The first thing to note is that the 2 star reflects my view of the restaurant given it's posturing…read moreitself in the market as a gourmet, upscale restaurant, as evidenced by relatively high prices for relatively small portions.
The restaurants ambiance has a soft, intimate feel to it, but neither the chairs nor tables have the element of class one would expect. In fact, the perimeter of the seating area has wooden benches which make sitting comfortably relative to the table a trick. Meanwhile, the actual chairs reminded me more of modern living room chairs as opposed to dining chairs.
As for the food, we found the two main courses rather tasty:one being a steak kabob and the other a lamb kabob. I have had the lamb kabob on another occasion and both times it was cooked so the lamb was juicy and tender: rather delicious. However, the lamb kabob only came with one skewer of meat. On the other hand, the wagyu beef kabob was very tasty in it's own right and this was two skewers worth. I had trouble squaring that discrepancy in my head - so be it.
As an appetizer, we shared the calamari dish. I am used to large plates of breaded, fried calamari cooked to perfection from my days eating at Italian restaurants in New York. This appetizer came in a small cup, which appeared to be an 8 ounce size (the cup was fancy and black, consistent with the image they are trying to project). The calamari dish was good, but not anything special.
Thus, without considering that this restaurant markets itself as, a high end , gourmet restaurant, I would rate the food portion of the review a 4 star. However, that must be adjusted to reflect the food preparation relative to marketed expectation and that knocks it down to a marginal 4, at best, probably a 3 in my book.
The real killer was the service. I will say it was both pleasant and polite. However, this is the type of restaurant that is marketed to appeal to the romantic dinner crowd with high end expectations: the professionalism of the service fell far short. To begin with, the host and waitress sat us at a table directly next to another couple. Note that I had made a reservation for 7. When we arrived there were only three tables occupied. However, we were sat directly next to another couple even though we could have been sat another two tables away for far greater privacy and a more romantic experience. Then the waitress exhibited zero personality throughout the evening. In addition, she came over while we were still eating our main courses and asked if we wanted the dessert menus, even though the restaurant would be open for another hour. All in all, I feel that the server was a nice person, but was obviously not very experienced and added nothing to the experience - not what one expects in a place that is marketing itself as upscale. I had a restaurant business and used slow times as an opportunity to observe and teach. I noticed nobody making such an effort in a situation that called for it: a big oversight and lost opportunity for three parties: the server because they are not being assited to grow, the patron because the service impacts the consumers overall quality of the experience and the owner for the obvious reason that it impacts business long-term. I call it the win-win-win formula and this restaurant would benefit from applying this concept to training the wait staff so they are at the patrons expectation level.
In summary, if this were a casual restaurant I would rate it a 3, but because of how the business is slotting itself into the market with it's pricing, portion sizes, ambiance and menu presentation - I believe it only merits a 2 star review in that particular market segment. I do not believe you will be disappointed with the overall experience, but neither time have I left their feeling wowed, and both times I left feeling that the experience did not meet the expectation for the cost nor for the intimate, romantic feel they want to project as providing
