Mercato — Restaurant in New York

Vibe is cozy, food is… alright, service….. ,if you have my particular waiter, is a total disaster.

I was in a group of four (this will come back later), we ordered a burrata and bruschetta for the table, I ordered the bucintor (berry Prosecco), and put in orders for our mains.

My boyfriend and I were both craving a creamy pesto pasta so we both ordered a TRENETTE AL PESTO TRAPANESE. Our other friend ordered lasagna, and our gluten-free friend (not that they asked about any dietary restrictions) ordered the salmon.

Then we waited, and waited, and waited, I watched as other people who got there after us got wines, then salads and then their mains delivered to their table, must have been at least 30 minutes.

Ahh they forgot about us oops whatever it happens I think to myself. I get a waiters attention to remind about my drink and then 10 minutes later the waitress comes by and we’re like oh did order go in? (nbd, it happens I think to myself).. our waitress then says “you saw me write it down didn’t you?” as she flips through here notepad. We say yes.. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♂️

My Prosecco drink and my boyfriend’s Diet Coke come out quickly after that and then the appetizers 5 minutes later.

The 🥂is just okay, the berry flavor is very faint. The burrata is quite good, the bruschetta is two slices and it’s fine.

Another 20 or so minutes go by, we realize we’ve been there over an hour. We’re now the only ones in the restaurant.

Finally, our food comes. The TRENETTE AL PESTO TRAPANESE we ordered comes out red, it doesn’t seem to have any pesto.

“Ugh they got our order wrong too” I think to myself. I get up to find the waitress and ask her if that’s the dish we ordered and then she comes back to the table, checks it, and tells us it’s a tomato based pesto. 🙄🙄🙄 “that’s a thing?” I think to myself “i guess I didn’t read the menu clearly”

I know now that there’s no clear indication of the pesto being tomato based. So yea don’t order the pesto pasta if you’re craving a green pesto.

We’re so ravenous at this point so we just dig in. It’s quite bland. Needs salt. I just walk to the edge of the kitchen area and grab some condiments myself.

The waitress notices I did that and says “oh do you need anything? Parmesan?” Yes please we reply. I’m thinking Parmesan would really help.

It never comes.

We’re unimpressed with the flavorless pasta. It was really bland. My friend’s lasagna was quite good. The salmon was fine.

My boyfriend is so unimpressed that he doesn’t eat it despite his hunger, We his pasta boxed. (Later at home I reheated the pasta and added Parmesan myself and it’s much much better that way).

As we’re eating, they TURN THE LIGHTS OFF. Like are you serious? It’s past your lunch service time but it’s not like we’re not here by choice.

We’re pretty annoyed at this point. The bill comes, moment of truth, but GRATUITY IS INCLUDED.

20%

I’m very annoyed at this point. Just sitting there in the dark and thinking about writing this review.

Then to find out, gratuity is included for parties of 5 and over WTFFFFFFFFFF!!!

We were a party of 4. The whole lunch just felt like a dirty scam.

So my advice is don’t come here. There’s other Italian places just as good and more...

Took my family of 3 here for dinner while visiting NYC tonight. The only reason I gave this place 2 stars is because of the the very hard working kitchen staff, food runner and man who was running around filling glasses of water he waited on us more than our waitress.

We made a reservation to sit outside but once we got there asked if an inside table was available in which it was and we were sat inside. We were offered luke warm tap water, when our waitress came up to the table she asked if tap water was what we were drinking, I asked for ice water she completely bypassed asking my husband and daughter if they would like anything other than tap water to drink. She brought back 6 cubes of ice and asked for our food order. Never once offered a drink menu although she very happily asked the couple 2 tables down immediately upon greeting them.

We ordered our food, the only food that had any flavor was my husbands lasagna, I ended up using some of his sauce to give mine flavor. Salt and pepper couldn’t fix the blandness, we had to flag our waitress down to bring us that, after she took our order she didn’t seem to care much about us being seated at her table. She did manage to find her way back when it was time to ask about dessert which was a hard pass after the experience up to this point. We just asked for the check.

Over all probably worse customer service in the whole NYC experience. I am huge on customer service the food can be trash but I am going to overly tip my wait staff. First and foremost our $80 tab could have easily been $120 to $140 tab had the waitress been as attentive as the other staff, we would have ordered a few drinks and dessert. I also would have tipped her accordingly but unfortunately her tip reflected her customer service tonight maybe next time she will treat all customers equally well and be more attentive. It seems by the reviews this is not a rare occurrence.

Do not waste your money here find you a different...

We, long-time couple, were greeted and seated quickly, even half an hour early for our reservation. Great service there! The rest is all downhill. We were sat, squished into a too tight corner where I slammed my elbow into a concrete wall about a thousand times, next to an aggressively loud party that the management let scream/talk for an hour. Bus buy arrived within 2 minutes and provided room temperature tap water, and a bread basket with a lentil and oil dressing inside. The oil was tasty, but when we asked for butter we were told they didn't have any. Hard to believe a restaurant on Saturday night is out of butter but there you go. Took ten minutes before a server came to see us. She was professional and took our orders promptly, which was difficult as we were screaming them over the neighboring table. First course was bruschetta. Two crostinis topped with chopped tomatoes lazily thrown together with no real skill or care for flavor. Tomatoes were unripe and flavorless, the basil was well past its best days, but the crostinis themselves were okay. 2/5 My entree was the Rigatoni Norma con ricotta salata. The flavor was fine but the pasta itself was closer to raw than al dente. And yes, I know the difference. Pasta shouldn't snap in one's mouth. To their credit the staff, once notified, took the dish away and promptly prepared another which was also removed from the bill entirely. 3.5/5 That said, my partner's house-made spaghetti was also undercooked and the sauce was fairly basic as well. 1/5 However by that time with the atmosphere, the cramped quarters, the yelling, and the uninspired food, we were more than willing to just take the loss, pay for it and leave. We won't...