Ambra — Restaurant in New York

I do not write reviews but I had to jump on here and rave for a moment about Ambra!! If you are in New York and want to have a transcendent and truly authentic Italian dining experience, you HAVE to start with Ambra! Ambra has some of the BEST ITALIAN CUISINE I’ve ever had in 11 years living in NYC!! The food is absolutely incredible!! Everything from the main courses to the focaccia bread plate expands your palate and will leave you questioning how food could taste so good. When I go, I order multiple items from each course and everything was leaving me awe-struck, no exaggeration. The absolute stand outs for me are the focaccia bread plate, the octopus carpaccio, the braised short rib ragú, and the branzino!!! I have never tasted fish this delicious, it is the definition of light and crispy and melts in your mouth?? With flavors so clean and clear and complex. The desserts are all out of this world, but the mousse is the sweetest way to end the Ambra ride. All of this is what you would expect from the head chef, John DeLucie, but it exceeds even those expectations, he has truly outdone himself with this extravagant culinary landscape. Chef DeLucie was also actually there and making rounds to all the tables which made everyone feel more special and included! In terms of atmosphere it is the perfect blend of an elevated dining experience mixed with a cozy and welcoming “at home” feeling. The wait staff are all highly knowledgeable, personable, and truly add to the overall experience rather than just being neutral facilitators. Also the wine selection is outstanding, we had a bottle of cab sav whose scent alone was so rich, bold, and full of depth. This has become an instant favorite and I will be telling everyone I know about it! Do yourself a huuuuge favor and take yourself or a whole party to Ambra! You will leave feeling...

I honestly wasn’t impressed, the food here definitely looks better than it tastes. We started off with the house made focaccia with all the dips - it was just toasted pita bread, don’t waste your time or carb allowance on it.

Surprisingly the vegan dishes were the best - never a good sign when that’s true. The crispy artichokes and vegan kale Caesar were prob my favorite.

For meat dishes - the veal meatballs were my fav.

In terms of pasta, I was pretty disappointed. First of all, they ran out of the pappardelle by 7 on a Monday so I was a bit confused by that. We had the lobster pasta, pomodoro, and cacio e Pepe. Surprisingly the pomodoro was my fav it was simple and the sauce was good - but then again you can’t really mess that up. The cacio e Pepe was made with large tubular pasta shape and the sauce was like an Alfredo consistency. I didn’t see a single speck of black pepper. Please skip that for everyone’s sake.

We also ordered steak and the veal parm. As you can see from the photo I posted, the veal was very meaty - it’s way too thick and because of that, it really drowned in the sauce and the breading was soggy. I would’ve preferred a thinner cut with less sauce so that it would still be crispy. It’s like the fatter, shorter, uglier sister of Carbone’s veal parm (not that this is comparable at all to Carbone).

The dessert was also uninspired, nothing special, just like the rest of the meal. I don’t need to come here again and I don’t think I needed to go...

The food was great but the experience was spoiled by the service. The server was incredibly pushy and rude and asked for our order at least six times in the span of 15 minutes. During these 15 minutes he repeatedly kept asking us every couple minutes when it was clear we were not ready to make a decision and we were still reading the menu. We offered to put in the appetizer first and then he said that he must put it all together. He even asked once more to take our order when the other person was not present at the table because he went to the restroom. This was strange behavior because we started the meal by ordering a bottle of wine furthermore we were not taking up space as there were multiple empty tables around us.

Lastly for a restaurant of this price point I would have expected them to accommodate my request to course our first and second dishes. Upon being asked the server said he cannot course them which was a strange response given that we did not even receive our appetizer at the time of the request.

Beyond these two points everything...