatoes, sharp arugula, chopped olives and tender, tiny little black lentils, the generous "small plate" was a bargain at $10.

A Three Pea Salad was also quite nice, with sprouts, tendrils, English peas and a house made ricotta. My two quibbles were: (1) the English peas were mealy and a little bitter, implying that they might not have been as fresh as could be; and, (2) the house made ricotta was so damned good that it should have been served in a dish where it was the star rather than an accent. It got a little lost amidst all the greens and some citrus segments that were floating around. But man was that ricotta good - I hope it gets star billing on another Brown Trout dish soon.

Brandade, while it didn't seem very traditional to me, was delicious and another steal of a large portion at $5. It was served piping hot with out-of-season roasted corn kernels that I was sure would be flavorless, but were in fact quite sweet and delicious. It was missing the copious garlic I'm used to in brandade, and was way too heavy on potato, but if you called it "whipped potatoes accented with cod" instead of "brandade," I'd probably say it was a big hit.

Amish Chicken Thigh, another generous "small plate" at $9, was stuffed with a tasty pistacchio mouse and accented by sherry chicken jus that didn't seem very chickenny to me. I've had tastier chicken thighs too, and the skin could have been crisper, but the real star of this plate was some perfectly cooked, creamy polenta that sat in the center.

Moving over to the side of the menu labeled "Bigs", we tried the $24 Pan-Seared Walleye Pike, which was about half the portion size of anything on the small-plate menu. It couldn’t have been more than 4oz of fish, and the plate was adorned by burnt mushrooms. There were supposedly some morels mixed in with the mushroom mix, but it was such a carbonized disaster that it was hard to tell.

Dessert continued the somewhat downward slide the meal had taken with the walleye, as the strawberry shortcake was - almost inconceivable - served with lousy, clearly non-local strawberries with firm, tasteless, white centers. They were marinated with this or that, and served with some stuff that might have tasted good, but I simply couldn't get past the fact that a place purporting to be what the Brown Trout purports to be would choose this travesty of an ingredient that is in its absolute prime this time of year, right in the restaurant's own backyard.

It was definitely a meal of hits and misses, but the hits were home runs, and I suspect that the misses will be ironed out, or I'll just learn the kitchen's sweet spot over time, and aim directly for it with my ordering in the future. Staff members were exceptionally friendly, hard-working, informed, and interested in hearing constructive feedback from customers. I look forward to enjoying future meals at the Brown Trout.


Brown Trout
4111 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago
(773) 472-4111

I was at Browntrout on Saturday. We had 7:30 reservations and arrived about 10 min late. Sadly we still had to wait 10-15 min at their bar. Browntrout is BYOB so their bar was more of a waiting area and we didn't even get offered water. Oh well. Appetizer was mussels which were decent. I ordered the walleye pike and my husband ordered the burger. For approx $23 the portion did not match the price. The veggies served with it (fancy green beans and salsify along with fancy mushrooms) were yummy (although a hair over buttered/oiled). The highlight of the meal was the strawberry shortcake. Strawberries with mascarpone= yum! Overall it was fine. I'll give them some time to work out some kinks before going back. Nice to have a new choice in north center. Service was so so but they were repeatedly apologetic.

There was a time when you could just open a new neighborhood restaurant and let the broader world discover you, slowly. That time is not now; now a place like Browntrout is hyped in between the week's other debuts (Nightwood! Cibo Matto! Rootstock!) in media the whole world can read. Even a fish has to sink or swim, it appears; there are no more little neighborhood finds.

Even so, I'd like to create a little protected habitat where Browntrout has a chance to get bigger before it's devoured. There's some real promise here, in a year this could be the Mado of fish, and yet my meal also went seriously off rails at a certain point. What was good was good enough that I'd like to see it mature a little, find its footing (which is obviously even harder if you're a fish), and become what's in its chef's head.

Browntrout (BYO at this point) aims to only offer sustainable, high quality and organic ingredients; it divides the menu into sharable small plates and bigger entrees which, once you get into sustainable, high end fish, are not cheap. I stuck mainly to the small plates in order to have more to try.

