The Buttonwood — Restaurant in Baltimore

Really wanted to like this place but it was mid. The decor was beautiful, full of greenery and antique pieces - it's beautiful. We were admiring all the interior design choices. The music playing overhead sounded like a rendition of "chill lofi beats to study to" playlist, but it was fine. The washroom was not done, and the lock on the door was covered in masking tape and didn't work - luckily we were the only ones there so i didn't have to worry about being walked in on. My partner and I ordered the Tandoori Chicken Sandwich & the Porc Bokit for lunch. They were both dry as hell; the former being slightly burnt and the latter having basically no slaw and much substance. Really though, the pièce de resistance was the fact that both our fries that came with the sandwiches were literally McDonald's fries. I have spent my entire life growing up on those fries and ordering them at any chance I can get and the minute I saw those uniformly narrow cut, and pale-coloured fries I knew they were from McDs. As soon as we tasted them, we both had no doubt in our minds that they had served us reheated McDonald's fries (& during the boycott too!) Incredibly disappointing, and just aggressively mid. It is a shame that such a beautiful interior is being wasted on terrible and lousy food serviced by someone who doesn't seem to care all that much about professionalism and thus vaping inside the actual establishment. He was nice tho. Also, the actual prices were 10% more than they were listed...

I really wanted to like this place, but the food was truly pretty bad when I went in for lunch. Both me and my partners sandwiches were incredibly dry to the point that they were hard to finish (tandoori chicken sandwich and bokit, respectively). The tandoori chicken sandwich was either overcooked or cooked in old oil based on the burnt taste in some bites and there was essentially no slaw on the bokit. We were the only people in the restaurant and the waiter had to come back to us three times to ask my partner what else she wanted, because they ended up being out of what she ordered. The guy was also vaping, but that’s beside the point. And not to sound conspiratorial, but I think the fries we were served were literally McDonald’s fries. McDonald’s fries are extremely distinctive and these looked and tasted just like them. These potentially conspiratorial thoughts were only bolstered by the fact that the fries came out lukewarm, definitely not the temperature of fries that had come out of a fryer immediately before. These fries could just be extremely close duplicates of the McDonald’s fries, but our fries also look different than many of the other pictures that people have posted in their reviews. I wanted to like this place, the quality of the food (for the sandwiches, at least) was quite poor. I definitely will not...

Wow, wow, wow! A beautiful restaurant with a unique aesthetic, cheery service and, most importantly, the food was truly outstanding.

It has a really striking interior with cocoon-like wicker chairs and the restaurant's namesake buttonwood tree in the center, next to the Asian-themed bar. Our bartender / server was delightful and right on top of it.

We had the butter flutes with three types of bread, which was interesting and fun. I liked the tomato butter the best, something cheesy in it. The salt and pepper Taiwanese chicken was my favorite, very light breading, perfect herbal seasoning, and very tender meat. We split the katsu curry as a main, which was robust and the chicken was, again, perfect. (it was a double chicken night, I guess.) Finally, the lavender earl grey crème brulee was really lovely, the flavors blended perfectly.

Speaking of a great blend of flavors, we highly enjoyed the Tipperary cocktail, which involved yellow chartreuse and Jameson whiskey - super smooth!

Oh, and the pricing was extremely reasonable. I felt like I was dining in a great restaurant and paying 2021 prices.

We can't wait to come back - a night to remember! I'm surprised this place isn't packed every...