Oak & Ember

Oak & Ember absolutely blew me away! The food was incredible — every dish was full of flavor, beautifully presented, and honestly some of the best I’ve had in a long time. The chef even went out of his way to make our ranch from scratch, which was such an impressive and thoughtful touch. Our server, Cierra, made the experience even better. She was warm, attentive, and genuinely made us feel taken care of from start to finish. And I have to give a huge shout-out to Shianne at the bar. Her espresso martinis are on a whole different level — smooth, perfectly balanced, and easily the best I’ve ever tasted. If you’re looking for great food, amazing service, and top-tier cocktails, Oak & Ember is the place to go. Highly recommend!

First time eating here this evening. Had the filet and this was one of the best steaks I have ever had. I would take this filet over Morton’s, Ruth Chis, Corbetts (when it was open) and other fine steaks I have eaten. I was very pleasantly surprised and will be back. Thanks for a great steak and a great experience.

Everything about this place is amazing! Beautiful entrance and ambiance. Caroline is a great server, on top of everything. Food was amazing! I ordered the chicken entree and it came out hot and tender. Creamed spinach wasn't great but all the other sides were fantastic. And do yourself a favor and treat yourself to the cookie butter cheesecake. Best dessert I've had in a while. Will definitely be back!

This restaurant is a master class in casual fine dining and hospitality. We're still talking about our visit 24 hours later. Oak & Ember is an unexpected, slightly hidden gem and the restaurant at the Trail Hotel in Bardstown, Kentucky. The hotel lobby and restaurant are gorgeous and stylish, but also truly comfortable. The front of house staff is friendly, attentive, and exceptionally professional. The menu is well stocked with gourmet adaptations of familiar favorites - hamburgers, salads, soups, and American-style Italian food. The chef isn't necessarily inventing anything with the menu, but there is variety and top-shelf ingredients, an expert hand with seasonings, magazine-worthy presentation, and exceptional flavor. Our server, Sierra, was nothing short of stellar. She was incredibly knowledgable about the menu, the cocktails and wines, and asked if there were any allergies to inform the kitchen about. (Our party included someone with a shellfish allergy.) Every single staff member who came to the table made hospitality personal. Seriously, this team should teach this stuff. Our party enjoyed our dishes immensely. My wife had the black garlic caeser salad with roasted chicken. My father had a salad topped with a perfectly baked salmon filet with the flaky, seasoned skin. My sister had a gnocchi dish that had a mild tomato-based sauce. My mother gave the lamb dish high, high marks. The chef prepared a vegan pasta dish for me that was delicious: Cavatappi pasta with an incredible medley of vegetables - the sweet, lucious tomatoes and tender asparagus tips were show stoppers and I ate every particle. Chefs with this kind of talent should risk adding a plant-based entree to their official menu. The cocktails were balanced and generous, which is hardly surprising for a concept meant to contribute to the Bourbon Trail. We had such a wonderful meal and such fabulous accommodation that some of us considered booking a room. We plan to return when we are all together in Kentucky next year. Well done, Oak & Ember. May you continue to do exceptional work!

We had a very nice experience at Oak & Ember Restaurant in the Trail Hotel. Our server was Cierra and she was friendly and helpful. Our party of 3 had the Grilled Salmon, Roasted Chicken and Pork Chop. Food & service were excellent, and while the prices were a bit on the high side, they were not out of line given the type of cuisine and the overall atmosphere of the hotel. The hotel itself looks very nice, a very well-done re-imagining of a 50-60s motor court.

We decided to give this place a try with some dear friends even though they just opened. What an amazing staff. Very helpful, the food was delicious. The salad was interesting but delicious, the beef tenderloin was grilled to perfection. Dessert was the strawberry shortcake and did not disappoint us. After talking with one of the owners, he took us to the speakeasy. Beautiful spot and some very vintage pours were had. We will be back. Thank you

Enjoyed their Christmas buffet! Friendly staff greeted us the moment we walked in. Delicious, fresh and hot meal, great cocktails.

