Rochambeau — Restaurant in Boston

What a bummer this place is. So much potential but absolutely no execution from both the front and back of the house. I was excited to see what could be another great French restaurant arrive in town, competing against Gaslight and Eastern Standard but after my dinner experience last night... those two have absolutely nothing to worry about.

Our first red flag was when we checked in about ten minutes prior to our reservation. The hostess said our table would be ready very shortly and pointed to the lovely bar as a place to hang for a bit. We ordered some drinks and my wife's cocktail was stellar. One of the very few redeeming items of the evening. We waited a bit and about 10 minutes past our reservation, we proceeded to check-in again and they had no idea what was going on and basically told us that the table wasn't ready. We patiently decided to stick it out - a huge mistake. Eventually, the hostess actually did her job and found us near the bar and tried to push a high-top on us in a desperate attempt to get us out of the queue. Hard pass lady. About fifty minutes past our reservation, we were finally seated. No real apology, or anything to do right by us.

Menus were brought, sparkling water as well and we proceeded to order our food. We decided on the charred mushrooms ($14) and French onion soup ($12) as our appetizers. The mushrooms were bland, boring and the char on it was offputting, the latter being a recurring them with our entrees. The French onion soup was decent but not salted. Not enough depth of flavor, barely any sherry or seasoning.

The bread service, however, was good. The baguette was pretty good and it came with some cornichons which were pretty awesome. The butter was cold and hard to spread; they should have served it at room temp to knock this out of the park.

Our entres came shortly after and both of our steak frites ($32) were cooked to temp nicely. The fries were really good but the steaks were charred. Really charred, and not in a good way. It was very offputting and on the verge of burnt on the outside. It was such a nice piece of meat - we were both really bummed.

Service was fine - nothing great, nothing bad really except for the hostesses not doing a very good job with the front of the house and managing the queue and reservations.

All in all the place has some potential but completely missed the mark. The food was far from being as good as the likes of a Gaslight, Eastern Standard or even a Marliave. Frankly, any place that sits you down nearly an hour past your reservation and doesn't acknowledge it in any way shouldn't be in the hospitality business. But even if you look past this, the food just...

What an abysmal experience. Whoever owns/manages this establishment should be embarrassed.

Potential customers: It might be tempting to dimiss the bad reviews for this place as one off unlucky experience...I certainly did it and really wished I hadn't done it.

Some highlights of our trainwreck- No one came to our table 30 mins after everyone has sat down. Not even to bring water. We had to wave someone down. Another slow 30 mins later, the first round of drinks arrived... Music chair moment - Out of the 6 people getting drinks, 1 didn't get one.

Bait and switch/ illusion egg white - the Madame Lavande I ordered promised egg whites in the ingredients. The drink I was served had absolutely no indication of such. When I asked the waiter, he explained the drink only suppose to have "0.2 ounce" of egg white and shouldn't be noticeable. Huh? Let's all put whatever ingredients on a menu and when a customer asks, just say "it's not suppose to be noticeable."

We switched to champagne to accompamy our oysters, except the champagne was nowhere to be seen so the oysters patiently waited to be eaten for about 10 minutes.

When the champagne finally came, our waiter poured it outside of the glass and didn't bother wiping it up. The waiter also magically refilled the glass for sparkling water with still water.

Plates for appetizers were not cleared till almost the main course. When the entrées finally arrived, the accompanied wine was again nowhere to be seen. Our steak, duck and chicken also waited patiently to be eaten.

Worked out that the wine was late! One of the steaks was so overcooked anyways that it had to be sent back. By the time a new steak was served, it timed nicely with the arrival of the wine. Out of the 6 people who ordered wine, only 5 got glasses.

The duck was fine but the accompanied cabbages were soaked in butter and the apples were just a few slices on top. For a $30+ dish, you would think they would've at least done something with the apples instead of throwing them on top without any work done.

At this point, we complained to a different staff who asked how things were going. She apologized and promised us free desserts. Here is the catch - without us getting to choose the selections.

The dessert came without serving plates or utensils. After we asked, out of the 6 people getting desserts, one didn't get utensils. This music chair game is getting old...esp 3 hours later.

Congrats to those of you who made it to the end with us! Morale of the story: avoid this messed up circus of...

Today was my first time visiting this establishment after much anticipation (pandemic stifled my drive to try new restaurants, and they’re too far from my apartment to support via online ordering). I was greeted by the kindest staff- seriously, 10/10 staff. Attentive, kind, wonderful, sharply dressed. The bartender Jermey was a highlight. If I only had to rate the staff that welcomed me in + the bartender I’d give 5 stars. But the food seriously let me down. I used to work in the food industry, and understand right now is a tough time to be a line cook/chef- lots of pressure, long hours, and unforgiving guests. So i’ll start by saying the bread was actually phenomenal- it came out very hot and melted the salted European butter wonderfully, and the pickles were a nice touch. My gripe is with the burger- the Rochamburger. Being cheekily named after the place, I expected a pretty solid burger- with the usual accompanying toppings- lettuce, tomato, onion, etc. Not everyone loves them but even at nice steakhouses they usually leave it on the side as an option to add on to the burger. I requested no cheese on my burger, and was very surprised when what arrived was just a burger patty with caramelized onions. I did not realize the menu listing was so literal- they really did not include any toppings on this burger, just onions & melted guyere cheese which probably typically hides the sadness of the meal. No one saw that ticket and thought- hmmm, sending out a super dry burger seems like a bad idea, maybe we should include some toppings to breakup the heaviness of meat + big bun + caramelized onions? Not an aioli on the bun, not a leaf of lettuce, not a slice of tomato? Perhaps it’s a French thing, in which case I apologize for not understanding. I tried to power through but the two bites I took were dry and sad. The burger had potential, but ultimately was very sad, plain, and unexpectedly unremarkable for such a lovely establishment. For a place that has duck & chicken tagine on the menu, I expected better. The drinks were fantastic and I’d recommend going for those & the bread, but for now I am put off on the main menu items. Between the burger & seeing the man next to me ask for salt as his omelette was underseasoned, I think the kitchen is perhaps in a period of having new staff learning the menu, and I will be back again in a few months to try that tagine & hopefully move this rating to the 5 stars I think this...