Elena is a huge restaurant located in the Four Seasons Hotel. Even with all the space, the small wood tables are placed closed together. They are set with small square leather placemats and napkins embossed with their logo. Bench seating lines several walls and there were a couple rounded booths on one side. There was a staircase in the room and windows to rooms upstairs but I saw no one eating up there. However there was a dumb waiter in the room that seemed to be carrying things up and down. It is a striking room with a black and white tile floor, tons of wood and tile on the walls with metal accents. A large open kitchen is on one end of the room across from the glassed in cabinets of meat. You could see the flames from the gas grill around the meats that were cooking. A large domed skylight is in the center of the room and provided a ton of light during the day. There was music in the background. The menu was in Spanish and English and they did offer a lunch special. Service was poor with long waits between server check-ins and they forgot to bring the potatoes with our meat. I finally was able to flag down a manager type, as the server was not to be found, and she got them out asap. However she also managed to splatter the wine when she poured it and tried to charge more for the wine than was printed. There seemed to be as many locals as tourists there but the ambiance was weird and the food average at best.
Bread service was a small loaf of bread cut into thick slices. It had an amazingly crisp crust and a very light moist interior. It came with salted butter. It was good.
We ordered the New York Strip for 2. It was dry aged for 45 days. The meat had a good char on the outside but little flavor on the inside not even a grilled taste. The char actually had more of a burnt taste. It was also a bit chewy and overcooked on one side.
The homemade French Fries were hot and crisp and served with a housemade ketchup. They were good but the portion was fairly small.
So was the portion of the Swiss Chard, Garlic and Mushrooms. The chard was nicely cooked and the mushrooms well flavored.
With the poor performance thus far we passed on trying any dessert.
