Magdalena, A Maryland Bistro — Restaurant in Baltimore

I recently dined at Magdalena’s-the restaurant affiliated with the Ivy Hotel Baltimore. At the outset, let me state that I had heard nothing but fantastic things about the hotel and restaurant. In fact, I had been recommending the restaurant to friends because of what I had heard about how phenomenal the food and service were. Well, let me tell you, my first visit to the restaurant will be my last. I honestly felt like I was placed back in time to 1960’s Alabama or any where in the 1960’s south. The evening started out great. We were met by a very vibrant and knowledgeable waitress by the name of Emma. Emma recommended our cocktails, starters and dinner entrees. We ordered a bottle of wine from the extensive wine list. However, because the Sommelier was reportedly busy-waiting other tables I took a chance and ordered a Sancerre from a region of France with which I was familiar. However, the wine was not to my liking. While waiting on the wine however, we ordered the oysters and beets as a second appetizer. Because it took so long for the beets to be served I had to ask the manager why the beet order was taking to long. I even asked the waitress. I’m assuming because I inquired about where our food was made the staff especially Emma the waitress turn. At this point the evening took a nose dive. About 15 minutes after the inquiry was made about the beets, the dish was finally brought to the table. So now we have a refrigerated beet dish which should not have taken as long as it did for us to be served. About 30-40 minutes later, our entrees were brought to the table. It is important to note that the perceived friendly waitress Emma was no longer serving our table. We were now tossed into a restaurant patron’s nightmare. The manager was now struggling to open the order bottle of wine and the waitress was waiting on every other patron in the small room but us. After the long wait between the first appetizer and beets the entrees finally arrived. Both entrees were delicious. It is improtant to note, no one came to the table until we were just about finished with our entrees. To our surprise the sommelier finally came to the table to explain that the wine we ordered was in fact not the wine I was expecting and offered several other bottles. However they were declined because we had finished our entrees. The Sommelier, was the savior of the evening. He served us cheeses and a dessert wine that made up for the wine chosen to accompany the entrees. We literallly sat another 30 or more minutes before we just decided to leave. But before leaving we wanted to make certain the manager was aware of our awful experience. However talking to the Manager made the entire evening even worse. The bottom line is after traveling 1 hour and 15 minutes to visit this establishment we will never recommend or revisit this establishment. My birthday celebration was the most horrific dining experience I...

Upscale and High End restaurant located within the Ivy Hotel in Baltimore. Reservation was for 7:30 pm on a Saturday night. Arrived at 6:45 to have drinks at the bar. Restaurant was quiet except for one large group and a few tables. bar only had two people seated. bartender seemed extremely stressed and overwhelmed as he did not make eye contact or greet us when we sat down. Took over 15 minutes for him to acknowledge our prescence and that was only to slide us a menu. we were a group of four and chose our cocktails from the menu. we had to wait another 15 minutes to place our order because once again we were being ignored by the bartender who now seemed to have an attitude. Once we did place our orders he seemed genuinely annoyed at our requests; a lemon martini from their menu, an extra dirty martini with olives, a manhatten, and a dirty martini with blue cheese olives extra shaken. Thats it, nothing too complicated. It took him forever to make our drinks and when he did? the martinis and the manhatten were served in apertif glasses because the martini glasses and rocks glasses were dirty. What?!? He never looked us in the eye and was generally just plain rude. At one point he did receive some clean martini glasses and was drying them. My friend kindly asked if she could have some water whenever he got a moment. he never looked up, simply said out loud "You will need to wait a minute".. ummmm... We were finally shown to our table and met our server who was nice. Service in the dinig area was ok, not great but fine. Food was excellent but not much different then many oter high end restaurants downtown. Our drinks from the bar took forever to come for the entire night; assumingly because of their awful bartender. Then we got the bil... Holy crud! I am sorry but I have eaten at Charleston, Ouzo Bay, and The Bygone whach are all considered very expensive restaurants in baltimore. This bill surpassed amny I ahve gotten at those restaurants and the food was not anything better. This restaurant, while a beautiful space and great potential, is incredibly overpriced and the service at the bar is appalling. The bartender needs to be re-trained or removed immediately and review of their manu is in order. Will not be going back and would...

Our experience at Magdalena was mixed. We arrived on time for our reservation and were seated immediately and they offered to check our coats on the way to the table. We were seated in a smaller room down the hall from the main dining room. In that room was one large party who were finishing up with their entrees when we arrived and one couple. The large party had two children with them around age 8. The whole party was loud, we had to nearly shout to hear each other and I could barely hear the waitress over the noise they were making. At times the children were jumping on the booth, neither were wearing shoes, and they had an ipad that they were playing games on and shouting about their successes and failures. To say this ruined our experience is an understatement. Our waitress was very sweet and we enjoyed her immensely. The rest of the service was amazing. The couple of drinks we ordered were really good. We ordered the ribeye for two only to be told a few minutes later that they were out of it. We got the scallops and the duck entrees instead. The duck was easily one of the best duck dishes I've ever had. It was salty, crispy, and surrounded in a slightly sweet sauce that paired very well. We ordered desserts, the banana boat and turnovers were a highlight, I can't recommend the sticky toffee pudding, it was dry and overly sweet, overall it was okay. We were finishing up dessert as the large party left. So we didn't get to enjoy the quiet very long. Restaurants like this should not allow children and the large party was loud on their own kids or no kids should have been seated in this room by themselves. The ambiance in the rest of the restaurant was pleasant and had a really nice buzz about the dining room. I am not sure if we will come back, the food was good but I would hate to spend ~$100 per person to have to shout at each other as if we were at a...