We ate here while staying at the Trail Hotel for a mini stay-cation (which was also great!) It was three of us and we each ordered something different to try more, because the choices all looked so good. Appetizers were a house salad and steak tartare, both delicious. Main dishes were hamburger, salmon and steak frites. All amazing! I loved the grits with the salmon, such a perfect pairing. Steak frites was great, but my fave was the burger. It was perfectly cooked at medium and the bun was chefs kiss. Cannot wait to go back and try more, but I might also just get that burger again! Also, we ordered several different crafted cocktails, each one was great. Highly recommend!

Oak & Ember hits the mark with: Southern Hospitality (ladies @ hostess stand gave us a very warm welcome, and our super-friendly server Ryan remembered us from two weeks ago!), food quality is top-notch (chef curated dishes), furniture is aesthetically impeccable and wonderfully comfortable, bar/restaurant/ lobby/lounge is open and spacious, yet the noise level is moderate and overall has great energy. Bonuses: loved the wine selection (Rosso Gratta and Slingshot were both very enjoyable), S.Pellegrini sparkling water is always a nice touch, mixed olives & Marcona almonds were delicious, and the cheeseburger was amazing. Great experience all the way around!

Had great service and great steaks. From other reviews it sounds like they may have had some issues with service at opening, but we had great service tonight, friendly and attentive and the steaks were cooked perfectly, seasoned well and very flavorful.

We had an amazing steak and purple mashed potatoes! The macaroni and cheese was also delicious! The complete menu wasn’t out yet. Can’t wait to go back.

The restaurant was so good that we ate there two nights in a row. Live music was at the bar poolside. It’s a nice addition to Bardstown.

There is absolutely nothing bad I can say about this place. The food was amazing. The atmosphere was perfect. This is now my favorite restaurant!

Food was amazing. Great atmosphere

Excellent food, amazing atmosphere, top shelf drinks.

Great food, great service

Service and food 💯

Food was amazing. Atmosphere is beautifu.l this is absolutely a beautiful hotel and restaurant. This was my second time there, such a lovely place to see. I'm not sure if I will be back or not I feel like they definitely charged for every little thing. I ordered a bourbon and Coke and then asked for some more Coke to top it off because it was too strong and they charged me for that!!! Other than that the place was great but that did bother me about being charged to top off my drink when it was too strong!

A definitely above average dining experience, but the quality fell slightly shy of the price. The service was great, the atmosphere is really cool, and the menu has a nice variety of options. I didn't go 5-star because at $40-$50/plate I expect a bit more. That being said, I would definitely eat here again.

Id give this a 3.75 if i could. Most everything was very good. Cream spinach, beat salad, carpacio. Two of us opted for the $80 Wagyu Ribeye. Mine was not. It was very lean and certainly not wagyu or the wagyu flavor. Difficult to cut. The other steak at the table was definately marbled, almost fork tender and had that wagyu flavor. It was deliscious. The steak I had wasn bad, it just wasnt worth $80. I sent half of it back. And it was not cooked to the medium-rare I asked for. The lobster bisque was sub par. No chunks of meat. Flavor was bland. My wife had the butchers cut steak and it was good (equal to its price). Id eat there again but I would not get the bisque and would not take my chance on the Wagyu Ribeye.

We gave it 3⭐️ because the food was good and dining space inviting and comfortable. Would have been a 4/5 ⭐️ if we wouldn't have been chargered for bread $8 and extra butter $3..... We had heard of The Trail Hotel and Oak and Ember on social media pop ups. We were in Bardstown for a few days of Fall bourbon tasting and decided to try it out after it was also recommended by some of the distilleries on our tour. We did not need a reservation. We were seated and got service right away. Staff was very friendly and helpful. The items they recommended we ordered and then were told they had just run out.....at 5:30pm. We were asked if we wanted bread service, we said yes....then told it would be $8. It was a small round loaf and very good but came with 1 ball of butter plopped on top. It only covered 1/3 of the loaf. We asked for more butter and were told it would cost more. We said fine. My husband got the hanger steak med rare. It came out that way and was good. He asked for potatoes instead of frites. When it came out he got both. And were charged for the potatoes. I had the Pork Chop. It was also very good. We didn't get a bill, she just took our card and ran it. When she brought it out to sign we saw that she had not removed the extra $10 charge for the potatoes. She took our card back and rerang it. So in a nutshell we were charged $21 in extras at a high end restaurant that we already were paying over $100 for 2 entrées. Food was good just thought the nickel and diming took away from the experience.

