I have gotten so good at finding a really nice restaurant wherever I go, sometimes people look forward to dining with us. On this day, I found a relatively new restaurant (well, the former dining room is kind of new) called The People’s Kitchen, attached to a “wine, cheese, and chocolate bar” called The Citizen. It does not have its own parking lot, but it does come with complimentary valet parking! Awesome!
The Citizen is a place where you can get wine, cheese and chocolate pairing experience, which is really cool. They do have food in the bar, but not a “serious” food.
They expanded their space on the second floor, and created a formal dining room, which is called The People’s Kitchen. Here, you can order dry-aged steaks, house-butchered charcuterie, burgers, sandwiches, and other comfort food. One note, even though the bar on the first floor, The Citizen, is open everyday, however, The People’s Kitchen is open only Wednesday through Saturday.
The hostess took us to our table. At the top of the stairs, we did not see any dining room. Between the walls, we saw a long dining room with table seating. But, the hostess took us behind the wall to the left, which had a handful of larger booth seating tables.
This area is a bit more secluded, semi-private. We really liked how quiet it was, since the number of people who would be in this room will be limited. They had coat hanging hooks at the entrance into this area, which is helpful during the cold months. The booth was roomy and comfortable. The tables had white table cloths, and then paper covering on the top. I can see that the paper covering makes the cleaning much easier and faster, but not a big fan…
They brought out their complimentary bread with olive oil. They had a few kinds of bread in the basket, enough for four of us to share. They were fresh and airy, even though it is not good to get filled up on bread before dinner, it was good bread so we kept on munching on them…
We started off with some cocktails. We ordered Sweeter The Berry ($12) and Apple to Apples ($11). They came well decorated and in pretty color.
Sweeter The Berry is made with Rum, Sherry, Housemade Berry Syrup, Lemon Juice, Sage, and Mint with a Sparkling Float. It was sweet but not overly sweet, just right. A bit tart, not in a bad way, with fresh taste of berries. It was a good, high quality drink, I enjoyed it.
Apple to Apples is made with Applejack, Cocchi sweet, Cinnamon Syrup, Aperol, and Lemon Juice. It had great apple and cinnamon flavor. Tasted like an apple pie drink, but not overly sweet, just right. They know how to do cocktails, I really enjoyed this one a lot!
For main, we ordered Sirloin Steak, Gnocchi Sardi, and two of us got Wagyu meatloaf . The 21 Day Dry-Aged Bone-In 16oz. Sirloin ($36) comes with Crispy Fingerling Potatoes, Seasonal Vegetable, and House Steak Sauce. The steak was very juicy and beautifully done. It was a little fatty, but sirloin supposed to be a bit fatty. It felt like it needed more salt and pepper (the waitress asked if we wanted salt and pepper when they brought the food out, but we declined). After we started eating, we realized that there is no salt & pepper on table. I am not sure why they don’t want to keep them on the table… If you THINK you might want salt and/or pepper with your food, it would be better to ask for them at the beginning. Potatoes and veggies were good too.
Gnocchi Sardi ($25) is made with Rock Shrimp, Radicchio, Speck, Chili Bomba Tomato Sauce, and Pecorino Toscano. It had nice kick to it without being too spicy. I really liked that spiciness. The gnocchi had great fluffy texture. The shrimps were plump and had good amount of it in the dish. It was very flavorful, solids dish, satisfying and fill you up.
Wagyu Meatloaf ($26) is made with American-style Kobe Wrapped in Bacon, Sweet Tomato Relish, Truffle Mashed Potato, Grilled Asparagus, and Mushroom Gravy.
It was rich and dense, meaty and flavorful. And yes very filling. Mushed potato had great truffle flavor which was really nice. Asparagus was cooked just right, not too soft, not too hard. Mushroom gravy was super tasty, but could have some more, as the meatloaf was not as juicy as I’d liked. Having more gravy would have helped with that, and they really went great together.
At this point, we were all stuffed, but we were at the Wine, Cheese, and Chocolate bar, we had to get some chocolate! So, we decided to get their chocolate sampler called The Citizen Sampler ($16). It comes with House-Made Walnut Fudge, Chocolate Truffles, Brownie, Fresh Berries, and Callebaut Chocolates Trio. It came in beautiful arrangement, lots of selections of chocolate. Each one was very tasty, and pretty high quality chocolate. Truffle had berries in them I think? White chocolate was awesome, as it is my favorite kind of chocolate…
We also got a scoop of ice cream to go with the chocolate sampler. They only had vanilla and strawberry flavors, so we got one scoop of each. They were not on the dessert menu, but we asked for it and our waitress got them for us. Sweet! The vanilla one was velvety and creamy. Super tasty.
The strawberry one had real strawberry chunks in it, which was awesome. Really, very flavorful, loved it!
We also had a cappuccino to go with our dessert. It was ok, nothing spectacular, but it is always nice to have a cappuccino to accompany the dessert.
The service was kind of slow, but I say it was more “relaxing” than just annoying slowness. Our server was polite and friendly. I saw the manager on duty going around greeting customers at each table, making sure everyone is happy. And yes, he came to our table towards the end of our meal to make sure we were happy with our experience as well. It was a very pleasant dinner, and pretty good food. Everyone was completely full and satisfied.
The People’s Kitchen of The Citizen – 1 Exchange Pl, Worcester, MA 01608