Ristorante Saraceno - Boston — Restaurant in Boston

I am not usually one to publicly call out a business on terrible service, but in this case, it is entirely warranted...

We had a reservation at Saraceno for 7:00pm, which we arrived for slightly late (but still within reason - 7:10pm). Upon arrival, we went to enter the restaurant; I paused for a non-hyperbolic 3 seconds in the doorway to wait and let my friends in. At this point an older gentleman working at the restaurant felt it was his place to PUT HIS HANDS ON ME and PUSH ME OUT OF THE DOOR, saying only "Don't stand in the doorway." This should have been my cue to leave immediately and tell everyone waiting outside to not bother giving this place their money.

Immediately following this unnecessary contact, the hostess asked if we had a reservation, to which we replied that we did; we then were made to stand outside for 40 minutes, while she allowed two other groups in that said they had reservations for 8:15, and were early. She also made no apologies for her lack of assistance, nor did she provide any rationale for letting in reservations that were for an hour after ours before us; her only explanation was, "I just do what he tells me"...perhaps she was speaking about Mr. Handsy inside. Insane. Once we were seated, at just before 8pm, it took about 15 minutes before anyone came to our table to greet/acknowledge us; most of the busing staff looked a little stressed, and the server was in no hurry to provide us with service.

Keeping with the lackluster experience, it took approximately 90 MINUTES from the time we were seated to get food and drinks to the table, during which not a single person approached us to refill waters or even give an explanation for the extreme delay in service. I actually had to flag someone down to get a water refill, and to replace our wine glasses that had food on them... Food finally hit the table at 9:25pm, at which time we had to rush to eat and get down to the road for an event at 10pm. Literally the only thing our server did with any haste was take our money.

In conclusion - average food with a deplorable service experience attached to it. Saraceno will never again get my money, and I do sincerely implore people to look elsewhere for an enjoyable Italian dining experience; with the slew of alternative options within walking distance, you will be doing...

Let me get straight to the point, Saraceno is a tourist trap in every sense. My family and I have been eating in the north end all our lives and this was hands down the worst dining experience we’ve ever had.

I ordered a carbonara dish that was nothing more than buttered spaghetti with soft bacon and cheese. For our 8 year old, we asked if they could do a simple spaghetti and meatballs to which they said “absolutely, is two meatballs ok for him.” We said yes. His dish came out without sauce, and the meatballs tasted like wet breadcrumbs. It was inedible. We asked for sauce, they brought a small dish with some sauce, we asked for another given the first barely covered the meatballs and no one ever came back.

Next, came the biggest surprise of all. We got the check and they charged us $40 for the spaghetti and meatballs, the most expensive entree out of the three. The bill was handwritten and all of the entree prices were increased significantly, up to $30. Pictures from their website are below of each entree we ordered and what should have been the correct price. To top things off, they wait until the check is dropped to say paying with a card is an extra $10. Nowhere does it state paying with a card incurs such a fee. What they are doing is criminal.

When asked about the spaghetti and how it could be more expensive than a shrimp carbonara and a ravioli with Bolognese, the waiter told us that the plain spaghetti was $20 and each meatball was $10. Of course, we questioned how they could charge that for a simple kids spaghetti dish which he flat out lied and tried to say he told us.

From what we could see in the dining room, several other tables were having similar issues with their checks so it seems these issues were by no means isolated.

There are plenty of other places to go to in the North End that treat their customers better, serve better food and don’t play games with their checks. Do yourself a favor and stay far, far away. I’m not one to write reviews but this place was so horrendous, people need to know so they don’t have a similar experience and get robbed...

ZERO STARS.

You should be ashamed of yourselves for the appalling customer service. Even if the food was superb, which it wasnt, it could not make right the service.

We were a group of 4 adults and two children.

The children's pasta came out first, well before a single appetizer. The children were finished eating long before an appetizer even hit the table. We waited at least 1hour for an appetizer and 1.5 hours for our mains.

At one point calamari was brought to the table before any of the food that we ordered was, as an apology for the delay.

We are all the way here from Canada visiting with some friends who live in Boston. Unfortunately, I am on a very restricted diet due to health problems so was unable to eat the bread or any of the appetizers. I ordered a Caperese salad which my pronunciation of was very quickly corrected. So sorry, I'm Greek not Italian. My simple salad consisting of tomato slices (which were extremely under ripe and hard to cut through with a knife) and mozzarella slices (which were very sad for a $19 salad) was the very last dish to hit the table at 9:15 at night.

At no point throughout the two hours were we asked if we wanted another drink and our waters were only topped up once.

Every single table around us had eaten and left. Even tables that came after us.

Asides the calamari which we didnt even want, there was not a single apology or explanation for the delay in food or lack of service. When we finally left at about 9:30 taking most of our food to go, not a single human being in the restaurant acknowledge us as we left. Not a thank you. Not a sorry. Nothing!

This was hands down the worst customer service I have experienced in my life. Shame on you! If you cant display basic customer service skills you should not be in the...