Laziza — Restaurant in New York

We had a reservation. When we walked in we were not really greeted it was more like “hey, we are busy” we then mentioned we had a reservation and the host/waiter seated us but no smile, no welcome, just like “ here’s your table”

We were very excited to try this place btw.

Our table was tiny, all tables are so it is a bit messy when you throw in food + wine + water bottle + cups, etc…

The spot is beautifully decorated even the small tables can be overlooked by how cool the vibe of the place is.

Our server was sweet, explained we had to order everything at once excluding dessert etc…

We placed our order and it took prob around 15 min just for the hummus and cucumber yogurt dish to arrive. The humus and cucumber dish were fine. Not sure why they provide a tiny amount of bread though, the four of us had to share prob around 8 sticks of bread. I understand they are not going to provide a party size bag lol but 8 sticks?

An extra side of bread was $4, our server kinda told us to wait for the falafel.

Portions are small but if you order a bunch to share is fine. The food was ok, it took forever for the other dishes to arrive, mushrooms arrived cold. For some reason nothing remarkable, the falafels were hard as a rock and dry as well, it was giving Trader Joes falafel which I like but hey I don’t want that at a restaurant.

We did not finish the chicken cutlet, the Lamb dish was gamey according to whoever tried it, the fried chicken sandwich was overfried but kinda tasty. Maybe it was just a weird day Idk. I’ve worked in the industry for years and off days can happen. The P.F.R was yummy though.

The same person who sat us checked us out which was not our server, again, same weird vibe . I seriously don’t know what happened.

We did not even bother ordering dessert since it would prob take an extra 15 min to come out. We were also never asked if we wanted dessert or if the food was good, very standoffish vibes here.

And again we were looking forward for this dinner, reserved...

I had really high hopes for this restaurant and really wanted to love it, but unfortunately the meal had some disappointing elements that need to be addressed.

I’ll start out with the pros: great ambiance, delicious cocktails, and nice selection of plates.

Now, in terms of areas of improvement, the service was subpar and the portions were pretty skimpy. We ordered the potato skewer, shrimp skewer, and chicken skewer, all really small and not necessarily shareable for 4 people. Definitely more “tastes” than dishes. Then we waited 15 min when the server came back and asked us if we were waiting on food, we mentioned the items we were waiting on and she said she would check with the kitchen. We got the side of fries, and nothing else. She came back and asked us if we were ready for dessert and we said we hadn’t gotten our mains yet. We waited another 15 min and finally got the lamb which was good. Waited another 5ish minutes for the Persian rice which was cold and the egg was cold. When she came back there was no apology for the wait or gratitude for our patience and then once she placed the check down she said that people are waiting on our table so we need to wait downstairs or leave the restaurant. I found this very rude considering we were waiting on them to give us the dishes and then we were getting kicked out as if we were being too slow. Overall, I want to like this place but for how expensive it was and for the crummy server, it didn’t feel...

I would have gone for a 3.5 if that were an option, but given the restaurant is so new I’ll round up. There are definitely some kinks that need ironing out but it has potential to be a spot I would frequent very often.

Pros: the dips, bread, pickles, and cocktails we all had absolutely slapped. The dips were decently generous and super flavorful. Everyone loved their cocktails, I had the Taly and I’m obsessed. The interior is lovely, vibe well curated. Servers were warm, friendly, knowledgeable.

Cons: Everything we ordered from the grill section was minuscule. The potato dish is one cube of potato and it’s $12. Apparently this is currently being resolved and the chef is working on it because they have had the same feedback from a lot of people. I hope it’s fixed (either by pricing or by portion) because the mushroom, chicken, prawn, and potato were all tasty. There just wasn’t more than a bite on each plate.

Finally, the tables are too small for this type of dining setup. It’s already on the smaller side for a 4-top but when you have several plates of sharing dishes on there it’s unworkable.

I’ll be giving them some time to figure out the teething problems and going back in a couple of months. In the mean time, I would advise to stick to cocktails and dips here before a meal...