The Red Hen

This is an excellent restaurant. The service is exceptionally personal and the dishes are flawless. We couldn't have imagined visiting Lexington without a visit to Red Hen. Now that we live here, we're in a couple of times each month.

Pretentious, dirty, will not return.

A lot of better restaurants in the area.

Revamp the menu, and include food people want to eat. Clean the place, and provide training to the wait staff.

What a great restaurant. We ordered the pickled shrimp and ham lentil soup. For entrees we ordered the ny strip and the bolognese (10/10 recommend). We ended with the olive oil cake and the merengue.

The local pottery plates, open kitchen concept, and historical church resemblance enhanced the already delicious food.

The food was poorly prepared and overpriced. Rude staff. Bad smell of sewer gas. Overall terrible experience.

Daughter had a tournament in Lexington. Decided to grab dinner here. Really bad choice.

Wife and I had a salad - date and walnut salad. It had a funky taste to it - salad was kind of brown leaf. We weren't a fan. It was yuck. We should have tried the soup instead. How can you screw up a salad?

My wife, daughter, and I shared the following entrees:

Blackened Pork Chop - this was way too salty for our taste, and it was way over cooked. We even told our server to not overcook it. Didn't listen and was absolutely clueless.

Braised Ribs - this was decent. But, I had better. It was not as tender. For $35, it should fall off the bone kind of meat; however, the texture and meat were tough.

Overall, this place is not good. Service was below average (they didn't listen to what we asked for), food was not that good, and we felt a bit rush.

No idea who would give this higher than a 1. This was our first and last time eating here. We definitely would NOT recommend this place.

Fantastic dining experience
Service
Food
Bar program

Started with my drink, an Old Fashioned. It was made with cardamom-infused Brandy and was spectacular with muddled cherry and candied orange peel.

Arctic Char was the server suggestion. Almost went that direction when I saw the chefs tasting menu on the board and went that direction.

They dropped a few extra small courses along with the 5 they planned which was really nice. Of the 5 courses, the Char was phenomenal. So too was the duck pate and I'm not a pate person at all.

They snuck in a ginger sorbet before dessert. So wonderfully sweet and savory at the same time. The bar choices were ample and the wine list complete. With I could take this gem home to Chattanooga with me.

When other reviewers tell you that the staff act as if they don't really want you there, you can take it to the bank that it's true. Considering the low character of the owners, not a big surprise but we try to give any restaurant a fair shake and this was our second visit. I can somewhat excuse overpriced food if the staff act like they appreciate my business. I wouldn't recommend this place to locals, which we're not.

This place was charming and quaint with delicious food and drinks. We found the staff to be welcoming and extremely hospitable.

We had the steak and the chicken and both were outstanding and flavorful. The chicken was moist with a crisp skin and the steak was perfectly cooked (as ordered). For an appetizer we had the red pepper gazpacho soup. Each dish was incredibly flavorful and fresh tasting.

We had the absinthe cocktail and another cocktail with tequila and rum. They were very well balanced and I would order again but the star cocktail was the cardamom old fashion. It one of my favorite cocktails I've ordered.

For dessert we got the lemon merengue, based on some of the other reviews. It was amazing and lived up to the praise others have given it.

We brought our dogs on the patio. They were very warmly welcomed and even had treats waiting for them when we got to the table.

So glad I looked further into this place and gave it a try. I would travel back to Lexington just to enjoy a meal here again.

Poor service, obscenely rude employees. We were a group of 4 who mistakenly used google reviews as a gauge of restaurant quality. The bathrooms were disgusting, silverware had dried food on it (had to ask for a new set, but boy was it appetizing to have everyone inspect their forks and knives). Food was sub par, that--coupled with the rude service culminated in one of the worst dining experiences on record.

Okay food, very average. Lexington is a beautiful small historical town with a surprisingly and unproportionally large number of great restaurants given the size of the town. We preferred other places over this one. The restroom smelled bad.