Element 47

This is the main restaurant of The Little Nell which is a five star and five diamond hotel!! We were very excited to visit during our holiday vacation in Aspen. We went there on Christmas day and fortunately we found a table without a reservation! The staff were very nice and service was very good. We ordered "america's best hot chocolate" and Truffle Fries! We liked the hot chocolate, it was also a wonderful presentation and really filling but not so sure if it was worth the $14. Their fries were really good! As a lover of condiments, believe me when I say the sauces are not needed with this one. The fries tasted great and we finished the large plate even though we were quite full. But again, a little steep on the price ($17) for fries. Overall, we liked it because we felt that we tried America's best hot chocolate.. price-wise though, not sure if it actually lived up to the title...

Innovative food beautifully prepared. I made a reservation for the dining room only to find out upon arrival that they were only seating on the patio by the pool. The seating was lovely in many ways but outdoors with the setting sun baking the table was not ideal for this kind of experience ( plus the loud antics of what seemed like spoiled guests demanding various things). The menu was set with a few choices. The choices were excellent and impressive. A notch above even ‘fancy’ fare these days. I had eggplant which was a work of art and tasted like a fine slice of meat. It looked scant on the plate but was wholly satisfying. I would have appreciated more information about the limited menu and venue for that time and place. But I’m glad I experienced the chef and cuisine.

Big on presentation, short on taste. For $115 3-course prix fixe, I was expecting more. We had two different appetizers — kampachi crudo and burrata. My feeling on raw fish is that it works well with soy and yuzu to bring out the taste. Watermelon sounds like an innovative combination but it being one of the sweetest fruits, overpowers the fish making it taste bland and underwhelming. The burrata comes with tomato, peaches and arugula pesto. Here it seems the chef is attempting to do a contemporary twist on the classic burrata and tomato salad. However, the arugula pesto without aged balsamic just doesn’t work for me. The result is another bland dish. The main courses of wagyu and lamb are fine. Quite tasty and very well prepared. The raspberry dessert is another disappointment. We saw it and thought it looked amazing. Eating it was another story. It feels like you are just eating different flavored jams of different consistencies combined into a pretty presentation. I have gone to restaurants where the food is amazing and the service not so good and you still want to go back hoping it was just an off night. This is the opposite. The ambiance of the restaurant is nice and the service is outstanding, it is the food that disappoints. It just appears the chef prioritized show over substance.

This place is simply stunning! The outside flower wall takes you to another place. This is the place to be in Aspen. It’s sheek, interesting, very well managed 😊 & the food is tasty!! It’s a must place to stop by even if for an appetizer. They make you feel like family here & the flowers make you feel as though you are dining in the garden of eden.

Amazing 🙌🏻✌🏻💛 I forgot the name of our server but he is the best server we had ever had ! he is very nice and attentive ( an older American gentleman ) we were here in aug 2019 for summer and mar 2021 for winter and he remembered us lol idk how with the time gap but he has a good memory aha 😁😁 awesome and good quality food 👏🏻 and it’s in one of the nicest hotels in aspen the little nell food is amazing - can’t say that enough aha 😄😄

It's really more 3.5 stars. American wagyu is my favorite variety of beef, A5 kobe seems more like beef flavored butter, so I was naturally excited that wagyu was so prominently featured. The service, wine selection, and atmosphere are great. Exactly what I wanted for an early Christmas dinner with my fiancee. Unfortunately the food was rather confusing. Perhaps it is because it was a limited menu because of Covid-19 however the direction of the dishes were incoherent. Almost every component was good on its own, but they didn't work well together. Greetings We were served with an amuse bouche of butternut squash and apple jam, which was a great way to start. It opened up the palate and made us excited for dinner. The Parker house rolls with flaky salt was good, but my first hint that perhaps this menu will be too salty. Firsts We both opted for the Wagyu tartare. It was great, until you add the Parmesan crisp which completely over powers everything. I wasn't sure of the purpose, especially the side basket of extra crisps. Seconds The Wagyu short rib is an odd mix of sweet sauce, (overly) salty vegetables, and savory short rib and spatzle. I wouldn't fault this except none of them paired well together and the trio was cacophonous. The duck confit gnocchi was good, but the sauce was salty to the point where I wonder if it isn't the same sauce as previous night's sauce that just kept simmering. Mains The dry aged Rohan duck with apple, spinach, and carrots was good with a sweeter than I would have preferred puree accompaniment, but perhaps the cooking method needs to be altered because there was a smell of wild game before you taste it. If you could get past that then it was a pleasant dish. The Emma farms Wagyu was paired with a confusing pomme pont neuf (really, a single potato made rectangular by cutting the sides off? That's food prep, not something that's served). The Maitake mushrooms were very good as were the roasted vegetables, but this was all paired with an again overly salted sauce (demi-glace?). This was honestly hard to figure out. Desserts The chocolate+hazelnut was very good and easily my favorite course. The lemon meringue again was also good, but why was it so huge? A quarter slice of an 8" tart is more than enough, why would you serve half a tart? Mignardise OK this ruined what I thought were great desserts. A white chocolate chip with pistachio, dark chocolate, and black cherry served on a bed of powdered sugar. Why? This was unpleasantly sweet, very tart, and nutty in a pleasant way but one right does not fix the bite. I don't know if the quality issue is because of Covid. This restaurant clearly has potential, but tonight it lacked direction.