Citrico Cafe — Restaurant in New York

Terrible food quality. Manhattan prices but smaller portions and poor taste. Okay service. (cause she was serving indoor and outdoor tables)

Management needs a lot of improvement. We initially thought they just opened cause they were all over the place. The place was almost empty but we had to wait longer than usual in most restaurants for someone to take our order after drinks came out.

Almost half the menu options weren't available - even regular appetizers like corn. It seems someone forgot to order enough inventory. We wanted to order 4 appetizers but the only available was guac. The table beside us also tried to order other appetizers but was told the same. They weren't busy at all, so it's not like they ran out of stuff. They just didn't have it. And this was at the peak of Saturday brunch. Clearly, a management issue.

On the Food Quality and Portions:

Taco campana: 2 very tiny tacos that looked like it was made using one of those Old El Paso Hard Shell Taco Dinner Kits you can buy in the grocery. Small portions would have been okay if the taste was really good but it wasn't. Go to a regular Mexican restaurant in Manhattan and you will get a minimum of 3 tacos per order with a good amount of beef, chicken, or pork. If you can't make food that taste good, at least make up for it in size.

The side order of rice was a tiny portion (~1/3 cup in size) and it was hard and crunchy like it came from scraping the bottom of a rice cooker. We think it was left over rice that they fried and added color. It was not edible. My friend didn't eat it and we told the server about it just to help them not lose customers in the future.

Pollo Campero: Presentation looked good but the chicken was dry and parts of it was hard. One of the reasons we came here was to try this dish because in the photos it looked nice and it came with fries on the side. It was a disappointment. And the same thing for rice - the portion was so tiny. And instead of the regular fries that came with it, I got beans. I told the server I didn't like beans and reminded her that the side they give for this dish was fries. She went back to the kitchen, then told us that the chef said for brunch they have beans as sides and for dinner they have french fries. This was weird and was not mentioned beforehand. NOTE: before ordering this, we showed the photo to the server and asked if it's the same. But she just said that's the chef's answer. Whatever!!! Just another side dish that wasn't eaten. We thought they didn't have any fries ready so they substituded every side dish with beans.

Guac & Chips: It was okay. But there were black ash on the plate which we only found after eating the chips because it was hidden under the chips.

Anyway, the 2 stars is for the decor. The ambiance is nice. The interior design is good. They also had a DJ which was cool but also weird because they can pay for a DJ but not an extra server for the outside tables to lessen the waiting time.

Another management issue --training servers regarding the bill. When we asked for our bill, the server came with a credit card machine and just verbally told us our total. I said I needed to see the actual bill to check if the charges were correct. So he prints one for us. We checked and it was correct. But then when he took my credit card, he charged almost double our total. If I didn't request a receipt to be emailed to me, I wouldn't have noticed that he charged my card for another table's bill by mistake. I had to go to him. He fixed it by voiding the original charge and then charging us with the correct one.

If you go, I recommend you ask for a paper bill and double check the charge on your card.

We feel that there's plenty of room for improvement. We hope they listen to constructive reviews and learn from them. They have a nice area but they need to improve on the quality/portions of the food, making sure the options they are offering on their menu are available, and maybe hire more servers before a DJ so that the servers are not all over the place and prone...

In order to leave a review, I have to award at least 1 star...but if I could, Citrico would get ZERO stars! On a whim we decided to stop by the restaurant for dinner last night (Thursday) and arrived around 8:40pm. We checked in and were seated. I couldn't tell you how the food or cocktails were because we never got to eat or drink. First of all, the place has more of a lounge feel than a restaurant. The interior was crowded and the music BLARING with a THUMPING base. All of the windows were open and the BLARING music made it difficult to carry on a conversation even across the sidewalk in their outdoor dining shed. It was so incredibly loud... The menus that we were given were mismatched, meaning that my wife had a "New" menu and I had an "Old" menu...so we had to fix that. No problem. We were offered tap, sparkling or bottled water. We chose Tap water. We were served Sparkling...? No problem. We waited nearly 15 minutes for the waiter to come by the table. He told us about and highly suggested that we order the one single special they had, then left. He didn't ask if we were ready to order nor did he ask if we wanted to start by ordering a cocktail. No problem. Then we waited...and waited...and waited until the hostess came back over about 15 minutes later and asked us if we wanted more water. Water? We wanted to order and I told her we'd been waiting for our waiter to come back. She left and we waited for another 6-7 minutes before another waiter came over to take our order...no apologies for or acknowledgement of the wait...I guess our original waiter was too busy talking up the two woman in the café across from us? We proceeded to order with the new guy. The very first thing we try to order was the only special of the night that the first waiter recommended so highly. Nope...sorry...in the 20 minutes or so that it took to finally get a waiter back to our table after the initial visit, they ran out. We were given some lame and frankly condescending excuse about why and that was "why it was served as a special". No Apologies, just they ran out. Okie Dokie...on to the next menu choice...Nope...sorry, we're out of that too! Absolutely NO apology or appreciation that the very first two items we order were 86'd. At that instant, we both said Nope...Strike Three and left...again, no apologies and absolutely NO attempt to somehow disarm guests who are clearly having a terrible visit. GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE EVERYONE! So we wasted 40 minutes of our time, managed to have a glass of water and took our business elsewhere. This was the single worst experience we've had at a restaurant since we began to venture back out during the pandemic, and we didn't even eat! You need to get your acts together and do a better job of training your staff to provide MUCH better customer service...Don't you want your guests to...

I'll start off by saying the food was great! The tostadas were excellent. Loved the combo of the savory with citrus! We also ordered the Branzino (excellent) and the frozen margaritas.

The main issues with out experience were: Menu Highlights Service

Menu Highlights:

We came here on a Tuesday evening around 8:40pm. It was advertised as Taco Tuesday on the paper menus with drink specials.

As we were seated, the menus were presented with the main menu being the Taco Tuesday menu (advertising frozen margaritas at $7).

During our entire exchange with the wait staff, no one mentioned any exceptions to the menu.

At the end of our meal, we were presented with a digital receipt only stating the full balance without much explantation, including a very charged "how was service" by the server without any real regard or concern for the actual quality of service (fully knowing it had issues).

After completing our bill, we went back to speak with the staff who readily responded as if this was something they encountered many times before with customers, "oh, taco Tuesday drink specials end at 7pm." This is literally not advertised or expressed anywhere on the paper menu we received when seated, as I would assume those correct.

I also assume if adding a flavor (like passionfruit) to your drink as offered by the server (which we didn't even see as an option) that it would be mentioned if this was an extra charge. It was not.

Service:

First off, I just have to say, for a Tuesday evening, albeit a busier evening, the service sucked. Asking 3 different people about the status of a drink you ordered (a while ago), not ok. Not replacing silverware multiple times, especially when taking them away and continuing to serve dishes, not great. Watching your server take shots from a table across the way while waiting for the check after not so great service, also not fun.

It's VERY clear that this place is very understaffed. Totally get the it's a very new establishment, and it may take some time to work out the kinks, but this was pretty bad.

I'd come back for the food, maybe. But not until the...