John S.
Yelp
Our server Stephen was outstanding, and the bartender mixes a perfect martini. Other than that, our meal at Marrow was a culinary trainwreck.
In the plates we sampled, the ingredients were fresh and good quality and the presentation was adequate. However, the cooking and preparation of all but two dishes was almost comically inept. Granted, we were dining early on a Tuesday, so maybe the kitchen wasn't fielding its A (or even B) team. But it felt like we were being served plate after plate that no one in the restaurant had ever tasted themselves.
The two plates that worked: the foie gras custard, though it was very heavy on the quince paste (apparently in response to diner complaints about the uni's fishy taste), and the bucatini, a simple pasta dish.
The rest was, frankly, inedible. The lowlights:
The "lion's mane meatballs" weren't meatballs at all, but bland blobs of mushroom paste missing any hint of lion's mane and garnished with what we were told by the waiter was walnuts, and by the manager chickpeas, but which tasted and felt like walnut shells (my date and I almost cracked our teeth on them).
You'd think a restaurant named Marrow would put some effort into a plate called "marrow bones" -- at least, that's what I was hoping for. What I got was a single section of bone with a dollop of lukewarm, unseasoned, ungarnished marrow piled with cold toppings that would have been more at home on a ballpark hotdog (though the beef tongue pastrami was tasty). It wasn't so much inedible as a dish you lost all interest in eating after the first couple of bites -- a theme for our meal.
I can't conclude this review without mentioning Marrow's utter lack of ambiance. I'm all for minimalism, but this space is so soulless and antiseptic it almost feels hostile. I've been in CDC decontamination chambers that were more welcoming.
All in all, a disastrous evening, the more quickly forgotten the better.
