Dominic Ayazo
Google
Three Stars ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️
Here’s why:
- First, the most important thing, the food! Kudos to the chef! We had the crab cake, the chicken and the scallops. Everything was on point, balanced and delicious!
- Second, the atmosphere. Absolutely beautiful with the view of the sunset on the Hudson. Not too noisy and really nice.
- Now, the bad. In terms of cocktails. Not good. Ordered a Lavender Lane, not good, not good at all. So I had to return it, that got ugly, but I’ll get into that later. I decided it to replace it with the restaurant’s version of the Aperol Sprits. Not really good, just a mere meh…
I believe that the bartenders could have an improvement by going back to the basics. Just had to see how they shook their drinks to realize their lack of essential knowledge. They were just mixing them with ice, instead of using the right technique to actually break the ice. And also, the lack of balance on the drinks. Really one was bad and the other was bland.
Lastly, the ugly. The service started normal. The restaurant was a little busy so we could understand a little delay, and that we got, at the beginning. We got our drinks after a while, and to be fair, the beer and the wine were good. But my cocktails were definitely not. So when I returned the cocktail, the Lavender Lane, we all felt an attitude from the waiter when I ordered a different drink and he said “but do you like the Aperol Sprits”, implying that I didn’t know what I was ordering, or that I couldn’t distinguish a good drink from a bad one…
Anyways, we tried to don’t put too much attention to it, but then it seemed strange that when we got our drinks the waiter didn’t took our food order, even when the menus were put on the side of the table, and that took another unnecessary waiting time.
I have to say that the bussers and the food runners were checking on us constantly and were very polite and attentive as expected. So when my wife’s beer was almost finished, we told one of them to help us get a new one, then after five minutes another one, 10 minutes later the waiter (previously nowhere to be seen) finally showed up with an Aperol, not the beer. (Also, it looked totally different to the one I was initially given, to show the inconsistency at the bar). So five minutes later, we got our beer.
By the way, the busboy who poured it, left all the gas in the liquid, so additional training may be required on that end…
Anyways, we continued our evening, ordered another glass of wine, that one never came, so our appetite for dessert was gone, considering the waiting times.
I saw a lady working close by, whom turned out to be the manager at the moment, and asked her for the check (also, take in account that 10 mins earlier I asked my waiter for it). So gave her my card and she brought the check to sign. It turned out I was charged for THREE beers instead of two. So I had to have someone call her to fix it. By that point I had lost any hopes with the waiter. And so she did, she apologized and fixed it.
As I was calculating the tip, the waiter came and tried to apologize, but used an overfamiliar attitude, even called me “hermano” which is “bro” in Spanish which I consider completely inappropriate for fine dining.
So when I signed, I thank the manager, the bussers, and the chef. And due to the last interaction, I put to the waiter a reminder to don’t call customers “hermanos”. And finally, left.
I took my time to enjoy the beautiful sunset, and as I was leaving, the waiter approached me and with a fake apology, approached the last incident, he, full of sarcasm, said “I’m sorry for offending you by using the word hermano, I didn’t know that it was such a bad word”. I replied “I wish it was a sincere apology” and left.
So I believe that the inefficiency and lack of self awareness are things to work in the future. The service deserved zero stars‼️ but thanks to the quality of the food, and the positive attitude of the manager, host, food runners and bussers, I give the restaurant 4 stars, not for the experience that I had, but rather the potential that I see…