The River Café — Restaurant in New York

My girlfriend and I came here for Valentine's Day. (Celebrated Saturday instead of Friday, so we received the regular menu and missed all the craziness). Upon arriving at the entrance, there are two double doors, one right after another and a member of the River Cafe is assigned to each door. We did not open any doors anywhere we went.........besides the bathroom doors 🙂. We were greeted and the doors opened for us. We were met with a lady who asked for our reservations. With the confirmation, again, two members of the River Cafe opened the doors for us to let us onto the Cafe which actually seemeds to sit on the water. Our table was not yet ready and we were told we could wait at the bar and it should only take a few minutes. While at the bar, we realized the bartenders are a class act. I initially wasn't going to order a drink but thought, with this view, hospitality, and charisma, I'll get a Mojito. The Mojito took a couple mintues to make, which at first I didn't quite comprehend until I observed the care that went into making my drink. Not bad I thought, this was far and away a better service than most Manahattan bars and I might actually feel ok paying $20 for one drink. I had a taste and just wow. Best Mojito I've ever had. Literally benchmark perfect. Our table was ready as the drink came out and the staff carried my drink to my table so I wouldn't be burden by carrying the drink.....a new type of service I'm not accustom to. We were seated next to each other, another first for us. There was this....lamp with the cord that came in between us. If I could give a 4.9 rating I would because that did detract from the experience. I suggest a battery powered lamp? I understand the classic touch of elegance but we had to shimmy away and push the table out of the way to get in and out. Minor inconvenience really. We ordered from the prixe fix menu and just had waters with our meal. We recieved bread from the server who let us pick which bread we wanted. The bread was quite good. As a small appetizer, there was a........and forgive me here as I can never catch the full description........a fish rissoto, wrapped, with caviar on top, cucumbers, and a sweet sauce. Very good. Really only 1 or 2 bites but the flavors are impactful. I ordered the Smoked Salmon appetizer which was stuffed with potatoes. A cold dish, great presentation, although I don't think the cold salmon and potatoes worked quite as well as I hoped. Still very good but my girlfriend's appetizer was top notch. She order the Gnudi and Trufflez and it was stunning. The flavor of truffle was good and the ravioli was shockingly soft. The cheese was a kick of flavor. Amazing. As an entree, I chose the lobster. Lobster was perfect, the chips and lobster circles were covered in pineapple sauce. Really, really good. Flavors worked very well. My girlfriend got Niman Ranch Strip Steak with masked potatoes in the bone marrow. Steak was cooked well. Very good option with potatoes in the bone marrow being the clear winner of the plate. For dessert, I got their iconic chocolate Brooklyn Bridge. Really cool and the coconut sorbet with powder was the most amazing dessert I might have had to date. Very good. My girlfriend's option was quite good as well, she ordered the Semifreddo. We then had four little treats which were a great way to end the mela. Service and food was top notch. Worth the Michelin star? Yes, definitely. If you come in for a meal, I recommend selecting the ravioli appetizer, steak for meat lover and lobster for seafood, and the bridge...

It is with reluctance that I write a 2-star review for The River Café. This was meant to be a memorable experience - and to be fair it was, but not in the right way!

I booked Sunday brunch for myself and my fiance on our once-in-a-lifetime trip to NYC, as the Sunday was his birthday and I wanted to treat him, and had put money aside specifically. He doesn't tend to wear a suit as he doesn't even have to for his job, but he understood the importance of adhering to the dress code (which they say is slightly more relaxed on a Sunday) and dressed up in very smart trousers, a short sleeved shirt, blue suit jackets and lovely Hugo Boss leather shoes. We felt certain we'd be up to the high standard that the River Café clearly set.

We arrived and were shown to our seat, close to the window as I'd requested for the special occasion, which was lovely. We started to sit down, and my fiance went to take his suit jacket off. I must mention at this point that we were already a little surprised by the attire of others in the restaurant, given how strictly their dress code was reinforced on us when our booking was confirmed - there were people in jeans, t-shirts, short sleeved shirts, etc and this included people by the windows.

