I'd give this place 3.5 stars, but since Yelp only likes whole numbers, The Botanist gets 3 stars. There was great décor, a hip atmosphere, and great cocktails, but the food and service left a lot to be desired. There were 4 of us there and when we got there we were told we couldn't get a table until 7:45pm (it was about 6:50pm), so we opted to hang out in the bar while waiting for our table. We enjoyed mulled wine and live music (the girl playing the guitar on Dec 7th was amazing) in the bar. At 7:45pm we asked about our table and were told it would just be another 5-10 minutes. Well we didn't actually get seated until 8:30pm.
When we finally got seated, our server came over and took our drink orders but then disappeared for 15 minutes. We literally flagged down another server to ask questions about the menu and tried to ask him to take our order because we were starving, but she finally arrived back. We all got the 3-course menu and started off with the curry cauliflower soup and it was great, but it literally took 20 minutes to arrive. It's just soup, so we had no idea why it took so long. For my main I got the baked cod and it was mediocre at best.....dry, no flavor, just not good. For dessert I got the Bakewell tart at the recommendation of our server and it was dry and not great.
I'd go back to the bar for a cocktail, but the food and service aren't worth the wait at all. read more