Mother Anna's Medfield, Massachusetts — Restaurant in Boston

As visitors of Boston (2 couples) we made an attempt to hit all of the hotspots for drinks and food. As expected we ran into some COVID restrictions but that was to be expected since the city had only opened back up a few weeks ago. We heard that Mother Anna's was a good place to have dinner so we made reservations. Upon being seated at our table we were greeted and our server Tiago took our drink order. 40 minutes later we were still waiting on our drinks and our waters had been empty for at least 20 of this minutes. Tiago then told us he has on his second day on the job. He also told us that they were really busy, which I guess was an excuse for his poor service. It was a SATURDAY NIGHT IN BOSTON, the management should prepare for it to be busy and not have their wait staff making excuses. I'll spare you all of the details of our experience but tell you that our drinks were wrong, the food was subpar and Tiago had no skills for being a waiter, none. His incompetence was astounding. We had to flag down other staff to get our waiter back to our table. Then we went to pay and gave him specific instructions on how to split the bill. He wrote notes down so he wouldn't mess it up. He screwed it up and split it up completely wrong. This was not a good experience. There was a young man with a high pitched voice that was filling waters. He was the nicest guy and should be promoted. Tiago should be promoted to customer.

For the owner/manager: Tiago was a poor hire. I understand he was new but it doesn’t excuse that level of incompetence. The guy left mid-order to check on someone else’s food and messed up everything we asked him. He lacked food service common sense. Even the table behind us was raising their voice in frustration with Tiago. Not sure whether I blame him for the incompetence or your poor management and lack of training. For a $200 dinner I’ve had better service at McDonald’s (I’m not kidding). To all interested in going to eat at this restaurant, heed the lower rated reviews. There are a lot better places to...

Let me start by saying the house dressing for the salad was very GOOD. Everything else... BAD. Where to even begin. We arrived to the restaurant after having made a reservation, and was told that we were not on the list. TOTAL LIES. Red flag to start with. They seated us nevertheless, which is good, but the restaurant was EMPTY. We wish they hadn't. We sat right below a fish tank. It was ALSO EMPTY. Once seated, the service was good and the drinks arrived fast. Thank god because we needed them to get through the meal. When our salads arrived, we noticed an ABUNDANCE of LARGE gnats on the table behind us. We were shocked. Soon the gnats migrated to our table, getting in our face as we ate. It made it hard to enjoy the salad, which had a GREAT house dressing (the only reason we are giving two stars to this establishment). While we were being smothered by gnats, our entrées came. Where. to. begin. The chicken parm was SOGGY and SAD. We don't even know what was under the sauce. There was no parmesan or noddles, what the heck?? It's called chicken PARM for a reason. Next, the gnocchi juliana. Two of us got it: one of us almost vomited at the table. At the same time, an operatic score began playing. It was an omen. Soon the other one had to run to the restroom...you can guess what happened next. Meanwhile the number of gnats were multiplying. One would not leave the bread basket, one drowned itself in the sangria (which was pretty alright), and the other feasted on our entrées. At 6pm on the dot, intimate lighting blanketed the establishment...which we took as a sign to leave. To summarize, the only good things about this restaurant was the house dressing, sangria (pre-gnat), and the lovely server....

I am sorry to have to write this review, but this was a horrible experience. It was my husband's special birthday, and my sister in law paid for our dinner remotely. The small details: Open Table said the restaurant had canceled our reservations, which I had made. The food came slowly and was just OK: garlic bread partially burnt, mozzarella just OK. The main dishes were fine. The tiramisu tasted like Boston Cream pie ( no coffee taste), and the cannoli was meh. The best thing about the meal was the server, who was lovely. Also, I asked to see the bill to check that everything was OK, and they said, "Don't worry, it's taken care of." But the worst thing that happened was the food poisoning. Within three hours of arriving home, all three of us were down with diarrhea and vomiting. We all have pretty strong stomachs, so this was unusual. The next morning, I called the restaurant to speak with the manager. I told him of our situation, and instead of saying, " I am SO sorry, what can we do," he argued with me and said we couldn't possibly have had food poisoning because it takes 24 hours to develop ( it doesn't--I looked it up)." I won't go into it at length, but let's just say the customer was always wrong, he wouldn't refund even a part of the bill, and he had the nerve to offer us a $50 gift certificate ( as if!), which we will never use. Perhaps Mother Anna's doesn't need the business--a lot of tourists go there, one and done--but after years of eating at restaurants and a year of supporting our local businesses by doing takeout during the pandemic, this is by far the worst...