The restaurant at the Inn at Langley was one of the reasons we traveled to Whidbey Island, besides also wanting to escape the Texas heat.  Chef Matt Costello started the restaurant in 1989 and now also is co-owner of the Inn.  However his cooking duties have been passed to a fellow named Landon and the tasting menu we looked forward to has been dumbed down to a 5-course menu, one of which is your roll.  Chef was in house and called it a “transition time”.  They also serve an a la carte menu but it is mostly bar snacks now.  Thank goodness we found another place to eat one of the 2 nights we hoped to eat there.   That said, the breakfast included with your stay at the Inn was very nice and a good assortment of options.  The place itself is wonderful and I heartily endorse it as a place to stay but caution you against reserving dinner there until they finish the “transition.”  We left hungry and dis-satisfied even though we had a delicious bottle of champagne with the meal and they took off some for the over-cooked salmon.

Set-Up

 

Food

Heirloom tomatoes, stone fruit, summer beans and vinaigrette was the first course.  It had red and yellow heirloom tomatoes, beans and peaches in a peach vinaigrette.  The tomatoes had a mushy, soft texture with little acid flavor.  The beans had been julienned and added crunch while the peaches did lend some sweetness to the mix. The topping of micro greens was simply annoying and there was way too much dressing.

 

Parker House rolls and horseradish butter was next.  When did bread become its own course?  This is a fine idea with some amazing bread but these were way over-heated to where the exterior was totally dried out.  The horseradish butter dominated the roll but these rolls needed something to give them character.

 

Sweet corn agnolotti was with peppers and rose.  The agnolotti was filled with mascarpone and topped with the sweet corn kernels.  They pasta were made in-house and were fine.

 

Salmon was covered with pine nut salsa verde, mashed garlic and mizithra.  The salmon had been cooked in a sous vide and then sautéed over much too high a heat.  It made the exterior hard and dry.  It was inedible.  The seared lettuce on the top was far too salty and underneath were dull mashed potatoes.  This was a disaster.

 

Cherry s’more was a vanilla ice cream bar with toasted marshmallow on the side sitting in a cherry sauce.  The sauce was sweet, flavorful and chunky.  I couldn’t detect the flavor of the toasted marshmallow all I tasted were nuts and chocolate on the outside.  It was basically good but fairly hard to eat.  The gimmick of an ice cream bar/smore was basically good but couldn’t save the meal.