What was good— very good— is the plate shown above, a trio of small servings of fish meant to be nibbled as nosh. At the top was a housecured, orange-scented golden trout, which was served lox-style with bagel chips and as delicate and rich as very good lox. The middle was a smoked trout salad, and the bottom a piece of yellow perch, fried with a sort of remoulade/tartar sauce accompaniment. The first two of these were really wonderful, showcasing the delicacy of good fish beautifully; the perch was more ordinary, and the remoulade or whatever it was could have used more bite, more body, more oomph. Still, for $13 this was a substantial (and substantially terrific) plate which Avec or The Bristol would be proud to serve up.



We ordered this as an appetizer, and were grilled fairly extensively about the precise order of the other dishes we wanted; our waiter seemed very concerned that the order and timing be precisely calibrated, somewhat beyond the easygoing vibe of the restaurant (which, that night, had several of Bin 36-vet chef Sean Sanders' relatives wandering about). The reason for the jarring appearance of a control freak note to our experience only gradually revealed itself as we waited... and waited... and waited. The night grew dark, my opportunity for picture taking vanished, we found ourselves making faces we recognized from the "before" parts of a Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, we were apologized to enough times that we were ready to say "Stop apologizing and just go kick somebody's ass in the kitchen!"

They handled it very nicely, we wound up with both a salad comped and some free cookies, can't complain, but still, given the simplicity of the items involved, it was hard to imagine how the kitchen— not at all overstressed on Sunday night— could have possibly taken so long to produce these items. I'd be nervous about Browntrout for pre-theater dining (we'll be late for Cornservatory!) or even for the lunch which has gotten some attention lately.

Nor did the items we have entirely justify the wait on a flavor basis. Best, by far, was a burger made from Tallgrass beef. I've only had one Tallgrass steak, at the Harry Caray's by O'Hare, which was bad enough that I wanted Bill Kurtis to narrate it like a crime scene ("But when he cut into the steak... what he found was not the juicy, flavorful steak he'd hoped for... but a gnarled and gray nightmare that had only just begun"). This was, let me estimate, one frazillion times better, maybe oversalted a tad but a richly flavorful burger that was like meaty meatiness all wrapped in meat. I was just tvetching (kvetching on Twitter) about the popularity of the very good, but at that price it should be, Rosebud Steakhouse burger; here's one in the same ballpark pricewise which to me beat it for depth of flavor.

Less exciting was a pea salad, "peas three ways," which mainly revealed that the actual peas are the only parts of a pea that have much flavor; eating the shoots and leaves was kind of like munching ivy off the side of your house, and the salty dressing did little to bring it all to life, being desperately in need of a sweet note, or any note that would have made the leaves and branches palatable. While the final dish, a special of an escargot "tart" in a veal demiglace, was executed perfectly well for something assembled out of foodservice ingredients (puff pastry tart shell, demiglace in a jar), but seemed a dining-in-1955 dish that was way out of step with the rest of the restaurant and the approach promised by the fish trio at the beginning; it might have strolled over from Lutz's a few blocks away.

Still, the things that were good, especially that fish plate, were very good indeed. If Browntrout can build on that kind of treatment of excellent fish, get more confident and coherent in what it's offering, and not least, get that kitchen working at "After Gordon" speed, it could become a really impressive restaurant, truly a fish Mado (or whatever it is they actually hope to become). For that to happen, maybe it needs to be ignored for a bit by the whole planet, and just serve its neighbors for the time being as it finds its footing. So if you're a neighbor, check it out, enjoy it, get to know its obviously committed husband and wife owners; but if you're the kind who hops from hotspot to hotspot, delivering quick and permanent judgements, maybe you should let Browntrout go for a little while, and see what it's grown into a season or two from now.

Kennyz wrote:It was definitely a meal of hits and misses

Front open to Lincoln offered gentle breeze and an interesting ever changing view, comfortable well spaced seating, friendly efficient non-stop motion hostess, olives, bread, olive oil, choice of gratis fizz or still water moments after we were seated, I'm thinking for a new restaurant Brown Trout is really on track.

Brown Trout



Olives, olive oil, two types water



Big smile effusive waiter pops up moves into Brown Trout genesis story and green advert with little or no preamble intersperses all items must be ordered at once multiple times, deal out our menus and he's off to tell the Brown Trout story to another captivated, or is it captive, couple. I start to get a little tickle in my toes.

Three pea salad reads tastier than it eats, tough oversized greens woody stems distracting from any possibility of subtlety or balance.

