Exchange Street Bistro — Restaurant in Malden

I have been going to this place since it opened and seen its ups and downs. I gave it 5 stars last year after a particularly delicious poke. The martinis are always fun. However I would give it only 4 stars if I were rating it again today.

I went on my birthday, a Saturday. No poke on the menu, though it is featured on the online menu. Not many "stand out" dishes at all really. The menu is still somewhat elevated, but veering dangerously close to average Malden fare. Lots of Mexican items on the menu featuring pepper jack, when you can walk one block to 3 Amigos and get better. The specialty pasta was Border cafe-esque. The tapas plate used to be exciting but it was just three things, one of them being pork sliders. Etc.

The place stank of bleach and we asked to be moved farther from the kitchen, lest we be overwhelmed. The host, who seemed massively disinterested in the whole affair of greeting and seating, said, "Yeah that's the ..." and trailed off as he led us to a new table.

All right, so I am looking at the menu, being all snobby as you can see, and I happen upon the most delicious sounding salad. Black truffle burrata, arugula, corn, tomato, and pistachios. I order that and add on tuna.

Well, it came with no pistachios and with red onion instead. Putting aside the question of who replaces pistachios with onion, instead of, say, walnuts, there is a whole food intolerance issue for me. I have trouble digesting raw onions and I also get hives. I order only salads that do not list onions as an ingredient. I complained to our server, though it was not her fault, and told her to tell the chef. The chef never came out.

Time to say my tuna was perfectly cooked, if encrusted with a rub that did not quite match the profile of the salad--but how could they know I was going to stick tuna on it, so fair enough. In fact after I picked out the onions, the salad was perfect. My daughter had steak frites and said they were perfect also. Her friend had avocado toast and it was the best thing ever, although she thought whole wheat would have stood up better to the other flavors. My husband, who ordinarily despises Exchange Street for reasons of his own, said his fish and chips were great. But we were concerned with the menu being not very exciting. I am a good cook and if I am paying for food, it better be superior to what I can do or think up myself.

It is still a great option for getting good drinks and nicely cooked food. There was nothing wrong with the meal other than the pistachio/onion mixup, in fact it was all very good. I just felt the whole experience was below average based on other visits, and I hope it's...

If I could rate ESB zero stars, I would because the experience my mom and I had was terrible. We had a reservation and we showed up 10 min. early and we appreciated being seated right away. The restaurant wasn't busy when we arrived and we received water, but this is where things went downhill.

Our waitress didn't come back for 15 minutes to take our drink order. She finally came back and we ordered our drinks and food at the same time. The appetizer came out first and our drinks came out about halfway through the appetizer, which could have just been because the bar was busy (didn't look like it but who knows - we'll give them the benefit of the doubt). We didn't think much of it. But then our waitress NEVER came back. A hostess came by a little while after we finished the appetizer to clear our plates instead, and our waitress never checked in with us or told us our entrees would be out soon.

Meanwhile, the tables around us are filling up and we see our waitress talking with the other patrons, getting them their drinks and food quickly, and checking in on them and they all arrived 10-15 min. AFTER we did. We tried to flag down our waitress and she ignored us. I know there are problems with staffing due to COVID, but other patrons were being served EXCEPT us.

After waiting for our entree for 30 minutes AFTER we finished our appetizer, I went to the hostess station and briefly spoke to the manager to ask for the check because we couldn't flag down the waitress. We had been at the restaurant for over an hour with no end in sight to the waiting period for our meal. We didn't want to keep waiting for entrees that were clearly never coming as everyone else was being served their entrees by our server.

We finally see our server again when she brings us the check and she tells us the "entrees were coming out in 30 seconds," which I highly doubt since there was no mention of getting it to-go.

We were also the only people of color seated in that area (as far as we could tell) and we were ignored and the server was blatantly rude to us compared to the other patrons. I was so excited to try this place since I have a growing food blog where I recommend restaurants in the Boston area and now I know to warn others about this restaurant. Definitely never stepping foot in here again and I recommend you...

Went for my bday dinner with high hopes of a great night! I ordered the $40 filet. The mashed potatoes were dried out and cold and honestly, disgusting. The filet was so thin it resembled a salisbury steak. The sauce on top was, idk, just bad. Green beans were bitter. I hate to send things back as a waitress myself, but I was not going to eat it, so I’m not going to spend $40 on it. Then ate my friends pasta that she ordered which was, mediocre at best, but a heck of a lot better then the brick filet, but then found a beard hair in our food. I understand that stuff happens, but hair in food that isn’t your own is always a very disturbing thing to happen after you’ve enjoyed a few bites already. My mouth felt violated by a beard hair i had no idea where that thing has been. We felt bad and debated whether we would even say anything, but decided we would want to know therefore; we had to let the waitress know.

The reason i’m writing a review mainly is because of the manager, Michael, who came over to us after our food was sent back. 1. he clearly was annoyed with us, it was written all over his face. 2. He spoke to us as if we were the problem. He said to me “i’m surprised about the filet, because I mean well, it’s a filet” … ya buddy i was surprised too, since i’m the one who ordered a “filet” expecting it to taste like “a filet”. And if I even slightly liked it, I would have eaten it, but it was honestly so bad. Anyways, we were so shocked by how rude he was! We were being extremely apologetic too because we felt bad having to send back two meals. He comped them from the bill for us (thanks… and that’s the right thing to do) but he treated us as if we were trying to get a free meal. Maybe it would have been a free meal, if we actually ate the food? I left hungry tbh.

Otherwise, atmosphere was cool and our waitress Chey was understanding and apologetic. she got her earned $30 tip regardless of what the bill ended up being. as she should. Oh, and my cinnamon roll martini was delicious. All i know is, customer service goes a LONG way, and this manager had none… so that’s why I am here writing this review, not only bc of the food being awful, but because the manager was completely...