Layali Restaurant Bar — Restaurant in Providence

TLDR - I am unsure how this place gets such good reviews. This is not a spot for good food, at least not dinner and it certainly is not a spot for good drinks. And if you want to hear yourself think, forget about it, the music was incredibly loud. It must be said that the wait staff are doing the best job they can in a crap atmosphere and I and the rest of the folx I dined with appreciated that.

The long version - My partner and I and four other people went out for what we thought would be a nice dinner.

Drinks: Inconsistent at best and at worst, like dishwater. The dessert type drinks were an improvement. I initially ordered something I cannot recall the name of and it isn't listed on their website due to them "updating" their menu. It had elderflower and I thought it might be nice but it tasted awful. I had my partner taste it and he agreed it was undrinkable. Everyone else had ordered negroni's which were all different colors. I ordered a negroni and mine was darker than everyone else's. If you know how to make a negroni you know if you have to work very hard to mess it up, which is to not measure.

Food: I have never seen such a terrible menu in my life. If I had known ahead of time where we were going I would have protested just based off the menu. It's like someone took all their favorite things and said "I want to have a restaurant that serves this and it doesn't matter none of it flows together." That kind of menu is already a red flag. We ordered some appetizers, the calamari, octopus, and wings. Someone in the group had just finished discussing the worst calamari they ever had in their life which included fried lemons. As he finished this story, the calamari arrived and the lemons were fried. What use is a fried lemon to me when you are supposed to be able to use it to put on the calamari? The wings were not bad but a strange texture to the skin. The octopus was decent and the bed of salad it was on very nice.

We were so perplexed by the dinner menu it took us a while to decide what to order. I went with what felt like the safest thing, which were the chicken tacos. They were mid but passable in terms of flavor, however by the late night, my stomach got very sick and stayed that way until the next day. My partner ordered a burger and asked for it cooked medium, it was well done. Someone ordered the chicken kabobs and they found them dry. Another person ordered pasta but I do not see what it was on the online menu. They enjoyed their pasta. I do not recall the other entrees but overall, we all agreed the food was mediocre.

Atmosphere: This is a place where you probably show up intoxicated or go to get intoxicated and then not care about the food. The music was insanely loud which I measured between 89-96 dB's. At the quietest, it was 82 dB's. Someone in our party asked for it to be turned down, which they did for all of 5 minutes and then they turned it back up and then doubled the sound. It was so miserable to try to speak with each other we quickly wrapped up and went somewhere down the street for more drinks.

In short, we will never be back again and yes I am writing on behalf of everyone in our party who...

Absolutely FANTASTIC experience! Tim the bartender is so clever and funny and made my time there so special. It's a place you can make fast friends in. I know I certainly did.

The bar seating is up close and personal and the the atmosphere is so casual and inviting. I'm more on the shy and introverted side, but once I sat down, I felt more at home and like I was joking around with long-time pals. It's a truly magical experience.

I started out with the French Kiss which is a strawberry based martini topped with prosecco. It's not too sweet and actually tastes like strawberry soda! It wasn't too strong or had an overpowering alcohol taste, it was perfectly balanced. I also had the Moroccan chicken kabobs. Grilled chicken with this kind of avocado paste underneath on skewers. SO TENDER AND JUICY. A little crispy too but in a good way.

Dessert was the chocolate mousse cake. So smooth and creamy and it was heaven. VERY SWEET. The plate was lovingly decorated with dots of piped whipped cream, a chocolate drizzle, and strawberries. I tried a complimentary espresso martini with "Layali" written in cocoa powder. So creative and beautiful, and there was a little cup floating in it that was lit on fire with a blowtorch.

But the one part that floored me was the finishing shots. Two shots on a plate that tasted a little citrus topped with an orange peel and LIT ON FIRE. It was one of the CCOLEST things that I've seen in a long time. Down the shot, bite the orange peel.

Overall, I had an amazing time. Tim is one of the coolest bartenders I've ever met and if you love clever adult humor, he's your guy. Nobody's a total stranger there unless you want to...

The service here was so bad. It was busy, but the restaurant is not that large and there seemed to be plenty of servers. The first issue was when we got the food they didn't bring out two people's plates, so we only got part of the food for the table. It wouldn't have been problem if they brought them right out, but instead it took 5-10 minutes more. We started eating anyway so the food didn't get cold, but any restaurant should know to serve the table all at the same time. Then when we wanted to leave the server completely disappeared. We ended up asking either the host or another server for some boxes and the check because our server completely disappeared. She came back with boxes and then said our server was bringing the check right over. Not the case. The server never brought the check and we waited 20+ min until finally having to go up towards the kitchen to ask for the check. The server seemed oblivious to the fact that we wanted to check. Even if it was a miscommunication between the servers, it should have been solved when she saw we were sitting there and she should have known she didn't cash us out yet. We thought about just getting up and leaving without paying, probably nobody would have noticed. The food was OK but overpriced. One in our party ordered a salad and it was 90% lettuce which was disappointing. We didn't order cocktails, so I can't comment on them, but there were some impressive presentations. The music was also way too loud, we were screaming and still could barely hear each other. It was barely 8 pm and it's a restaurant. Maybe we just had bad luck, but I won't be back...