Three Pea Salad



Waiter is positively joyous at the thought of our ordering Lamb Duo, "chef gets the whole animal", and the dish does sound tasty, leg of lamb, mint lamb sausage, roasted sun chokes, beluga lentils, grilled peaches, center of my wheelhouse. Unfortunately exuberance and execution do not go hand in hand. Mealy out of balance sausage, sun chokes roasted into culinary oblivion and, most egregious of all, tough inedible silver skin was not removed from the lamb, not to mention white pasty undercooked fat not trimmed. I was really astounded at the sliver skin left on, not something you see in a coffee shop much less a restaurant with designs on upscale. Loved both beluga lentils and grilled peaches, though they could not make up for the lamb duos inadequacies.

Country Cottage Farms Duo, Mint lamb sausage, grass-fed leg of lamb. Roasted Sun chokes, black beluga lentils, grilled peaches, lamb jus



Bride enjoyed her Kiwi style Golden Trout, I thought it a bit overcooked, but got a real kick out of 5, count em 5, peas on the plate.

Golden Trout, Kiwi style



Lake Trout "Cosby" Sandwich yielded moved-past-moist fried fish on a behemoth of a bun doused in name only sauce gribiche. Loved the root vegetable chips, but once again, the associate could not save the principle.

Canadian Lake Trout "Cosby" Sandwich, crispy lake trout filet, sauce gribiche, toasted French roll, root vegetable chips, preserved lemon




Service was erratic, the I-felt-sorry-for table next to us waited 5-6 minutes for utensils after getting their appetizers and I did not understand why there were people waiting at the no-booze bar, Brown Trout is currently BYOB, while the large communal table restaurant centerpiece went unused. Waiter mentioned it was used on weekends and for large parties, still seems odd, impolite and bad business practice to have people cooling their heels while 18-20 seats go unused.

I'm not quite as hopeful as Kenny, Mike, swissy or Mike Sula. Brown Trout has a lot going for it, welcoming feel, pretty restaurant and well concepted on the green/sustainable front, but they are simply not swinging through the pitches.

Enjoy,
Gary

G Wiv wrote:Waiter is positively joyous at the thought of our ordering Lamb Duo, "chef gets the whole animal", and the dish does sound tasty, leg of lamb, mint lamb sausage, roasted sun chokes, beluga lentils, grilled peaches, center of my wheelhouse. Unfortunately exuberance and execution do not go hand in hand. Mealy out of balance sausage, sun chokes roasted into culinary oblivion and, most egregious of all, tough inedible silver skin was not removed from the lamb, not to mention white pasty undercooked fat not trimmed. I was really astounded at the sliver skin left on, not something you see in a coffee shop much less a restaurant with designs on upscale. Loved both beluga lentils and grilled peaches, though they could not make up for the lamb duos inadequacies.

Country Cottage Farms Duo, Mint lamb sausage, grass-fed leg of lamb. Roasted dun chokes, black beluga lentils, grilled peaches, lamb jus

If I owned that restaurant, I would have paid you dearly to not publish that picture. Of course, I would also hope that if I owned that restaurant in the 21st century, I would not be serving lamb a la caveman . . . a dish I'm sure my earliest relatives would have enjoyed.

That picture depicts a travesty, indeed.

My fear is that, with this "cook the whole animal trend," paying consumers are the guinea pigs for chefs unskilled in this sort of this thing who are trying to get their feet wet. Let the trendsters be the guinea pigs for eating the poorly cooked nasty bits (I won't even recount the experience I had sitting next to a couple of modelesque hipsters as they choked down bone marrow in the name of bandwagon-jumping). As for me, I'd rather plunk down my money for a perfect roasted chicken than be a guinea pig for some whole animal cooking that is the trend of the moment. Just looking at that picture and reading your description of the dish, that lamb appears to be a good example of a kitchen that's in over its head.

Ouch, when they told me about the pea salad they said it was about gone from the menu, pea season being basically over then. A month from now they better not be serving pea roots and stalks.

Yeah, pea salad with citrus segments is really a travesty in August for a restaurant claiming to be about local, seasonal cooking.

aschie30 wrote:That picture depicts a travesty, indeed.

My fear is that, with this "cook the whole animal trend," paying consumers are the guinea pigs for chefs unskilled in this sort of this thing who are trying to get their feet wet. Let the trendsters be the guinea pigs for eating the poorly cooked nasty bits (I won't even recount the experience I had sitting next to a couple of modelesque hipsters as they choked down bone marrow in the name of bandwagon-jumping). As for me, I'd rather plunk down my money for a perfect roasted chicken than be a guinea pig for some whole animal cooking that is the trend of the moment. Just looking at that picture and reading your description of the dish, that lamb appears to be a good example of a kitchen that's in over its head.

