The Grille at Willow Creek

The Willow Creek Golf Club recently opened their grill to the public on Fridays. The Grille at Willow Creek serves dinner from 5:30-8 to all comers. This is a detailed review of the Grille from the perspective of a non-member having a family dinner in the dining room.

We came on Tinis and Tapas night. The place was buzzing, I'm assuming mainly with members. You are required to call ahead for a reservation, though you can arrive any time during dinner service. They had a table with our name on it set up. If you ask, they will say they have a dress code--"dressier than jeans or shorts"--but they don't enforce it so really it's come as you are.

For starters we got the stuffed mushrooms off the Tapas menu and some fried pickles. The mushroom caps were sauteed and filled with spinach, cheese and panko. These were very tasty, a great mushroom flavor and cooked just right. The pickles were also very good--came to the table hot and fresh, with a nice dipping sauce. These are hard to get right and I can highly recommend them. One downside--the server dropped the appetizers off with no plates for sharing. So we passed the mushroom plate around.

For the main courses we got tempura shrimp (on the lunch menu but available in the evening) with tater tots, short rib ravioli and the ribeye with onion strings. The last two came with side salads.

The shrimp were disappointing. The breading was a standard seafood breading, not tempura, but it was cooked well and served hot. The problem was the shrimp itself--it was not fresh. Very soft, no way to save it with the preparation. The tater tots were standard issue.

The steak was OK. I think the grill was not hot enough to get a proper sear on it. It came with a generous dollop of steak butter, the meat was tender and had less gristle than ribeye usually does, and the flavor was good. The onion strings are a fresh version of French's, they were very tasty.

The short rib ravioli was the best dish. Cheese ravioli in a rich sauce with short rib pieces. The sauce had excellent flavor and was well cooked into the meat, which was beautifully tender. It's a meat forward dish, more meat than ravioli. I can absolutely recommend it.

For dessert we got a butter cake. This tasted exactly as I expected it to, and was quite good. The butter flavor is strong and satisfying, and it's soaked in a sweet syrup. Reminds one of cornbread, but more of a cake. Yum!

The prices for the entrees are pretty high. You'll pay more for dinner here than you would at Butler House, Craft Grill or Belly of the Beast (recently awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand rating), which set my expectations fairly high. The preparations are not that ambitious--there's only five entrees and they are pretty basic. There are no vegetarian options on the menu. They have two dressings for the salad--caesar and ranch. The staff was pretty swamped with the event. They had their priorities correct--it took some time to get in an order but the food was timed well and delivered hot. But they don't have the polish of the servers at the other local upscale dining establishments.

I would say that if you want to try them as a non-member, pick an event Friday (they have a couple a month) and embrace that. The tapas menu had great variety and some vegetarian options, and they do other themed events that look promising. The entrees do not deliver value for the money yet. The course is under new management and the new owners seem very committed to improvement, so I expect they will get better at serving the public with time.