Paperback Tavern — Restaurant in Cambridge

It's a pretty typical "blah" level hotel restaurant with the typical high hotel prices and mediocre food. On the Sunday morning, was hoping for something a little special on my wife's birthday, unfortunately despite having a full bar they were unable to even do a mimosa. Really???? The small breakfast menu had a bunch of pretentious dishes where odd ingredients were added "just because," not that it improved the dish and made it special (found it detracted actually.) There were a few somewhat normal items, but it left me searching for something that even looked remotely appetizing. Now on to the coffee. Directly below the restaurant is the little snack bar that has a full coffee station / espresso, etc that was quite good. Whatever kind of crude oil coffee they were serving at the restaurant however was some of the worst I've ever had - and that's saying something considering how much bad coffee I've been served over the years (and I'm old.) Completely undrinkable. The 2 stars on food would have been 3 except for the coffee. Because there were more than 4 people in our party, we had to wait for them to setup a table.... Which was a booth with nothing changed.... But that took nearly 10 minutes to add place settings and allow us to sit there. No it wasn't because they were busy, I guess adding silverware to a table is hard. The service after seating was okay, staff was polite, but again, slow.

There is nothing 5 star about this place.

Bottom line, they need a new person to come in and fix this place. If it wasn't in a hotel, it would not survive as an independent restaurant. If there were a rating for "Value" it would be a one star due to the quality,...

You know when they say a "hidden gem"? I feel like the Paperback Tavern encompasses this title. My husband and I had SUCH a great date night here! From the ambiance to the food...they. did. Not. Miss! The food is actually enjoyable to eat and not just "eh...edible". Coming from a Carribean household where we LOVE our food to be well seasoned, I'm VERY picky about non-carribean food. The fact that all the food was cooked perfectly AND tasted Amazing, blew my mind! We had 4 different drinks, 2 appetizers, 3 different entrees and a dessert. Take their Cacio e Pepe Wings for example; With most American food, I always have to dunk or bathe my wings in some kind of sauce to actually enjoy wings, but these wings at Paperback....I ate most of them WITHOUT the need for any sauce (even though it came with it). It was sooo well-seasoned and had a nice crunch to the skin! And OH MY GOSH, THE LYCHEE LEMONADE! When I tell you they have the BEST lemonade I've ever had?? Seriously..all the words: Sweet, fizzy, refreshing, crisp, tart, tangy..Just, SO GOOD! And then we got to dessert.... the Boston Cream Pie!!! Man...Just GO eat here if you get a chance lol. I wish I could go through all the food and drinks for you all but this is just a Lil TASTE of how amazing everything went. If you're ever in Cambridge/Boston MA, it's WORTH IT to try Paperback Tavern. Take our...

The experience started with a 45 minute wait for the hostess to seat our party of 3. She seated several other families that arrived later in front of us and would look at us and said.”Oops, let me seat these guys and I will be right back.” The next time she made it back someone new would be standing at the station to get on the list and she would immediately seat them prior to getting the waiting customers. Once seated, it took 30 minutes for the waitress to arrive to get drinks and our order. An HOUR went by before we saw our food!! And we had to ask a different waitress if she could find out what was going on because people that arrived well after we did had been served, eaten, paid, and departed; yet we have not gotten our meals. A couple minutes later miraculously the food arrived! No waitress. Two orders of pancakes, both cold and rubbery, the syrup had congealed, and our order of ham and eggs that was cold and rubbery due to sitting and waiting for so long. Still no waitress. We then had to ask a third waitress to find our waitress to get our bill, 10 minutes later. This is the worst dining experience that I have ever had and would not recommend eating here to my...