Botte Bar — Restaurant in New York

I walk by this place every day on my way to/from work and it always has a crowd and good vibes, so I decided to grab a friend and try it last Friday night. This was my mistake.

The server was friendly and our drinks(a Negroni and a Watermelon something) were overpriced, but good. They were light on the alcohol, however.

The charcuterie board, which cost $19, had a minuscule amount of cheese and charcuterie and three half-pieces of bread. They couldn't even give us the equivalent of two pieces of bread cut in half. I should have known from the lack of value on the appetizer that it would get worse. And it did.

The entrees. I got the Spaghetti Vongole. I received 7 baby clams(literal baby clams) and four forkfuls of spaghetti. I got the equivalent of .35 oz of clam meat, 6 cherry tomatoes and about 12 strands of spaghetti. BUT how did it taste? Somewhere between bland and flavorless. My friend received four raviolis in a sauce that was even blander than mine-it was essentially butter/parmesan broth. The raviolis, which I tried, were so basic that I apologized to my friend for taking them to this place

My bill was $101 including tip. I paid for it all because I couldn't let my friend pay for that-it was my pick after all. What can one do? Demand more food with better flavor? Demand to be charged half the price because I got half the amount of food that I should have? You know how it is, you don't want to unload your grievances on some poor server.

The cooks should be ashamed of themselves for serving that amount and quality of food, as should the manager and owner for allowing it. It's mostly my own fault for expecting I'd get my money's worth, though.

I believe that if you're an 'upscale' Italian place there's an expectation of excellence in taste for $19 per dish. At the very least, if the food is going taste so-so, you should get a lot of it. I would never go back here and I'm angry at myself for going in the first place. I feel so cheated that I had to...

First time here. I really enjoyed my drink and in general felt they excel in making drinks, as my whole table enjoyed what they ordered. I enjoyed the entrees and the reasonable pricing for the pasta dishes. We ordered a variety of pastas and everyone enjoyed their own dish and raved about the freshness and bite of the pastas. I enjoyed the cheesy rigatoni with truffle sauce although the portion looked quite small when compared to other dishes such as the gnocchi.

I felt the appetizers and service was severely lacking. The burrata didn’t really taste like much of anything and the meatballs were ok. Our server felt both very attentive and completely absent through the meal - she kept taking dishes before we were done with them that still visibly had food on them, without consulting us on if we wanted more time on the dish. She also forgot to take our main entree order until we had almost finished our appetizers and needed to be reminded we still hadn’t ordered. I completely understand feeling overwhelmed with many tables as a server (and it seemed like she may have been the only one at the time I was there) so it is a bit forgivable. However, the bartender spilled part of a drink on me (and was apologetic about it) and the people running food were very curt. I am surprised of so many reviews emphasizing the friendly staff when I did not have this experience at all - in fact I almost felt like a nuisance to the restaurant.

While some of the food and drinks were good, I do not...

I am utterly disappointed for many reasons after ordering delivery from Botte Bar on Grubhub. First, the portion sizes were tiny when taking into account the prices ($20 for Amatriciana pasta, $14 for a Caesar salad, and $8 for garlic bread with marinara. This doesn’t take into account the Grubhub fees either.) These prices are outrageous for the amount of food that was provided - there was barely any pasta in my dish and the Caesar salad was a joke. Second, the quality was terrible. I have to say this is some of the worst Italian food I’ve ever had. I ended up throwing half of it away. I’ve ordered Amatriciana pasta many times and the sauce tasted bland and off, almost likely what you’d expect the cheapest can of tomato sauce at the grocery store to taste like. (Almost Chef Boyardee-esque.) There was barely any guanciale in it. The Caesar salad didn’t even have full romaine or other greens but was just a heap of cheap chopped lettuce, almost like what you would get on a Taco Bell Taco. The garlic bread was burnt and barely able to be eaten. This has been such a disappointment and a ripoff. I see there are other reviews that are good, so maybe it was just an off night for them, but I will not be patronizing this place ever again. Do yourself a favor and go somewhere else for quality Italian food that is...