Just curious why you think they are bandwagon-jumping, rather than people who actually like roasted bone marrow? The look on their face as they ate it, their clothes, something they said?

Gary and others, thanks for the report on this place.

I think the folks at Browntrout are probably watching and learning from this forum, because I had a nearly perfect meal there last night.

The pea salad is no longer on the menu -- in its place a melange of arugula, baby radishes, local peaches, and lemon vinaigrette that made for a lovely starter on a balmy evening. It was an especially nice surprise to find a house-made soft cheese (not mentioned in the menu description) underneath the greens. This was a thoughtful and refreshing combination of flavors, but I do have a couple of vegan friends who would have been unsettled by the surprise dairy component. Probably best to mention it on the menu. (Unless I missed something, which I suppose is possible).

From there I moved on to the local chicken breast (extra points for being on the bone, with expertly crisped skin) over spaetzle with a cold squash salad -- mainly zucchini as far as I could tell, and not particularly cold, which was fine by me -- and tuaca chicken jus. I used to avoid ordering chicken in restaurants, arguing it was too mundane and something I could make at home. I've now started ordering it for exactly this reason -- what a chef does with the humble chicken says everything about a restaurant -- and this one didn't disappoint. The secret weapon is the tuaca (ok, I had to look it up), but the hints of vanilla and citrus in the jus really made this dish. Had I been home, I would have licked the plate. But seeing as we had the front window seat, which would have meant witnesses from both the street and inside the restaurant, I behaved myself. Now I regret it.

My friend and I split the strawberry shortcake, and while I'd quibble with a couple of details -- the almond brittle was just slightly too chewy (if I remember anything from my sophomore-year chemistry class, where we made brittle in Bunsen burners, the toffee was probably not cooked to sufficient heat. I'd had a sublime pecan brittle sample from an Amish farmer at the Daley farmer's market earlier that day, so I know it can be done). And I think it's probably time to shift the fruit in this dessert to something more seasonal. I forgave this dish these couple of weaknesses, though, because honestly, the combination of flavors pretty much knocked my socks off. Not too sweet, a depth not only of flavor but texture. I'd eat this dessert again and again.

I have to quibble a little with the mandate to place the entire order at the front end of the meal. Especially with a place showcasing so many small plates, patrons should be considered grown up enough to pace themselves. Furthermore, if the kitchen is so concerned about proper pacing of the meal, the entree shouldn't be placed just as I'm taking the last bite of my salad. These are kinks I believe will be worked out in time, and again, they're plenty forgivable. I'm guessing it may be a corrective on some issues in the kitchen -- maybe a training-period adjustment that will evaporate over time.

I really loved the chef's mother checking on how each table was doing. She was as sweet and modest as the food on the plate.

I'm not exaggerating to say this meal woke up my palate after what felt like a lengthy hibernation. It seems like a lovely addition to the sustainable dining scene in Chicago.

G Wiv wrote:Country Cottage Farms Duo, Mint lamb sausage, grass-fed leg of lamb. Roasted Sun chokes, black beluga lentils, grilled peaches, lamb jus

My mother served my a plate of lamb that looked like that as a kid (then made me eat it). It kept me from eating lamb again for nearly 40 years. This, along with their very unfortunate choice of name for the restaurant, will probably keep me away forever.

My appetite would have been completely ruined once that plate of lamb hit the table. Quite frankly, it looks disgusting.

Especially with a place showcasing so many small plates, patrons should be considered grown up enough to pace themselves.

I think it has nothing to do with you, and much more to do with the waitstaff acting defensively against the slowness in the kitchen.

I hope Browntrout can get its act together, because what was good was very good, but what was problematic was quite obvious.

email indicates they now have their liquor license. Monday is 1/2 price wine night. Also some other specials:

Monday Night…
½ Price Bottles of Wine

Wednesday’s
Price Fix 3 Course Trio…
$35
Warm Spinach Salad…
cilantro, apples, walnut bacon vinaigrette, crispy broccoli, fried egg

Slagel Family Pork Shoulder…
potato kohlrabi pave, roasted radish,
marjoram, pear jus
&
complimentary beer pairing

Warm Plum Tart…
plum jam,
Seal Bay triple cream cheese,
vanilla cubes

Sunday Risotto Night…
Sweet mama squash Risotto...
Roasted fennel, brown butter,
sage, walnuts, sherry syrup
$9 small $15 big
$5 Wine pairing

Call me juvenile if you will, but I chuckle every time this thread floats to the top.

