The Marshal — Restaurant in New York

Very disappointed with The Marshal.

I made a pre-theater reservation for tonight. I was told that they only had countertop space at the bar. Okay, no problem. My wife actually prefers sitting next to each other anyway.

We show up, the countertop is taken, but the bar is open. The hostess greets us, and I tell her I have a reservation and give her my name. She asks us to wait a moment as she greets the people that come in behind us, and she proceeds to seat them at the bar. I was blown away. I couldn't believe she gave our seats away. She comes back and asks if we're okay with a table. Probably something that should've been asked prior to seating the people that came in after us. She says that she's willing to ask them to move from the bar, and that she wants us to be happy. If she wanted us to be happy why didn't she seat those that arrived first? I'm not going to ask someone else to move on account of a poor hostess, so we end up at a table.

I like how they describe this place as cozy. Classic real estate jargon for small. We squeeze into our table, and order. The drinks are good. The Kenzie Finishit is sweet, but you can still taste the alcohol, which I like. For some reason, the food took forever for us. The table to our right that sat down 10 minutes after us was getting their meal and we hadn't even received our appetizers. I have to inform the waiter that we had a pre-theater reservation when the appetizers finally arrive, and by this time we'll need to leave in 30 minutes. Maybe the pre-theater reservation was lost when we got bounced from our spot at the bar. Aside from the slow food, which could've been due to the order not going in or a slow kitchen, I thought the wait service was good. Our waiter was always around, and was very attentive. It took another 20 minutes for the food to come out, and by that time I'm asking for the check.

With the ten minutes we had to eat I thought the food was okay, but certainly not worth the price. I thought the lamb lacked flavor. Thankfully, the turnip that came with it was good enough to hide it. The rainbow carrots that I ordered with my meal were inedible. I had no idea charcoal was a color in the rainbow. Even though my wife got the scallops without the bourbon sauce that came with it, I thought the scallops were good. So, I guess the food is hit or miss.

As we paid, the waiter brought over two glasses of port to apologize for the delay in the food. Neither my wife or I are port drinkers and we didn't have the time to drink, so the wine didn't really do us any favors. We appreciated the gesture, though discounting the check was probably the better move. We...

After reading many reviews, I was really looking forward to my first visit to The Marshal. Not only because there are VERY few really good pre-theater dining options (The Lambs Club has fallen down in food quality and is over - priced) but because it sounded like the kind of restaurant I would love. Unfortunately, I cannot give it five stars though I would return, probably in the warmer months when bulky coats are left at home because there is not a spare inch of room at any table; not only are the tables very close together, but the tables themselves very narrow and small. Maybe I’m getting old but feeling very cramped for 1+ hours takes away some of the enjoyment. The food, however, was very good with a few exceptions. I ordered the Burrata starter and when the waitress announced with a straight, serious face that it did not come with bread and did we want to order some I winced inside. It feels nickel&dimey to have to pay for bread ESPECIALLY when ordering a not inexpensive appetizer that REQUIRES bread. Charge $1 more for every entree and GIVE out the bread. Also.....the Burrata itself was not great. The water actually spurt out of it all over the table when I first cut into it and the texture was off. The caramelized onions and cherry tomatoes plus salt on the side made up for it...yum. I ordered the Cod which was tasty but not to die for, my husband the mushroom risotto, which lacked a strong mushroom taste but was rich and creamy. Truth be told, I would likely have been more positive about the food had the staff been more friendly and less “holier-than-thou, bow down to the farm-to-table ethos of this place”. Lighten up guys! Have a little fun, smile a little as you tell me “...no, we don’t have Titos Vodka ONLY NY State vodka, and (heaven forbid) we don’t have Roses Lime juice ONLY fresh squeezed Lime”. I get it! I know this is a serious dining establishment and you take your credo seriously, but I felt scolded by the almost caricature-hipster staff. When I walked in at 5:30 for a 5:45 reservation and 80% of the tables were open, did you really have to give me the stink eye when I demurred at sitting at the TINY bar in back, and asked simply to wait at the table? Bottom line: food is very good, excellent choice in pre-theater universe, only NY state wines is very limiting, and the staff needs to lighten up with...

Overall: Food was amazing. Service was great. Atmosphere was claustrophobic.

I went to The Marshal on what ended up being a brutally cold night. It didn't take as long to get to New York as we thought, so we called ahead and asked if they could take us ahead of our original reservation time, and they said it was no problem.

When we got there, we realized the restaurant was really narrow and small (and that they really couldn't take us right away after all). We ended up waiting almost 15 minutes. But there is no where to at all to wait inside. There's barely enough room to move. Had it not been in the teens that night, we could have easily just waited outside, but again, it was just too cold. We ended up awkwardly standing by the door/hostess stand as people and servers tried to move around us.

Eventually we were seated by the window, but the server literally had to move the table out in order for us to sit. We were basically trapped in there for our meal unless the server was going to drag the table out for us again. I get that it's NYC and some places can be narrow, but there were just too many tables crammed into this tiny place. You're practically seated on top of other people.

We ordered two different salads (kale and beet) and we ordered the Cacio e Pepe and delicata squash pizzas. The salads were delicious and flavorful, and large enough to split. When the pizzas came out, we pointed out that one of them was not what we'd ordered. To his credit, the server immediately apologized for the error and he put in a rush order for the correct one. We ended up getting a free pizza out of it, which was nice. The Cacio e Pep pizza was good, but that delicata pizza was downright delicious. The wine was also thoroughly enjoyed.

As much as we enjoyed the food, I don't know that I'd head back there in the dead of winter again. We'll probably wait for warmer weather and opt to eat...