My spouse and I dined at Rockwell’s on a Friday evening in
mid-August 2018. Rockwell’s is open for breakfast and dinner daily. We made our
dinner reservation via email to the hotel concierge.
Rockwell’s is located in The Lodge, the original Tudor-style
accommodations for the resort. Guests from the Chateau Lafayette can reach
Rockwell’s via interior connecting hallways; whereas guests from Falling Rock
must use the hotel shuttle or their personal vehicle. Rockwell’s is billed as a
steakhouse, so we expected a cozy, dark wood, club-like atmosphere; in
actuality, the room is open and bright because of its many windows, and is
decorated with a leaf motif of fall colors (perhaps left over from when the
restaurant was called Autumn prior to May 2018). The restaurant displays a few
taxidermy heads and other hunting details to remind guests that the
restaurant’s cuisine is farm-to-table and as such, its menu options include
ingredients that can be locally sourced, hunted, fished, or foraged. A full bar
is available; in fact, we preferred the atmosphere at the adjacent Rockwell’s
Bar (formerly called Oak Leaf)to that of the dining room, where we stopped in
for drinks both after our Friday night dinner at Rockwell’s and following our
Sunday night dinner at Aqueous. (After our Saturday evening dinner at Lautrec,
we enjoyed after-dinner cocktails at the Lautrec Bar, where we listened to the
lounge singer.)
As we reviewed the Rockwell’s menu, a server delivered tasty
bread and butter. For a starter, we shared the heirloom tomato and burrata
salad (with basil, pine nuts, and balsamic vinegar); however, the tomatoes were
not heirloom, and additionally, they were severely under-ripe, which was difficult
to fathom in mid-August in Pennsylvania. We were disappointed that the chef,
expediter, and food runner/server actually delivered sliced tomatoes of that
quality. (The burrata itself was delicious.) As entrees, we ordered the
herb-roasted half chicken (served with au jus) and the pork shank (served with
sauce); because the menu tries to mimic a traditional a la carte steakhouse format,
neither dish was served with an accompaniment, so we ordered the crispy cauliflower
and the macaroni and cheese to share as sides. For dessert, we shared the peach
cobbler, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and garnished with colorful
fresh berries.
Our dinner was acceptable, but Rockwell’s was not our
favorite, nor our second or third favorite meal/restaurant on the Nemacolin property.
