Fox & The Knife — Restaurant in Boston

My fiancée and I are huge foodies and take immense joy in trying many of the best restaurants throughout the Greater Boston area. So on the occasion of my soon to be brother-in-law’s big 40 - we wanted to go somewhere particularly special. We had read a lot of fabulous reviews about Fox and the Knife and decided to give it a shot!

Sadly, we all could not have been more disappointed. First of all, our reservation was at 6:15 PM and we did not leave the restaurant until 9:15 PM, a full 3 hours later (and it wasn’t because we were talking and drinking like we’d be there until the sun came up). Everything simply took FOREVER! We didn’t get served food of any kind after we ordered with our waiter until after 30 minutes of waiting. After appetizers had finished, it took another 45 minutes before main courses were served.

We never had a server or owner make any kind of apology for the length of time everything was taking. For a restaurant created by a James Beard Award winning chef, this kind of service was incredible disappointing.

Also, at the start of the meal, we ordered drinks. My future brother-in-law who was celebrating a particularly special birthday decided to order one of his favorites: an extra dirty martini. Nowhere on the Fox and the Knife website does it say that the restaurant only has a Cordial Liquor License meaning that every shot of hard liquor in a drink requires two shots of sugar be added. Upon ordering the martini, my future brother-in-law was informed of this which led to his deciding not to order the drink given that a ton of added sugar would have defeated the purpose of an olive forward drink. If there had been transparency about this, we would have chosen a different restaurant with a full liquor license for such a special birthday.

Since the martini was now a no go, my future brother-in-law decided to order a glass of Pinot Grigio instead. Another epic failure! The glass that arrived was essentially water as we learned later that the opened bottle had fallen down into an ice bucket, become diluted, and was therefore undrinkable. While the Fox and the Knife staff did apologize for this and brought a flesh glass of a different wine, we couldn’t believe that this was the extent of their attempt at any service recovery. They could have brought champagne, surprised us with an extra appetizer, simply not charged for the new glass of wine - lots of possibilities here! Instead, they did nothing!

In terms of the food, most of our main courses were cold. One of the pasta dishes (bolognese) had congealed together like a leftover that had been left out for too long. We never even got asked how the food was, something that seems obvious in the world of hospitality. One of the main dishes (there were 5 of us) also took 5 minutes longer to arrive to the table than the rest of the dishes, adding to the “nothing is going right here” experience.

I also couldn’t believe that no one acknowledged us as we exited the restaurant with a simple “thanks for coming in,” or that the server never took the time to come back by to wish my future brother-in-law a happy birthday. Again, these are the little things I’d expect from a restaurant with the reputation / acclaim that this place has.

I sincerely hope that this was simply an off night. Had any service recovery been done - even taking off payment for a birthday dessert - we likely would give it another shot. At this point, we will think long and hard before considering a return.

Please proceed with immense caution and consider Sarma, Oleana, Grill 23, or a host of other fantastic restaurants in Boston before choosing this one to celebrate a special event in a...

This review is prefaced with the unfortunate angle that Google has no 1/2 stars so this is how I review: 1, why did I even feel the need to write this? - 2, You need to know something was wrong but something made up for it - 3, It was fine, not bad, but not great. That's definitely ok. - 4, I really liked it - this was solid and things rated like this should be "the" standard of service - 5, "Damn, am I in heaven? Who came up with this? Is there a deity behind the line?"

First and foremost, the food was really great. I didn't have to change my pants or anything, but if i did, the Fern + Moss candles in the bathroom would've made that recovery delightful.

First, Focaccia - that taleggio has just the right amount of salt married to warm crispy outside bread that was screaming if-i-made-you-a-pizza-i-could-die GOOD. I started noticing stark differences in how chef will integrate a really good olive oil and this was no exception - tasty, crunchy, cheesy - delicious. everything you want from a starter.