The food is very good but, considering the prices, it needs to be great. It's close... I can tell the chef is dialing it in. The bar is the weak spot. Limited selections, slow service etc... Their charging A game prices, which is fine, but you have to deliver an A game experience. I can tell they spent the big bucks on the place, so... it's time to step it up.

WOW, it’s been a long time since I’ve been this disappointed in a restaurant. We had some friends in town and thought it would be a great time to try this new restaurant. Here are the reasons for the 2 stars (should be 1 star but I’m being generous): We were sat at our table about 30 min after our reservation time. Our server was either brand new or didn’t want to be working. Either way, obvious she wasn’t trained properly and really had no idea what she was doing. Asked for some bread and was told it’s $5, we waited 45 minutes to get our bread and that was after asking about it twice. When the bread came out all we could do was laugh as it looked like a 4 year old made his first piece of toast 😂 So the bread is burnt and harder than the table it’s sitting on. We are just laughing at this point because we have been sitting for an hour and have four small burnt pieces of bread to show for it. We brought this attention to the manager and were given apologies and assurances that our food would be out soon. Another 45 minutes pass, several different staff members have come to our table to apologize as nobody knew what to do. They were having water issues and using that for their excuse but we saw several parties order, eat, and leave so there was other problems going on behind the scenes. It’s possible the cook just quit for an hour and decided to return? Who knows but it was overall one of the worst restaurant experiences I’ve had. Once the food finally came out, it was decent. That is the reason for 2 stars, along with the manager giving us a round of free drinks and champagne after dinner to try and smooth over the experience. We left the restaurant about 3 hours after our reservation. We will not return and we definitely will not be recommending this restaurant.

Based on the reviews we were expecting and hoping for an excellent experience. Everything started very well I later was fantastic and very attentive. Unfortunately as the evening the grass the waiter spent most of his time apologizing for the delay in dinner. We got the seafood appetizer which was also fairly slow and very well done. Except for the octopus they should just take that off the menu or learn how to prepare it. An hour and 10 minutes the manager came over at the request of our waiter. Honesty he could care less, he didn't even apologize for us sitting there for almost an hour and a half all he did was say your meal should be out in 8 minutes. And it was my wife had a pork chop that she said was excellent and I had a $62 steak that maybe a half inch thick. It was seasoned well and cooked perfectly medium rare but it was extremely thin it looked like something that came off the shelf at Walmart. Overall we were disappointed and would not recommend this place with the other options available in the area.

Very overpriced for the quality of food. We came in on Christmas for their holiday buffet. At $65 a person I expected much higher quality food and presentation. The 2 salad options were sad and wilted. The biscuits were very dry. The salmon was luke warm and the sides looked picked through like a golden corral. The prime rib was okay and we didn't try the ham or pork. I can't speak for the normal menu but we spent almost $200 for 3 drinks and a mediocre buffet. Our server was good but lacked knowledge of the mixed drinks. I don't think we will be back.

There three different menus with different pricing. We were charged significantly more than the online menu. The server promoted the Wagyu. Then the steak was not available. It took us over an hour to receive our food after ordering. One of the steaks was rare, although ordered medium. The other dishes were good. No communication about delays. Great opportunity to be better.

We had a mixed experience during our recent visit. Our server, Ceirra, was wonderful — attentive, kind, and professional throughout the meal. The food itself was good and we truly enjoyed that part of the evening. Unfortunately, our interaction with the food and beverage manager last night (02/21) left a lot to be desired. My husband asked for Old Grand-Dad 114, Crown Apple, and Blanton’s — all of which were unavailable. When we asked what bourbons were available, the manager mentioned they had a bottle of Blanton’s “Tokyo” in their speakeasy. From the moment she approached the table, her tone felt condescending. When my husband requested the Blanton’s Tokyo, she repeatedly emphasized that it was “very expensive” before even pouring it. After he confirmed multiple times that was fine, she then stated the price ($120 per pour) in a way that again felt less informative and more cautionary. We had no issue with the price — we simply wanted the drink. While we understand transparency around pricing, the repeated warnings and tone made us feel as though we were being judged or assumed unable to afford it. When my husband ordered a second pour, she walked away without acknowledging him, which added to the awkwardness. We TRULY appreciated Ceirra and enjoyed the food, but the interaction with management significantly impacted what could have been a great experience. We hope this feedback is helpful, as the service from leadership should reflect the same professionalism as the rest of the staff.

