Lola’s On the Lake

Great soup. The food would get 4 stars but the service was so slow. I went there with my boyfriend on a Monday night at 6:20. Didn’t leave until 8:45! And that’s after asking what was taking so long. And checking on our food. Nobody wants to sit at a restaurant for over 2 hours. And there were only 4 other tables full! And it’s expensive. $ 100 for 2people. Soup, 2 drinks and 2 main dishes.
I’ve been there before and food was always good. This was ridiculous and took up our entire evening. No thanks. Won’t return. There’s plenty of other places to go.

A little hoity toity for where it is, but good food. Salmon burger very good as was lobster bisque

Best. Thanksgiving. Ever. Thank you Lola’s, for being open and offering a menu without turkey, stuffing, or any sort of potato with marshmallows on it. Yes, I have been dubbed a Thanksgiving grinch, but that’s only because I hate having to sit through a dinner of food I don’t like and then do the dishes. This year was different. My family decided to run away for a long weekend in Elkhart Lake, and we had a nice fancy dinner at Lola’s. Now I understood that it was a holiday and therefore there would be no «A Team» working, so I threw out the poor service when deciding on the star rating. It wasn’t even that our server was bad, he was just slow as hell especially considering there were only two tables in the whole restaurant. I just want to focus on the food here which was PHENOM.
We started with the short rib and leek fried ravioli for the table, which had a funny texture but the flavor was just outstanding. Plus it’s like three of my favorite things all in one: ravioli, short ribs, and anything fried. Win.
I was so excited but also panicked looking at the soups on the menu because the three soups they offer just happen to be my three favorite soups ever: French onion, lobster bisque, and butternut squash. Lucky for me, they offered a sampler trio! All three were so delicious. I had a hard time deciding which one to start with, but an even harder time deciding what I wanted my last spoonful to be!
For dinner, I decided on the sirloin topped with king crab and hollandaise. Surf. And. Turf. Oh yeah. It came with roasted potatoes and vegetables, including some corn that was cut fresh off the cob. Needless to say, when the corn, hollandaise and crab came together on my fork, it was HEAVENLY. My steak was cooked perfectly, and that is a heavy undertaking in and of itself. I like my steak between rare and medium rare, and I am always the diner at the table whose steak comes out overcooked when everyone else’s are perfect. Lola’s got it SO right.
We didn’t have any dessert since we had pie back up in the hotel room, but the dessert tray had some good lookin’ options.
This Thanksgiving is one for the books. Thanks again, Lola’s!

Had lunch today with the family on the patio. Great menu and kids menu as well (important for a resort restaurant). Ordered Bloody Mary’s for my wife and I. Our great server, Andrea upsold us with a shot of beer! Nice! They were simply perfect. Although I prefer blue cheese stuffed olives & pickles, the pickled asparagus-​olives-​lime combo worked. Andrea was HUSTLING! She had help from a Manager/​Hostess but the timeliness of our food could have been improved with one more server. (I’m sure someone called out sick as it was a beautiful day). The pear salad with bleu cheese, carmelized walnuts, & marinated grilled chicken was phenomenal. Highly recommend this place!

We were at Lola’s on the Lake last evening during a very busy weekend in Elkhart Lake. They were taking reservations that evening, which I had made earlier in the week. Many restaurants in the area will not – rather a «first come, first serve» which can become a nuisance when you’re hungry and have no idea when you’ll be called for a table!
Our dinner was fabulous, once again! Lola’s has a great chef with great menu items as well. I truly recommend their scallops! They’re cooked perfectly and no grit! The service is always great with a wonderful, friendly staff!
We have decided we need to dine there more often, and regularly! Kudos to Lola’s Restaurant! Also an awesome view of Elkhart Lake, along with available patio dining!

Called for a reservation was told they could accommodate a party of two but we might have to eat outside said that was not our preference as it was dusk and cooling but would consider it. Arrived and was told they could not keep the reservation. Told them that was unacceptable that they could have called me back before we drove there and they said they could take us 45 minutes later.
Had a drink at the bar perused Unilocal reviews for the place and decided not to reward their stupidity in how they bungled our situation.
Menu looked good, lots of empty seats but I suspect they have a smaller kitchen capacity than seating capacity.

Terrific bar area with outstanding selection of scotch choices. Great view and atmosphere… amazing food. Bone in rib eye was delicious. Gracious, well trained staff that exhibited proper serving techniques for a semi-​formal restaurant. Will definitely go back.

Best scallops and lobster bisque I’ve come across.
I wasnt happy with my personal entrée whch was the prawn linguin pasta. There was just the most going on with it from mushrooms to peas. I ordered pasta not salad. Good size shrimp though. Feelings were mutual as well since another person I was with had it and didnt «finish» it. If i could redo my visit I would order scallops and bisque as my app and the pork chop as my entrée since it was cooked perfectly.
Other than that I also have to gripe about the crab cake. Experimental and terrible.
As for service it was damn slow and random. Some apps here and an entrée there. Made no sense at times since the restaurant was far from busy.

I only had a cocktail, so I cannot comment on the food. Attentive service from the bartender just before closing. I had a bourbon old fashioned, which was very good. (No muddled fruit :-(). Classy bar, nicely decorated, dimly lit.

