Limani — Restaurant in Newton

Limani at Chestnut Hill

Sitting here writing after a Father’s Day dinner to figure out what exactly happened. Everything was bad. The food was obscenely terrible (see attached pics for reference). I’ve had slow service before and while I usually don’t complain because when service is slow at a restaurant it’s because the kitchen is short staffed (not your servers fault), almost 2 hrs wait for bad food is unacceptable. This pitiful and potentially very expensive experience is due to poor management. For those with TLDR this should stop you before dropping $$$$ on an awful restaurant.

For those who want to suffer through the reading here are the reasons among a lot of things that went wrong.

There was nothing on the menu; we attempted to order their fish for two people through 3 attempts (snapper, red snapper, and sea bass) and the waitress had to come back each time to tell us something is sold out. Not a problem as I don’t mind ordering something else but the issue is I asked specifically for equivalent to their fish for 2 and they sold me fish for 1 for the same price (see pics). I’m pretty sure the waitress knows we have 4 adults in the party and needed 2x fish for 2. If you don’t have it sell me 4x fish for one. And if the restaurant can’t do math on portion sizes then just sell fish for 1 on your menu (price accordingly) to avoid the embarrassment altogether. The fish we ended up getting was beyond bad. Again it doesn’t feed 2 (see pics and reference size against the lemon), it was overly cooked, so all in it is not worth $84. The 22 oz aged cowboy steak which we wanted medium rare was brought to us well done. Reasoning per the manager was they made a mistake of cooking it first and it sat and waited under the hot lamp while the fish was done. I can overcook my own steak at home for less than $68 and while I’m nitpicking I’m very sure what was brought to me was not a full 22 oz. I want to compare the so called U10 shrimp meat quality to Costco shrimp, but honestly that’s an insult to Costco as that shrimp is way better. Same questionable portion (ie small) served for my Macallan 12.

So you’re saying small portions at a high end restaurant, what is the complaint? That is par for course at most bistros. Yes that is true but at French bistros I’m paying for the quality in flavor within the execution of the food and also hospitality/service. You do NOT get that here while they price it as such.

Final insult of the night. Our party needed split the bill between two families. They double charged both our credit cards and unable to show proof of voiding the duplicate. They ended up void into all transactions because they could not figure out their own credit card system. Ugh.

I’m not sure what to say. Food was bad and experience was worse. They attempted to bring free dessert and drinks when we were having issues with the cards (which we declined because at that point we just wanted to get out that place; we were already there for 3.5hrs). And to be fair they also offered to recook the steak but I can’t wait for God knows how long before our children can eat.

The management needs to rethink it all. The food, the serving staff, the delivery of service, the portions in the menu. All of it. This is a very bad restaurant with a lot of money invested into the renovations. If it’s this bad this early on it’s doubtful they’ll have a chance to earn repeat customers as their customers are too busy running for the hills.

I’m not even mad to be honest. It’s just sad because I know that restaurants are very capital intensive businesses dealing with fickle clientele. The managers on duty was apologetic but they just looked overwhelmed and have no answers for all the problems (even clogged sinks in mens room on both sides; seriously, see pics). It’s not an exaggeration of how terrible this restaurant is and need Gordan Ramsey level of intervention to fix. I wish them good luck as it seems like they will need...

UPDATE: Nope, this place disappointed yet again. Mother’s Day was a crap show. From giving out menus that had a prixe fixe menu when there was not actually one, to ordering shareable and within 5 min of getting those, the entrees miraculously arrived, we were still working on shareable. We explained we were still working on but they tried to take plates away. Twice we said we are still working on. Regardless, both entrees arrived cold. Literally. Timeframe, walked in, got seated, ordered, shareable arrived quick but then the entrees. All within 15 minutes after arriving at the restaurant really? they did try to correct, so A for effort, but honestly, I would not ever go back. This time I ordered the branzino, beautifully plated but cold, second time warm but it really wasn’t very good. My daughter ordered tuna, cold not seared, cold. Twice..

Beautiful restaurant and atmosphere. The manager/host were very nice. However, the food was just okay. We were looking forward to trying this place so it's disappointing. The service, and maybe the server was new, but we had some service issues throughout the meal, but decided not to complain as wasn't sure if the server was new. The three of us decided to order a bottle of wine to share (white) they brought out an unchilled bottle. Odd. For appetizers we ordered the grilled calamari and crab cakes. The calamari look delish, but the flavor fell short. The crab cakes were good. For entrees, 2 of us ordered the halibut and one ordered the tuna. The halibut lacked flavor and was served with some steamed broccoli/cauliflower which also was lacking in flavor. The tuna was very good. I had expected the food would have had more of that mediterranean flare that I was expecting. It is touted as mediterranean and while the menu selection is impressive, the flavors were not quite there. The dessert was good, it was a birthday so we ordered the orange cake, and they did a great job with that. I'm not sure I will return, but maybe it was a bad...

I have been to Limani for a work event before, and liked the place. So my husband picked it for dinner on Mother’s Day (he made a reservation). We were stuck in the very end of the second room and had to wait for forever for everything. When the waitress finally came we were ready to order but she said we could order when she brought our drinks (which took a long time and she didn’t bring kids drinks at the same time when she brought adult drinks - only after she brought kids drinks she took our order). When we finally got to order our food, the table that came after us already got their appetizers. By this time the kids were stuffed with bread which they brought out twice (at least they didn’t completely starve the kids). 2 hours (!) into our dinner the waitress brought my husbands main course and said that they ran out of Moussaka (which was my order per her suggestion). By this time multiple tables that arrived after us already had their food, paid and left. The waitress offered a substitute for me of a filet mignon kebab which actually came pretty fast. I asked my husband to eat his meal while it was still warm so we all had main courses at different times. The waitress (decent thing) took off my main course off the check. My husband still left 20% tip, because the waitress took off my main course and he is always leaves generous tips. I understand that Mother’s Day is busy, and I understand that they can run out of particular menu items, and don’t expect same food quality as on a regular night, but it literally took more than 2 hours to get our main courses (and kids were stuffed with bread by the time we got our appetizers). Not sure why we were left behind while everybody around us (most of them having arrived after us) got their food, ate, paid, and left. One thing I know is that we will not be going back there for sure. Too bad, I liked the place the first time...