Citrus & Salt Boston — Restaurant in Boston

If I could give this restaurant 3.5 stars, I would. But let's just break it down...

1 star for service. Our waiter was in training and could have spoken up given it's a pretty raucous restaurant (even for a Tuesday night, it was bumping and almost every table was full). We had a hard time hearing him. That being said, the food came out very quickly, he got our order correct, and he was generally responsive to our needs.

1 star for ambiance. The design of this restaurant is cool. It's a colorful restaurant with a nice paint-splattered effect, and a good mix of low tops and high tops / bar stool-type tables. Everything from the bar, to the flow of the restaurant is thoughtfully laid out. Despite being pretty crowded and full, each table felt sufficiently separate from the other that we had a good circle to speak to each other in without shouting.

1 star for innovative menu. Citrus and Salt's biggest draw it their innovative menu items. Elote / Mexican street corn rolled in copious amounts of flamin' hot Cheetos dust? SIGN. ME. UP. Blue corn and agave syrup flavored biscuits? Genius.

0.5 stars for taste. Now this is probably where I care the most about restaurants -- after all, many of us go out to eat to enjoy things we wouldn't or couldn't cook at home! Still, many of the innovative items on the menu just...were solid. They weren't bad, they just weren't that good. The Mexican corn was definitely my favorite: sweet, fresh, juicy corn rolled in cheese and flamin' hot Cheetos dust. And...there the mindblowing deliciousness stopped. The duck flautas were good...but the duck was dry and as a result didn't go well with the dry on dry crunchy flauta wrap (although the pickled onions and cheese topping was good). The biscuits were interesting in theory, but the tops of the biscuits were over-salted with kosher salt, and the inside was fluffy, warm, but taste-wise only okay -- a bit bland. The beer-battered fish taco was a bit dry and under-salted, the pork belly was a tad over-salted although better than the fish taco, and the octopus was apparently overdone (I didn't try it myself). The guac was excellent -- fresh and perfectly seasoned with onion -- but the kettle chips were not to our liking: too dry and thick for good chip/guac ratio.

Overall, C&S is a good deal. We didn't get drinks but with 9-10 tapas for 4 women, we left more than full, had leftovers to boot, and only paid $32 post tax and tip each. I'd say this is a good restaurant to get drinks and a few bites at...but don't come expecting incredible, mind-blowing food. Everything will be good! Just not...

I never ever write reviews but felt like i couldn’t not write one after the horrible service from one server in particular.

They accidentally brought us our drinks twice, told us to just keep the second round, then doubled back and told us they were taking them away from us once we were already half way into drinking them. We just decided to keep them and pay for them because we would’ve ordered another round eventually anyways, no big deal.

Next, we ordered 6 shrimp cocktail and they brought us 12, so we obviously said something because that’s a massive price difference for shrimp and we weren’t very hungry anyways. They took them back and brought us just 6, which was totally fine with us!

At the end when we got the check, we asked for to go boxes and the waitress blatantly rolled her eyes at that request. When she came back with the box, i said “is it a problem that we asked to bring our leftovers home?” And she rolled her eyes again, took our card, and walked away without saying ANYTHING.

We paid, STILL TIPPED 20%, and were walking out, and the same waitress stood at the host desk rolling her eyes and scowling. I stopped and said to her “I’m sorry but what’s wrong here” and she laughed AND rolled her eyes and walked away.

They messed this meal up quite a bit and we were never once rude about it, we were honestly very polite and just rolling with the punches and simply just wanted to make sure we only were charged for what we ordered.

The worst part of this all was that i came with my parents, right after they helped me move into an apartment right above the restaurant. I was SO excited to have this restaurant below me and for it to be a regular spot that i could go downstairs to, which was another reason why we were being exceptionally nice to the staff despite the mix ups and horribly sour attitude of the waitress. Now, i don’t feel comfortable going back to the establishment in the building that i live in.

Also, a lot of the 5 start reviews are local micro influencers that they invite in for free food. I know this because multiple of my friends...

My experience was horrible at this establishment. I went to celebrate a friend’s birthday. We were a party of 8. The vibes was right until my entire party received their meals EXCEPT ME! No biggie right?! I’ll let the waitress know and she’ll make sure my food is delivered soon. NOT! I informed the waitress that my food didn’t come and asked her if it was not prepared yet, can I switch from the chicken and waffle taco to the fish taco. Her response was “the kitchen is closed.” I said that’s fine ma’am, but I never received my initial order. My entire party is eating and I’m here starving. The waitress proceeded to convey “the kitchen is closed”. I’m not very HANGRY because I waited all day to eat knowing I was going to brunch with friends. When I realized the waiter was unwilling to resolve the mishap, I flagged down the manager. Informed the manager of what transpired and asked that she please check on the status of my order. This resulted in a 20 minute investigation where I had to prove I ordered a meal, despite the waiter saying I didn’t. The waiter continued to express “ I placed an order for 5 chicken waffle tacos and 2 fish tacos. Everything that was ordered, came out, and the kitchen is closed.” Excuse me ma’am. You obviously took our order wrong, because there is 8 people present and you only accounted for 7 people. I did not come here to watch my friends eat. All in all, very frustrated at this point, 20 minutes later, I was offered 3 quick menu items to choose from. The waiter did not apologize for her mistake. The manager did not apologize either until a friend of the party demanded an apology. Very nice ambience, but after that experience, I will never return! When in this line of work, better customer service skills should be demonstrated. Although, when gratuity is automatically included, I guess customer service is not a priority. Very...