Sweet Basil — Restaurant in Needham

This is not a restaurant review. Instead, this is a story about two beautiful human beings entering into their favorite restaurant and feeling completely taken care of, in a gastronomical sense. In a way, this is a Love story. It's a Friday evening. The love of my life and I are hungry, and decide to head towards our favorite area to dine. I speak of downtown Needham, MA. It is rife with great establishments geared to satisfy any type of food hunger. We head straight towards one of our favorite restaurants, Sweet Basil. We get near the restaurant and by some miracle, the parking space right out front is available! The universe is clearly smiling upon us tonight. Now, under normal circumstances, there is almost always a wait to get a table here, but this night was pleasantly different. Because of the 4th of July holiday weekend, it seemed most locals were off and away to the more majestic parts of New England. This means that upon entering the restaurant, we are greeted by the host and he offers us a choice of table! Truly amazing, 3 actual tables to pick from on a Friday night! We choose the cozy little table for two near the wall, so we can gaze into each other's eyes and profess our love without much distraction.☺️ Once we are seated and settled in, we are greeted by Daphne; the kindest, most patient, proficient and rockstar server I've ever had at any restaurant in near memory. Her style and energy is profoundly lovely and attentive, and I can clearly sense her pride for the restaurant and its selection of sublime edible masterpieces. She suggests the bread and pesto starter (which I believe was only $5) to which my girlfriend and I gleefully accept. How could one pass up the most magical combination of fresh pesto and bread? As we wait for the pesto, we select our main courses and then chat about life while holding hands, truly in awe of our good fortune on this lovely evening. When Daphne comes back with the pesto and bread, she informs us of the specials that evening and I decide on selecting the salmon special. As we place our order I mention to her that I have a dairy allergy, and if the chef could prepare the dish accordingly that would be much appreciated. Upon hearing this she mentions that they actually have their fresh pesto available without the usual cheese they mix in! I am just in awe! This means I too can enjoy the glorious pesto along with the fresh Iggys bread. I thank her profusely and within 3 minutes my girlfriend and I are in pesto heaven. We laugh, we talk, we try to restrain ourselves from eating all the pesto and bread in front of us, and before we know it our mains come out. The braised chicken my GF ordered was enormous and smells irresistible. You could easily feed 3 people from her dish alone! I exclaim "what a value!" as I normally do when we get large portions at restaurants. Then I turn my attention to my salmon. Again, a rather large portion, and it smells & looks so tasty! I don't even bother taking pictures because the lighting in the restaurant is fairly dim and it wouldn't have done it justice anyways. There is a mashed potato base, with smokey bits of bacon embedded, some apple slices I believe, and a couple other vegetables interspersed under the salmon. I am so thoroughly satisfied, words can barely suffice. All I had to do was give my GF "the look" and she knows the chef has hit a home run. Also worth noting, The bill was about $60, extremely reasonable for a wonderful meal out. Every part of our experience, from Daphne's graceful service, to the chef's keen attention to detail, is spot on and we leave the restaurant feeling very well taken care of, and with plenty of leftovers (including the pesto!) It's safe to say I Love Sweet Basil and look forward to dining there again and again in the very...

I arrived at sweet basil on a Thursday, a little before 7:30 pm. I was with my family of five, and, after skipping lunch and arguing over where to eat for hours, we were hungry and tired. We got seated quickly, and were asked if we would like some bread with pesto. The bread came out quickly, and it was paired with the best, freshest pesto I had ever tasted. Though this was $7, it was worth every dollar! We first ordered an arugala and snap pea salad, which came out in about twenty minutes, and was loaded with arugala. The portion size was large, and everything was super fresh. We also got another order of bread. This took a while to come out, and the pesto was different, confirming that each batch was freshly made. For entrees, we ordered the rosemary chicken, Bolognese, hanger steak (on the insistence of my extremely whiney brother), and house meatballs. It took quite a while for all the dishes to come out-maybe forty minutes or so, but everything was piping hot when it arrives on the table. My rosemary chicken was extremely rich and delicious, though, if I had one complaint, there was too little pasta to cut through the extremely rich sauce. The noodles of the Bolognese were so bouncy and fresh, and they tasted hand-made. The sauce was also extremely meaty. The house meatballs were also really good, with the meatballs being big and juicy, and the noodles also fresh. The sauce was a lot lighter than the other dishes, mostly composed of tomatoes. However, as the dish cooled, the mozzarella kind of formed a hard shell. The little amount of the steak I was allowed to try was tender and juicy, and the mushrooms and chips that came on the side were also really good. My brother pronounced the asparagus as the "best asparagus ever". Overall, sweet basil was extremely delicious-the noodles were so fresh and bouncy, the sauces were beautifully flavored, the portions were generous (even my starving family couldn't finish it all), and the pesto was the best ever. If I had one complaint, I would wish there were more noodles in every dish, since there was so much sauce, but, overall, sweet basil is a must if your...

Got really excited because of the reviews and went there on Valentine’s Day. It was super busy, but understandable, atmosphere is amazing and very romantic. The restaurant was full, which is understandable, but unfortunately the atmosphere is the only thing I can say good things about. First of all, hostess did not pay attention to the line and didnt check us in for at least 15 minutes, and there were three more couples behind us. She clearly saw us, but kept chitchatting with the servers about how busy it is (oh really? It’s valentines, ofc it is). The manager checked us in, 10 minutes later we were seated. And we had a reservation. Server did not show up for the next 20 minutes, and I get it, full restaurant, but I think it is expected to get very busy and they should’ve had more servers, that’s the question for the managers. Anyways, we ordered cheese ravioli and bolognese, standard stuff which should not take more than 40 minutes at most. But we were waiting for an hour since we got seated. And I’m serious about this. We came at 9, got seated at 9:27, server came at 9:52, we’ve got food at 10:33. Everybody around us got food 20-30 minutes later, and they were seated after us. (There’s not much to do when both of us were hungry and tired, so we were just looking around and chitchatting). When food came it was mid at most. Hate to say it, Olive Garden was better, and I am not the biggest fan of them. And I mean, all of this is fine, stuff happens, everybody makes mistakes, but both of us got disgusting food poisoning. That was the only place we both ate at that day, and I am sure it was because of this. I didn’t try my partners food, he didn’t try mine, so it’s not one of them, it’s both. I don’t know what was the problem with the timing and the food, but reviews say that this is an amazing place, and I really looked forward to be there. It is so sad to leave this kind of review, but I will not come back for the sake of my health. Blonde girl who worked as a hostess on feb. 14, 2025, stop looking at customers as they are trash, we get that you’re tired,...