I loved the fact that the chef did everything in his power to utilize the freshest of local ingredients, including from the resort garden. The prices were comparable to Ruth’s Criss Steakhouse or Morton’s The Steakhouse but the quality of the food was a notch higher in my opinion.

Methinks not for sure! Save your money and go elsewhere.
1. WAAAAY over the top peppyness from the wait staff (to the point that it comes off VERY condescending)
2. Crappy food being passed off as «gourmet»
3. 5-​star prices for 2-​star cuisine
So this place looks like a nice and almost sort of fancy place to enjoy your dinner while your’e in town for the weekend. But it really is just a bait & switch establishment that relies on external appearances and atmosphere to get them by the poor taste and prep of their cuisine.
Seriously, the bar and drinks were good. They have a nice seating area by the entrance where you can enjoy drinks and chat with your friends and family while you wait for a table. No complaints there.
The place looks nice, is comfortable, and pleasant to be in. No complaints here either.
Then things took a turn.
We were a group of 15 people. The waitress was one thing. We ordered several items and after the first two she gave us one excuse for why they were no longer available. The statement that she made: «it is not our fault that this happened, but it is not available» and others with attitude made us uncomfortable so we asked for another waitress. A new one came, only slighty better than the last. We decided to overlook it and moved on.
The food was crappy but it did not start out that way.
We ordered a bit of everything, the cheese plate, which was good served with candied walnuts and apricots. Very tasty.
Then some of us ordered steak, others ordered chicken, lobster, fish, pasta. So we put the kitchen to the test.
The steak I ordered medium, received it well done instead, I HATE to send food back, so I managed to saw my way through the layers of fat and burnt crust and swallowed it down with several glasses of whiskey which were the only saving grace for my meal.
The pasta was flavorless and overcooked. The fish was cold. The potatoes that came with one of the other dishes were undercooked and everyone on the big table had looks of disappointment throughout their whole meal. it was one thing after another, after another.
Against our better judgement we decided to order dessert and this was equally disappointing.
They must have made those cheesecake slices a few days earlier because it tasted like it had been forgotten in the back of the fridge a week prior and served to me that night. It tasted chalky, dry all disguised under a drizzle of raspberry sauce.
All in all, the place serves poor quality food. All I kept imagining while I was here was Chef Ramsey walking in and ripping the owners and chef to shreds.
Save your money and go to the less pretentious establishments nearby.

Great drinks, food and atmosphere! We made reservations for a Friday night and were seated right on time. We were not disappointed by our appetizers, salads and desert! We did want to sit outside and they said those tables were reserved although we saw several that did not actually have people sit there during the time we were there. Great place!

Great bar area. The flavored popcorn is addictive and goes great with just about anything. Wonderful array of Bourbon. Wine prices were reasonable. The perfect place to relax after a day on the lake or at the race track.

«Excellent meal, superb service, and memorable time. A gastronomical catch for the beginning of summer.»

Cozy and romantic dining experience. Call for reservations (you will get one, but just don’t come unannounced, they don’t like it).
Last year, I had the most incredible potato chestnut gnocchi here. Boyfriend and I had been talking about it all year. So in anticipation of this year’s stay, I checked the menu online. They no longer offered the vegetarian gnocchi. So, I called and asked them to make it for me for our selected reservation time. They did. This year it was not as phenomenal as I remembered, but still very good. A bit heavy on the oil.
We had Wendy as our server both last year and this year. She is friendly and on top of things but still provides a great sense of privacy, overall great service.
My only complaint about Lola’s is the lack of vegetarian options. They have one entrée, and were nice enough to make my request.

The most amazing scallops I have ever had! What a treat in WI! Great waitress, good wine, awesome reasonably priced food. Highly recommend for a relaxing evening.

This restaurant is indeed a part of the Osthoff Resort, but it deserves to be entered separately as many people go to eat but not to stay at the resort.
I went here during the off season, but the weekend crowd was still pretty strong. Cuisine is American, with plenty of meat on the menu, with a bit of French influence to the menu. The décor was pleasant, with plenty of space and seating. We were sat in a round half-​booth with a view of Elkhart Lake, which was quite nice.
The food overall was solid. We chose the Wisconsin cheese and meat plate, which was good. It went great with the wine (a blend). The wine list, by the way, is solid, and very reasonably priced. We also had the 5-​onion soup (tasty but a little salty). I had the special for the evening, which was a blue cheese bone-​in ribeye cooked medium rare. The steak was OK, but should have been cooked at very high temp for a short period of time — it ended up being very, very fatty, and none of it was charred off from the grilling. Also, I ended up scraping all of the blue cheese off — there was a LOT on the steak. The potatoes and asparagus were good. My better half had the pepper crusted filet Mignon, which was really tasty, as was the potato and fennel gratin.
For dessert we had the crème brûlée. The dessert choices are brought to you on a platter for you to see and choose from which was nice. Our server, Jessica, was nice and helpful. She gave us enough time to enjoy our meal at a relaxed pace, but didn’t let our table sit empty, which was nice.
Overall, not stunning, but a good choice to visit here for one night especially if you’re a guest at the Osthoff.