So my fiance started to take his jacket off, and as I mentioned he was wearing a short sleeved shirt - which revealed literally an inch of a tattoo he has on his upper arm under the bottom of the sleeve. The maitre d' caught sight of this and immediately very abruptly insisted my fiance put his suit jacket back on! Given the efforts he had gone to in order to adhere to their archaic dress code in the first place, he was very insulted and humiliated, and regrettably this put a sour twist on the rest of the experience.

We were given the wine menu and we chose a glass each - I chose a particularly sweet (usually dessert) wine (which is to my taste) which got a raised eyebrow from the waiter... from there on in, the whole experience seemed a little ridiculous to us and actually, we just sort of made fun of the situation and laughed about it together, which was the only thing that cut through the stuffy atmosphere! I'm not sure our cheerfulness was appreciated though, we were watched like a hawk by the maitre d' for the rest of our meal. (I do have to mention though that most of the servers were very good and treated us with respect).

The food itself was very good and beautifully presented... worthy of all the rave reviews though? I'm not sure. We had better food at much less expensive/pretentious restaurants and with hindsight, we'd rather have spent our $260 for brunch (!) at one of those.

We were so disappointed at their obvious distaste over my fiancé's tattoo (which incidentally is a very tasteful work of art and probably cost more than their grand piano) and ensuing treatment, that we couldn't give more than 2 stars. It had the potential to spoil what was otherwise a very lovely day for us... fortunately we made the decision to shake it off and ignore their attitudes!

Having spent a week in a city covered in rainbows to celebrate Pride 2019, a city that embraces individuality and applauds different cultures, races, religions, lifestyles and so on, it was a genuine shock to us to find somewhere so set in their ways and so discriminatory. This was genuinely the only bad customer service experience we had during our entire trip. I can only think that they are going to have to eventually change with the times, or risk alienating themselves altogether.

A real...

Very disappointing experience. The River Cafe's arrogant, inattentive staff ruined our right- my wife's Birthday. The evening started off well, but ended terribly. Our server felt that one bottle of wine over the course of our meal was too much, so he decided to totally ignore us when we ordered another. When we asked about the delay, he pedantically encouraged us to "have some food, and then we'll see". See what? So there we sat for another 20 minutes waiting for our wine and our food, while the waiter flitted around to other tables and literally ignored every gesture i to garner his attention. I guess the 3rd order of bread and butter the busboy delivered was a hint - either way, when the food finally arrived, my wife's steak (which was ordered medium) arrived practically raw and purple the middle - cold and undercooked My venison was the opposite- - - bit dry and overdone . And it's side. the "green pea soaetzel" was dry, bland, and lacking any pizazz. I've had better spaetzel at Loreley. To make matters worse, not one server made the effort to check in with us to ask if the feed was to our linking - which it was not. Furthermore, the after we finished the meal, the staff continued to ignore us, so our plates sat there until l had to hunt down a busboy and demand that our plates be removed. At that point, the even more haughty maitr'e d came over and stated he was taking over and asked if he might help with "the problem". I asked him if it was customary for his staff to ignore their tables, not check in after the main course was delivered, and further if thebusboys usually let empty plates sit on the table for an extended period of time? I then asked him if the chunk of purple meat on my wife's plate appeared to be "medium"? He agreed it did not, offered a sheepish apology. At that point, we asked for the check and passed on our dessert. Dessert was supposed. to arrive with a birthday cable for my wife, but unfortunately the RC staff had succeeded in ruining the entire evening.

All in all, if one is looking for a Michelin star rated restaurant and willing to spend $200+ per person, there are far better choices in Manhattan. Not to mention the interior is very tired and old. The outside, sure it's quaint on the water, etc - but absolutely not worth the price of admission....