Botte UES — Restaurant in New York

This is the best restaurant I’ve been to in NYC. I had never felt so at home at a restaurant in my life! I live right down the street and popped in once for a date night with my boyfriend. We had a great experience and from there we were hooked! Food was incredible, the service was attentive, and the cocktails were unbelievable. Benjamin, our waiter, was the star of our entire experience. He explained our meals with care, walked us through the history of our after dinner drinks, and showed us incredible hospitality. Since then, I have come in here every single Friday for happy hour. James, the lead bartender, is incredible. He gives great banter and even makes even greater drinks! Such a kind and creative person. You name your ideal drink and he’ll make it. He also makes the best marg I’ve ever had- and I’m not even a tequila gal! Make sure you ask for his world famous homemade spicy tequila, though. Flavia, the other bartender, is a total sweetheart. Super hard working and has the most lovely personality. Sara, the night hostess, is such a sweetheart and I can’t imagine a better person to greet customers with a smile in the FOH. Overall, the atmosphere here is unbeatable. Breaks my heart that I’m moving out of the city because this has been my home...

The food was good and I thought the price point was fair. It is a cute little spot and waiters are kind. The drinks are expensive, but that is to be expected in NYC.

My real gripe with the restaurant is that we made a reservation for a specific time, showed up exactly at that time and then they made us wait over 30 minutes for the table to be ready (upon arrival, they said the table was almost ready which was not true). This was a bit upsetting giving it’s Christmas Eve. What is the point of a reservation if I must wait over half an hour for my table to become available? No accommodation was offered for this inconvenience and the manager didn’t really check in on if we had a positive experience despite the fact that we waited so long for our table to be ready which I found a bit odd. New York City and especially the UES has an endless amount of restaurants to pick from, so I do expect higher quality of service when I choose your establishment for my Christmas Eve dinner given the mountains of options available. The food was good, but I just don’t think I would recommend or want to be back for the...

As a premise, Botte offers exceptional pastas and waitstaff! That said, I did experience tremendous disappointment with their supposed “cake policies”.

I decided to celebrate my birthday here, a nice, warm-hearted, small get-together with my two best friends. They bought a birthday cake to the restaurant. They asked the hostess if they can refrigerate the cake and bring it at the end. The hostess replied that it be a $20 fee. This felt criminally overpriced. We were so shocked and speechless. We asked, “$20 to bring a cake out?” The hostess then said, “well if you think about it, $20 is cheaper than buying three pieces of desserts here.”

Never in my life I’ve heard of a restaurant who would charge this- it has always been complimentary. We reviewed their website and this was not mentioned anywhere. If this is the case, there should be more information on their website, signage - anything. It was sprung out of nowhere. I don’t want to go back since this left a sour taste in my mouth, especially on...