Broccoli Caesar - why tf did I never think of this? the stem shavings alone add a texture to this that really amps the whole dish - very heavy on the citrus but looking to copy-cat it personally. The acidity was high though, so if you're not into tart or lemon, I would steer clear. Great crunch factor but not super dressy. I absolutely hate salads that are doused and limp and this really bolstered flavor and texture. I understand why people love it

Tagliatelle Bolognese - Chef really demonstrates an wizardry of pasta with this dish. Unfortunatley, this was our "least favorite dish" out of a group of exceptional dishes. The boar was married to the noodles throughout - an absolute marvel of good pasta an d sauce , but...seasoning needed! I can't blame the protein as I've had boar in similar dishes before but it fell a bit short, sorry to say. I appreciated not over-saucing the dish but I think the lean-ness of the protein got the better of the end-result

Milanese Di Maiale - Ok....not fair, you win Karen... I'm not quite sure how exactly they get that much flavor into such a thin breading but g*ddamn...I'm Polish...and I've been all over Germany as well but if I said that was the best breaded cutlet-of-whatever I've had, I could stand by saying that. Hard crisp outside, cool salad to meet that hot crisp - beautiful flavor melody that I'm thinking about a week later. Get this. For real.

I usually dont go too far into desserts because its very subjective in that realm and honestly, adding sugar in layers like that isn't even fair.

Service was top notch from the door to the table. I hate to call this out, but it was extremely odd to me (having several years behind the belt in service) that a server would be pulled whilst serving multiple tables. TBH it felt weird to be told multiple times that someone else would be finishing service bc "things were slow" when every table was filled? Outside of that, outstanding attention to every detail. It was clear that the staff was well-trained outside of what seemed to be a FOH anomaly.

TLDR; Go here, eat bread and pasta, enjoy very italian drinks and leave happy....

Hello. Happy New Year. After a thirteen-hour workday, my fiance and I rushed home. We finally had a moment to celebrate his birthday—the big 40. Which is actually on 12/31; it sometimes gets overshadowed by the NYE celebration. My job was to find a hip, fun spot to explore and share with our friends. We both have twenty-plus years of background in the restaurant industry. Let's keep in mind I look young. Lol. That is not the case. It's just good skin. We have worked from Miami to NYC, from dive bars to fine-dining 5-star restaurants. We have experienced it all. Let's get to our dining experience. We were greeted by a kind, sweet host who pleasantly knew I was Raven; she said hello and wished my fiance a happy birthday. We all smiled, and the experience was off to a great start. She walked us to our table, which was at table 44. Great table. Thank you. 🥰 We sat, and when booking this table, I was offered to buy drinks at the start of the experience before we even landed, which I should have! We were sitting, and it took way over 1:30 to be greeted. A sweet note from the owner and chef said we greatly appreciated the effort it took. Thankfully, that perked us up for the moment. Our waitperson, who we believe was not feeling 100%, was an entirely different experience. While we have empathy and understand this occurs, we still want our guests to have that 5-star experience the first time every time. We saw it wasn't that busy. We also saw many servers and bussers helping out if need be, which we believe in helping each other. The team is there to support each other. We will never know why she didn't ask for help. Or the server never wished him a Happy Birthday. It would have been a nice touch. Again, guest services. If you want to upsell your check, this is one way. Amazing service. Being friendly. Even when you do not want to be, we get it. We have been there. But money speaks. These notes were in my reservation. The food was incredible. The food was the star of the show. We ordered a bunch of stuff. Now our dirty dishes sat in front of us for 5 minutes. No good. We were sad only for a moment. Remember that this is our first interaction since 5 am when we both got ready for our long work day. We are tired. We finished with the tort dessert, which came with two ✌️🏽 candles. Again, she did not wish him a Happy Birthday. Sitting down in the desert would have been a perfect time to say it. She was reluctant. 🤷🏽‍♀️ My gingerbread man 👨🏻‍🦰 still had a great time. It would have been better 👍🏼 if the service was better. We still tipped more than 20% because the food was terrific, and we are in the industry. People got bills. We get it. Thank you again for the experience. We will recommend and Come back again. Please take my advice. Happy New Year. Oh, and we enjoyed the Non-Alcoholic drinks. They were so yummy. I'm a...