G Wiv wrote:floats to the top.

You kill me.

Had a supremely delectable Mint Creek lamb chop at Browntrout last night:



Every bit of flesh and fat on these bones resonated perfectly with my recollection of the lamb chops my dear old granny used to make for me. I mentioned this to The Wife, who said, "She must have been a really good cook." I'm honestly not sure I can confirm that speculation, but my guess is that she probably got her lamb from a farm as small as (and probably smaller) than Mint Creek and that the animals from that farm were probably cared for in a similarly traditional manner.

Incidentally, this lamb was part of a prix fix Rioja dinner I had -- basically two courses with one glass of wine for $35. That's about $20 or so off list price...though my first course was a fresh and totally forgettable salad, which may relate to the issue of value raised elsewhere on the board.

Mike G wrote:I wanted Bill Kurtis to narrate it like a crime scene

This hilarity has to be acknowledged.

From the OP, this would have been a deal-killer for me:

stuffed with a tasty pistacchio mouse

Judy H wrote:From the OP, this would have been a deal-killer for me:

stuffed with a tasty pistacchio mouse

Don't you like turducken? Same idea.

Kennyz wrote:

Judy H wrote:From the OP, this would have been a deal-killer for me:

stuffed with a tasty pistacchio mouse

Don't you like turducken? Same idea.

This was just printed on a menu for a university reception I attended:

Truffle mouse crostini

I thought perhaps they were exploring ancient Roman cuisine at first glance.

We had a really nice meal at Brown Trout the other night. Overall, our experience was much more positive than what's reported in the earlier posts on this thread.
Our waiter was very friendly (at first I thought almost overly so but he ended up being great). Anyway, no service gaffes or trouble with pacing, though we were there early on a weeknight. We split a half-order of wild mushroom risotto from the small plate section; I'm not sure all the mushrooms were wild but the risotto was delicious. The menu is divided into small and big plates--these seemed an awful lot like appetizers and entrees though our server said some of the 'small' dishes were almost like small entrees. They let us know that they just got ramps in that day so we chose the rib-eye with pickled ramps, grilled ramps and polenta from the 'big' section. I loved this dish; surprisingly, the polenta was probably my favorite part (though all the components worked together and I also loved the pickled ramps). We also had the lamb pot-au-feu from the 'big' side; the waiter noted that this was a pot pie (and it was called a pot pie on previous menu). Not sure why they referred to it as pot-au-feu (correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think of pot-au-feu as having a crust). But that's a minor quibble--the dish was delicious and the pastry was a delicious addition. There were cooked dried chickpeas with the lamb and a salad of fresh chickpeas and cucumber on the side--I loved this fresh salad and I definitely plan to try that at home. For dessert we split the brown butter ice cream with pralines--this was a big miss for me. Admittedly, I'm not a big sweets person so pralines were not a good choice. But the dessert was tooth-achingly sweet. We stopped spontaneously on the way home from work so we didn't take advantage of Thursday being BYOB-no corkage. Instead, we each had the red wine 'train' (their version of the flight) which was fine--none of the wines were exciting but it was nice to try a few. We live fairly close and pick up our CSA there and we'll definitely be back (though I'll probably skip dessert next time). They also have a chef's menu--3 courses for, I believe, $45 and I think less on Wed; we passed on this b/c we really wanted something with ramps and the items on the regular menu appealed to us more.
Also, we noticed there were several tables with young children and the family next to us was given a kid's menu. We were there fairly early on a weeknight so I'm not sure if it's always the case but this place seems to be quite family friendly.