If I could leave no stars I would. Not only did I make a reservation for 8:45 on valentines which also happens to be my anniversary with my Fiancé, we drove from Louisville which is an hour. We got there early, asked if we could be seated early, and they said they were running about 20mins behind. Ok no problem (yet) we wait. Our time comes and they say we have to another 15-20mins. So we do, the time is now 9:10pm and they said there is still a wait, and that people are probably hanging around due to the music and what not. We walk way to talk. Mind you the person they hired for music wasn’t a good singer. Great at playing guitar, just not singing. We finally said we are just going to go home at 9:20pm, told the hostess, while yes they were willing to offer a discounted meal, if we stayed. No only was it getting really close to an hour past our reservation. I told them no thank you and they offered us some chocolate covered strawberries, in fear that, that would take an hour- 2 hours for me to get I politely declined. So now we are driving an hour home, with no dinner and we won’t get there until 10:30pm. If people are done eating and have paid tell them to leave.

New Years Eve at Oak and Ember was an overpriced misleading poorly serviced event. We had made dinner reservations that were supposed to include two free drinks (turns out that was only cheap awful house wine or beer)and a five course meal. The food was barely warm, some improperly prepared service was awful and then to stay for the New Years Eve party the cover was another $80 per person. For what? The advertised Live music was a DJ not a live band. The organizers of this event overpromised and way under delivered. Never going back.

We were excited to enjoy the hotel restaurant based on reviews and word-of-mouth, but were extremely disappointed. I do appreciate our waitress, Taylor, doing what she could as none of this was her fault. 1. We had to wait well over an hour for our food as did most of the tables around us. 2. The cocktail sauce for our shrimp cocktail arrived 15 minutes after the shrimp did, so we enjoyed room temp shrimp once the sauce arrived. 3. My wife's steak frites were considerably undercooked for what she ordered but we didn't have time to wait another hour for them to correct it. 4. The NY strip I ordered had good flavor but wasn't the least bit hot when it was served--again, we didn't have time to wait for a correction since it was already past 9pm (our reservation was 7:30). Who doesn't love a room temperature $62 steak? 5. We also had to wait 15-20 minutes just to receive salt we asked for. For what we paid for the meal, this was a dismal experience and wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

We were so excited to eat here for my 50th birthday. We were staying at the Trail hotel and had reservations for Oak and Ember at 6pm. We were under the impression that this was a higher-end restaurant, but despite the expensive menu, the atmosphere here was very casual and anything but high end. It has more of a casual hotel lobby feel with a larger price tag attached with little variety. We arrived on time and were met with mediocre at best hospitality. We were underwhelmed with the very casual atmosphere and seated in front of the very noisy, hot, and open kitchen and, we were beside one of the only tables with guests which happened to be a large and noisy group. There were many empty tables in the restaurant. We kindly requested to have a different table before we sat down since we were celebrating a special occasion (actually we would have been happy with any other table than that one), but we were denied despite the empty restaurant. We sat down and planned to just go with the flow, but it was so loud between the large group and the kitchen that I could not hear the waitress who was standing right next to me. I had to have here repeat herself 3 times just to hear what she was saying. It was so hot and loud by our table that we decided to get up and leave not even knowing where we would go. Dressed up and out for my 50th, we decided Cracker Barrel would be a much better choice! Luckily, my husband was able to get us into the Rickhouse last minute and we had a wonderful dinner there. Having worked in hospitality and the service industry, I was so surprised to be treated as rudely as we were by the hostesses. Empty restaurant, special occasion, and a very kind request = a too bad response. If you are looking for a higher end restaurant, this is not the place to visit. There are much better options in Bardstown for a lovely atmosphere.

Was very disappointed, not once but twice. The food and service leave much to desire. I can say with confidence I will not be going back!