Legal Sea Foods - Dedham — Restaurant in Dedham

I want to start by saying, Legal is normally a great dining experience. The food is typically top quality and the servers are competent, friendly and attentive. Our most recent experience, though, was far from excellent. We took a friend of ours out to dinner for their birthday. We've always enjoyed Legal C Bar at Legacy Place, but something was definitely "off" last night. I'll break down what went wrong:

I had asked the person with whom I made the reservation to make note that this outing was for a birthday celebration. We didn't want a song or anything crazy, but we were hoping for someone to at least acknowledge that the event was for a birthday. Nothing. Not a word was mentioned by our server or the host.

The reservation was made for 5 people. An extra chair was added just in case the booth was tight. It was fine and we fit nicely without the extra chair. Because it was there, though, our server didn't offer us anything more than water, because he didn't check the reservation and thought we were waiting on a 6th person. Despite this, every time we asked for anything (IE. bread, spoons for deserts), he only brought 4 of each. Bizarre.

We asked for bread twice. Once, the server told us more bread was about to come out. Then, he forgot about us and the "new bread" had already been taken by other servers and we had to wait again while more bread was being prepared... or at least that's what we were told. As mentioned above, they brought us 4 rolls for 5 people. We mentioned the error and the server quickly produced a 5th roll.

We each ordered soup; either lobster bisque or clam chowder. The bisque came out cold and the lobster meat tasted sour/spoiled. The manager apologized for the issue and told us that she would check the soup station to make sure that it was producing heat. The clam chowder was good, as usual.

The meals came out and, for the most part, the food was delicious. There were some temperature issues with the swordfish, street corn and rice. The crab cakes, scampi, and cod were delicious and the quality of food was what we have come to expect from Legal. The manager once again apologized and had the swordfish dish remade, but by the time it came to the table, everyone else had finished their meals.

The two desserts that we ordered for the table were really good, but again, no mention of the birthday celebration. As mentioned above, they brought us 4 spoons for 5 people. We mentioned the error and the server quickly produced a 5th spoon.

When the bill came, the manager/server definitely took into consideration the errors made during the meal. The birthday celebrant's dinner and both desserts were not on the bill.

My gut feeling about this experience is that the kitchen was having issues. The server was thrown off by the challenges in the kitchen and didn't know how to bounce back. He was friendly and seemed to understand that things were...

On 7/31/24 I brought a friend of mine to the Legal C Food location in Dedham for dinner to celebrate both of us getting married this year. My seat was facing the kitchen and my friend was facing the windows. As my friend and I were talking and enjoying our dinner, I saw a HUGE rat running from the kitchen in our direction. Seeing this, a waiter leaving the kitchen was startled, and I myself, screamed and swung my legs up to my seat, that even my flip flops went flying off my feet. Seeing my reaction, my friend also screamed and scrambled to put her feet up. Immediately after witnessing this, the waiter that walked out of the kitchen came over to check on us. He asked if we were okay, but proceeded to say “it’s under the seat so don’t worry about it” and walked away from us. As we continued to collect ourselves, about 8 minutes later, the manager comes over. She says “I heard you saw something. Unfortunately they come from outside. I can get you dessert though.” We looked at each other with blank looks as she walked away saying “I’ll just bring it out, no worries.”

My friend and I were not happy about this response or reaction. No one was actually concerned and by everyone’s calm reaction and the way they were brushing it off, it made us feel like this was a common occurrence. No one came to check on us after that. No one brought dessert. We paid our full bill over $100, which included a 20% tip, as we know this is not an issue with our servers but an issue with cleanliness and health management in the kitchen.

This was the first time my friend was trying Legal Seafoods and I truly was embarrassed that this happened during our celebratory dinner. I’m extremely disappointed in the management, the cleanliness, the way the situation was handled, and truly it made me look at Legal Seafoods differently.

On top of this I reached out MULTIPLE times to the Legal Seafoods team. I wanted to bring this to their attention so that they could fix this issue at hand. Being in a profession that understands the importance of hygiene & customer service, I figured someone in the higher ups can make a site visit to ensure a proper health inspection is done. I reached out via email, via their customer service site, AND on instagram. No one responded. No one said anything about fixing the issue.

It’s a shame that a place like this not only has poor hygiene/ sanitation/ food service practice but also POOR...

Went here for lunch with a friend and my two daughters. The best part of the meal was the warm bread rolls. We ordered the tuna balls as an appetizee, took about 15 minutes for them arrive at $9 and 4 came on the plate, I was disappointed. Ordered the pepperoni pizza for my 6 yr old, clam dinner for my 12 yr old, I got the grilled salmon reuben and fish and chips for my friend. So, let me say Im old school, and having lived in Boston all my life I know good seafood, chowder and what I will be paying for great tasting quality food. Legal's was great back in the 80's but over the years their food has fallen off, dramatically. I do not discriminate when it comes to food. I will eat from the hole in the wall kitchen cafe, to Boston's most upscale eateries. With that being said my lunch at Legals was horrible. The chowder had no flavor, Snow's canned chowder would've been better and at $1.99 a can, easier on my wallet. The pepperoni pizza came with strips of pepperoni, didnt even know ppl shredded pepperoni now. The salmon reuben came on toasted bread and when it mentioned cole slaw I expected it to come on the side and not in the sandwich. So, what happens when you put runny cole slaw on bread, you get a disgusting mess. Yuck!! The clams were extra salty and tasted like they were soaked in brine before cooking. Tony's, Simcos, the clam shack, all have way better tasting clams. The fried fish was extra dark like it was over cooked and had no flavor. For dessert we ordered the vanilla ice cream with strawberries. The strawberries came in a sauce with what looked like grated strawberry leaves. Ok, so Im no culinary genius but grated/shredded leaves on top of a strawberry syrup is not a great idea. My daughter spent the rest of the evening spitting the leaves out of her mouth. As I was paying the bill, all I could think about was the money I was spending on a subpar meal. I could've went to Qdoba or Yard House at half the price and had a meal I might have...