This past weekend I visited Browntrout for the first time. Overall, it was good enough for me to want to return. We started with a number of small plates and they were almost uniformly excellent. The arugula and corn fritters was probably my favorite. Crisp and tasty corn fritters surrounded delicious arugula dressed in a tasty vinaigrette. Although the arugula might have been slightly overdressed, when eaten with the corn fritters the dish worked very well. They also offer pommes frites as an appetizer and these were excellent - skin on, crisp outside and soft interior, well seasoned and served with an aioli (can't recall more but it was good) and what seemed like a cross between barbecue sauce and ketchup (less to my liking). There was an heirloom tomato and grilled watermelon salad that was also excellent, largely due to the outstanding quality of the produce. We also ordered the one-hour egg which was cooked perfectly, creamy and gooey, but I can't recall much more other than that it was served with crostini.

Entrees did not fare as well. I expected a lot from the burger with marrow but it really let me down. First, although ordered medium rare, it was closer to medium. More surprising was that it was not the least bit juicy. Then, there was just too much going on. In my opinion, if you have a beef and marrow burger, you really just need some salt, pepper and a bun. Instead, this was topped with some crispy shallots (acceptable), and overly sweet onion marmalade (scraped off), tomato (not necessary) and gruyere (love gruyere, but it interfered with the beef flavor). I eventually took most of the toppings off, but even then I had difficulty getting a great beef flavor and it just wasn't juicy. Needless to say, I can't recommend the burger. I didn't taste a companion's vegetable napoleon, but I did taste another friend's trout. I can't remember too much about the dish other than that it tasted quite good but we all agreed that it was a little too salty.

Desserts didn't fare too well at all. A ginger panna cotta had little ginger flavor and was way too dense. The blueberry beignets were a little too dry, although the accompanying blueberry jam was delicious.

Service was efficient enough I suppose, but our server was not at all knowledgeable about the menu. Overall, I enjoyed the meal, largely because of our appetizers and they were good enough to make me want to try more of the menu. On my next visit, I just might be reluctant to order dessert, and I know I won't order the burger.

Had a really nice quick meal at Browntrout this evening. Definitely the best food I've had there out of my 3-4 visits (never had a bad experience).

Started with a shaved pumpkin and parmesan salad that was unique and quite delicious; not a preparation I'd run into before or anything I would have thought of:


For my main course, I ordered the wild mushroom and chestnut risotto cake, accented with squash and sweet potato. It was divine.


The service was good and attentive. No visit from the chef this time, though.

Made a reservation at Browntrout for Sunday, not realizing they had live bluegrass the entire evening. Anyone been on a Sunday evenings? Am I in for pleasant, barely noticeable background music, or ear splitting, shout at the person next to you to be heard music?

EdE wrote:Made a reservation at Browntrout for Sunday, not realizing they had live bluegrass the entire evening. Anyone been on a Sunday evenings? Am I in for pleasant, barely noticeable background music, or ear splitting, shout at the person next to you to be heard music?

In between. I was there recently while they had live music. It was loud enough that it did inhibit conversation somewhat at our table, but was certainly not ear splitting volume level. While the band was decent, I personally am not a big fan of live music at restaurants - especially moderate to upscale venues - and would prefer they did away with this. The food and service was really good when I dined there, but the music detracted from the experience and they also seem to be a bit too family friendly (i.e. they almost seem to encourage babies and young children to dine there).

Thanks for the info, Gonzo.

Gonzo70 wrote:they also seem to be a bit too family friendly (i.e. they almost seem to encourage babies and young children to dine there).

Oh the horror about making your neighbors feel welcome!

Yeah, as a new parent of a good-natured 5 1/2-month-old, my feathers got a little ruffled at that comment too.

I would imagine that to a restaurant owner in this economy any/all patrons with $ to spend would be made to feel welcome, including parents with well-behaved children.

People are entitled to their opinions. While many babies and young children are well behaved in restaurants, many others are not - after all it is normal for babies and young children to become loud and fussy at times. Some parents handle these situations great, others not so much. Restaurants certainly can decide for themselves if they want to make their venue attractive to families with babies and young children and choose if that best fits their vision and target patrons. While making the restaurant appealing to families with babies and young children brings in some business, it turns off other business. Personally when I am seeking an upscale dinner, the sounds of crying or yelling children detracts from the ambiance I am seeking. On the particular evening I dined at Browntrout there were multiple families with young children and while all but one were well behaved, one child was extremely loud and fussy for an extended period of time and the parents made no discernable effort to remedy the situation. As there was a live band, the only time this was bothersome was during their break, but it was not enjoyable to listen to the toddler shrieking. Fortunately the food was really good and we had an excellent server, so overall I still had a very enjoyable experience at Browntrout.