Tuscan Kitchen Seaport — Restaurant in Boston

From New Years Day 2023

I had a delicious lunch today here with my family. The menu is well-curated, and the prices are reasonable. Beautiful space where even the bathrooms that most customers never see were designed beautifully for an enjoyable experience.

Unfortunately one staff member I interacted with was a bit inconsiderate, and after that bad introduction to my time there I noticed other staff following suit. I think it may be helpful for the restaurant to emphasize a specific type of training so that Autistic customers can have enjoyable New Year’s Day brunch as well.

Train Employees To:

1. Listen to a table’s discussion and enter during a natural break, like one would at a party.

2. If this is too hard realistically, listen to a table’s discussion to avoid interrupting and worsening a clearly tense social situation. I was navigating a complicated dynamic and was not realistically able to give the waiter the respect he deserved. That introduction threw the entire experience off and spread misconceptions to the rest of the staff at my table.

Thankfully the staff recognized I was “different” from my family, so I was glad they were able to get good service. I don’t like this, but it is very hard to tell that I’m Autistic, so I completely understand that it makes sense to have assume that I am difficult. I’m just glad my family was not having the same experience.

3. Wait a bit before asking guests about ordering drinks when they arrive. Especially in an upscale restaurant with a large bar, customers are likely treating themselves and want to have the time to look over and look over the menu without feeling pressured.

If staff are able to keep track of the mood at a table, maybe better during less busy hours, consider that giving a bit more time to those who have more going on would reduce the negative association someone has with their waiter, and waiters may experience calmer customers.

Clarifying for Your Staff: In any case I understand that this is a tough time to be in the service industry. Though ambiguous from the outside, I am Colombian, and my partner who was there is very clearly a White man from Canada where there are far fewer Spanish speaking immigrants, so he is not accustomed to the accent in English. He was interacting with your staff which is primarily Latino, and I was embarrassed by the fact that he was asking your staff to repeat themselves.

I know how uncomfortable it can be when a native speaker asks someone who can clearly speak English well to repeat themselves because they have not done the work to expose themselves to people of all walks of life. That’s my partner’s bad, and I apologize on his behalf.

I gently took the time to explain to my partner that this is a normal pronunciation difference that is more common in Latin American Spanish than Spain Spanish.

It seems like the staff overheard the wrong part of this conversation, and out of context it made things worse for me even though I was teaching him, a monolingual White Canadian, to be more inclusive so that your staff does not feel uncomfortable in the workplace (because he has not learned how to speak to competent Latino immigrants fluent in at least English and Spanish, if not more languages).

In any case I think my family had a good time, but I felt uncomfortable and I hope these tools and my explanation will make your staff feel more positive about serving clients.

Being Autistic and biracial makes life very hurtful at times when a special treat we waited all year to have turns sour.

Please let the staff know that I was being helpful and that they have customers who care about their treatment as well. I hope my strategies will help your clients and servers have better experiences in...

My family stopped in for lunch today around 2 PM. The restaurant was mostly empty with 3-4 other tables occupied. Because it was late in the day, we were ready to order lunch quickly as we were pretty hungry upon arrival. We ordered burrata to start, as well as Caesar salads. For our entrees, we chose mushroom ravioli and four-cheese ravioli, and our daughter (10) ordered a pizza from the children's menu. The waitress returned and told us that they "didn't have pizza", which seemed strange. My daughter then opted for the four-cheese ravioli. We asked for bread for the table. We were again told that they "didn't have any" and that they serve bread "at night". Traditional Italian Sunday meals are served mid-day, so strange that there would be no bread available. Shortly there after and quicker than expected, two of the three ravioli meals arrived. We inquired as to where the appetizer (burrata) and salads were. The (male) server seemed confused. My daughter and husband began to eat their ravioli while it was hot; I waited awhile for mine. The salads showed up after that. We had to inquire about the burrata and it was brought over toward the end of our meal. Strangely, the burrata is served with bread - while they were unable to bring bread to our table. The waitress's attitude toward our out-of-order meal was quite indifferent. We finished eating and right away asked for the check. Considering all of the errors, it would have been appreciated if the staff considered making an adjustment to our bill but there was no such consideration. As we put on our coats to leave, the person who first checked us in, a gentleman who was perhaps a manager, came over to acknowledge the errors that had occurred. We let him know the extent of what had happened. He seemed very surprised about the pizza comment and otherwise apologized for dinners coming out before our appetizer/salads. At the time, we shared that it was a less than desirable dining experience. He apologized and that was the extent of it. We spent over $200 for ravioli and salad and an appetizer that we didn't eat because it came out to late. Due to our experience today, we certainly would not plan to revisit this or other Tuscan Kitchen locations. It was a disappointment to...

My friends and I came here for dinner last night, and I really wish I had not suggested it as a dinner option. We arrived early, and the hostess informed us that we couldn't be sat as they seemed to be waiting on their wait staff to arrive. She didn't want it to be a detriment to our dinner experience, which we appreciated. We headed to the bar to get drinks. I ordered the Sangria Rosso, which literally just tasted like watered down red wine, not what I was looking for. Once we were sat, the waiter was very clunky in his mannerism and nothing really flowed well. We tried to order apps, and were informed that they did not have about 3/4 of the items on the menu. Ok, so we made due and ordered what we could. The mozzarella in carrozza was BEYOND bland! The cheese had absolutely no flavor whatsoever, though the accompanying pestos were tasty. The tuna tartare was ok, but bland as well, and the tuna looked old. Several times we asked for small plates, as we had intended to share the appetizers, and they were never brought to the table. We finished our apps, and still hadn't ordered our entrees. When the waiter finally decided to come over to do that, we were once again informed that about 3/4 of the entrees were NOT available! The only things that they seemed to have were the stuffed pastas, that I'm fully aware are NOT made on the premises. Again, we ordered what we could. The tortelli al brasato were dry due to the plate being so shallow, that the pasta had no way of absorbing the sauce on it. It made for a rubbery pasta texture. We wanted to order dessert, but guess what? More than 3/4 was NOT AVAILABLE! This seemed to be the theme of the evening. When we were finally brought the bill, we asked for a specific amount to be placed on 1 card, and the remaining balance to be split between the remaining credit cards. This guy somehow managed to double the amount that should have been on the remaining cards! Clearly math and waiter-ing were not his strong suits. While they have a lovely restaurant space, the food is mediocre and the service was awful. Their large menu was also useless given that they hardly had any of it to actually serve to people. Skip this place, as there are plenty of other tasty options...