Osteria Cotta — Restaurant in New York

Tonight I wanted to have dinner in one of the good Italian spots in upper west side soon to go downhill, Osteria Cotta. I’m here sitting at table with 3 other people. So far horrible experience. I walked in with my party of 3, hostess was very nice. She gave us a table upstairs in that cozy charming room. I thought this is great, until…. a guy approaches the table and started pouring water into our glasses without asking what kind of water we want. I had to stop him and ask for a bottle of sparkling and a bottle of flat water. He’s like yes I bring bottle of sparkling and here is flat water I’m like no man that’s top water from the sink, I want Agua that cost dinero. I thought he’s busboy, I’m like ok things happen. Then same guy approaches our table with a clover device I believe in his hand asking us if are ready to order. That’s when I lost my patience. I wanted to order a chicken dish for my parents and I had to go back and forth with this guy how does the wood fire chicken come, whole half roasted boiled raw you name it, how long does it takes for the dish to be ready and so on and so forth. The guy had issues with communicating in English. Look Im immigrant myself like 8 million New Yorkers but for Gods sake when you go out to dine you should expect to communicate and understand clearly each other not to have hard time to order a damn chicken dish. Imagine if I had any or or few allergies and the guy didn’t understand my allergies then I was gonna end up in hospital most likely. I have nothing against migrants I love them all as they are hard working people but to be blamed here is the management especially the owner who don’t oversee what’s going on in his place. You should never put on floor as server to interact with costumers someone who isn’t able to understand and communicate in English.

I spoke with the manager here tonight and my first question was, you are new here aren’t you, when did you start and he looked at me like “ how do you know kind of “ he replied I been here as manager few month already. Inside exactly I been coming here since 2014.

I explained him what’s going on and also told him look at the table there is a bottle of sparking water and there are 4 glasses of water filled with tap water. How we suppose to drink this sparking water? He’s like oh yeah I’m sorry let me get you glasses. My goodness can you imagine! Then I had to get up and get two extra cleaning sharing plates, cuz no one was around to clean our plates. The “waiter” came to the table twice when he took the order and brought the check. I wanted to order some more truffle fries but I’m like screw it I’m not going to chase these people around.

Service sucks sucks sucks, get this from someone who eats out and someone who values experience and quality. If you come across this post take your time and think before going to this place. Unless you don’t care or have some $$ to waste.

At the end I asked for the bill, and everything was in there, they had no courtesy to do the right thing.

If the owner comes across this review, man your management and service sucks. For me tonight was last night walking through that door....

I visited Osteria Cotta with my family in the evening of December 28 2021. To my outrage, all except one of our food was served cold. These were the conditions of our orders:

1. Pizza - Crust was already softened by steam and pizza was soggy, suggesting the pizza was pre-baked and kept in an enclosed place.
2. Truffle fries - Fries were cold, not crunchy, and most of the bottom ones were cold & soft, suggesting they too, were pre-fried and kept in an enclosed place.
3. Fire-roasted cauliflower - Cold and limpy. Suggesting it too, was made hours ago and kept in an enclosed place.
4. Gnocci - Lukewarm. Seemed like they turned off the warmer for the sauce pot some hours ago. Since the gnocci was still chewy and there was no steam coming off the plate, it probably suggested the gnocci was plastic wrapped and microwaved for mere 30 seconds.

This sound exactly like we were served leftover of the day, and/or cancelled orders from other customers.

I decided against ordering their dessert as I came into serious doubt about their food safety handling & practices. The restaurant manager/owner clearly had a role in this, as he tried to blame the whole fiasco on his kitchen crew. Our waiter was the only positive experience from this place. I insisted on paying the full check because I wanted your people to get paid. But this alone would not excuse your active role in endangering the health and safety of your customers, especially during the pandemic, by serving food that was not cooked fresh and was already subjected to contamination and food safety-hazard temperature at the time of serving. The waiter deserved 6 out of 5 star, but the "restaurant" deserved absolute 0 star.

I contracted stomach ache and discomfort within 2 hours after eating at the restaurant. I'm sorry for having to post this, but you have failed in every way imaginable at serving food. You weren't even trying.

Eat at your own risk, but Osteria Cotta put the life of my family in danger this...

We had a bizarre service experience at Osteria Cotta last week. We made a reservation in advance for Saturday night dinner. Upon arrival, we were placed at a very tiny table, awkwardly placed in the back room. We asked if any other tables were available to switch to, after noting there were several free tables on the second floor. Our server said he would check and then informed us that all were taken by reservation. So far, that was annoying but totally acceptable, given it was a Saturday night. However, we noticed at least one table for two free the entire time we ate our dinner and when we left the restaurant and exited the back room on the second floor, the front room was practically empty. This led us up to believe our server didn’t even check if we could move.

In addition to the less than ideal table, we noticed a dirty plate on our table when we sat down. I mentioned it to our server, and he said it was supposed to be for a candle that had burned down. He moved the dirty dish to the ledge right next to our table (where he also placed our water, to give a sense of its close proximity and that it practically remained on our table for all intents and purposes). He did not offer to give us a new candle or remove the plate covered it wax. It was baffling.

Cotta has great food and the prices are good. However, our service was so subpar that I was led to write this review. Even a week later, we are still confused by how off the service seemed. The candle incident was odd and it was really annoying to be told we couldn’t move tables when it was so obvious there...