Varka Restaurant — Restaurant in Ramsey

Had a wonderful evening last night at Varka and enjoyed some outstanding seafood, but ultimately came away feeling disappointed because of issues with service.

This was my first visit. My lady has visited several times.

We made a reservation for 9:15pm, the earliest time available to us on OpenTable — when we arrived there were several tables open, so felt that maybe we could have gotten an earlier dinner time. Those tables were never filled during our time and when we left at 11 half the restaurant was empty.

The hostess Jenny was amazing, really adds to the exciting atmosphere. We asked her for recommendations and she set the tone for the amount of amazing seafood we were about to eat.

Service was quick, we were asked for drink orders within 2 minutes of sitting.. which we appreciated. She ordered an extra dirty vodka martini and her drink came out clear, she winced when she drank it. I ordered a Manhattan neat in a rocks glass and it came out in a martini glass, slightly disappointing.

We were taken to the fish display which was a wonderful experience — our waiter gave us a knowledgeable overview and took our whole dinner order (apps and dinner) right there. He actually recommended we order everything at once so they could stagger our courses accordingly.. makes sense we listened. We ordered a LOT.. apps: grilled octopus, 4 west coast oysters (only 2 types of west coast oysters were available at that time, the rest were sold out), 1 langoustine/1 tiger prawn/1 king crab leg (prepared shareable for us which we greatly appreciated). Dinner: 1 loup de dinner (bronzinni) with a side of grilled asparagus, and 1 Dover sole with a side of lemon roasted potatoes.

Once back at the table, the food was brought out quickly. First was the langoustine/tiger prawn/king crab leg, which were all amazing. While waiting for the next course, she had finished her drink and ordered a Sauvignon Blanc, and the waiter brought out a wine glass, but never brought the wine. Next to arrive was the dinner, which looked amazing, but my asparagus was steamed, not grilled. Also, we inquired about the status of the rest of our apps: the grilled octopus and oysters (as they never arrived). The waiter came over, apologized, offered to pay for the octopus, and said he’d bring it out with the oysters immediately. He unfortunately also spilled some of my Manhattan (could have been avoided if it was in a rocks glass), and promised to “take care of that” for me. We were charged in full for the octopus as well as the Manhattan. My date also got her glass of wine, in a 2nd glass, after the octopus and oysters were brought out.

I should mention that the waiter asked if we wanted dessert, we ordered the cheesecake to go (we were so stuffed), and he did not charge us for it. But we were confused as we charged for the octopus and I was not given another Manhattan after the small spill.

All in all the food was electric. Simply amazing seafood. However for a bill just under $300 (with a 20% tip we gave), I can’t justify anything above 3 stars. These mistakes shouldn’t occur when you’re charging that much money to customers.

Would like to come back at an...

While this place is highly rated, our experience was nothing but the WORST and extremely unprofessional. So unfortunate that a restaurant with good food had terrible service and created a hostile and uncomfortable enviornment. My friend and I went to the restaurant around 5pm on a Monday. She ordered wine, 23 years old, asked for the sweetest wine and was met with such a hostility by some random waiter that wasn't even ours over a simple question. This waiter came over because our waiter had told him to answer the question. After this random waiter was extremely rude repeatedly saying "we don't have sweet wine" without my friend being able to get a word out in response, she finally managed to say "Yes I understand that, so what do you recommend". He proceeded to have an attitude with an extremely cold look. We continued to order and have our dinner acknowledging that the interaction was so weird. She was served the wine and was halfway through the glass when this same random waiter came over again and goes "can I see your ID?". Completely interrupted us midway through our conversation and asked so rudely. Maybe if he was nicer and apologized for our waiter not checking initially it would be a different story. But the rudeness was just unmatched. How does such a highly rated restaurant not card someone before serving alcohol and then proceed to ask them midway through their drink for an ID? Not only that, but some man in a suit, maybe the manager, was staring her down and making us feel extremely uncomfortable before this waiter even came over again. Once again, instead of sending our actual waiter, we realized we had two additional men watching our every move in a half empty restaurant, which made the atmosphere more intense. The whole experience was so uncalled for, especially because of the rudeness and hostility from the staff. I've never felt so uncomfortable having dinner with a friend as two young women in a restaurant before. No apologies or anything for the rude behavior even though we are having a 150$+ dinner. Also, it's literally 5pm on a Monday, if we were underage, I can assure you we would not be having an expensive dinner with expensive wine.... If you don't want young women in their early 20s in your establishment, have some rules if you're going to treat people that way. Even through a terrible experience, we tipped generously because our actual waiter was nice. These two other men ruined the experience and I've never experienced this before. I will be sure to report them for not checking IDs before serving alcohol since they are...

We had a lunch at Varka with couple of our friends on Saturday, April 17 at 12:30 PM. The outside temperature was in 40s, a bit cold for us but couple people were seating outside. We decided to seat inside. We were greeted promptly and courteously and I was pleasantly surprised and appreciated that they check every customer’s temperature before they seat them. Varka has a very nice, large, open dining area. We were seating in the back of the room near a door. What we did not realize is that they used this door (instead of the front of the restaurant, which has double doors) to serve people who were sitting outside and every time they went in and out we would get a cold draft which my wife and and our friends did not like at all. We requested our server to ask others to use a different door and he said he would but this did not stop. It was really annoying. We would have changed our table except we had already gotten some of our appetizers and drinks and did not feel like changing the table.

The food was excellent. We had ordered couple of appetizers, Greek Spreads ($18) and Roasted Beets ($13) and they were very good. We had also ordered four martinis ($14 each) and they were good as well. The service was very good as well. For entree we ordered some Greek salad along with spinach pie, seafood nicoise and some pasta for the four of us. All the food came well prepared/presented and was delicious. We each had a glass of Greek white wine ($12 each) with our entree and it was good as well. For dessert we ordered Galactobourico ($12) and we loved it. All the portions were good size. We all were full.

Finally we asked for a check and our total bill was about $260 ($65 per person), which was not a surprise but what surprised and shocked me and disappointed me was that they would charge additional 3.5% if we paid by credit card! Excuse me! I totally did not expect that. All the good experience we had turned into disappointment after spending all that money and the kind of high charges they have for every item! You would expect this in some fast food place but not at a place like this! More than money, it was the bad vibes and perception I felt about this place. I hope they change their policy!!!! I will be watching for that day before I...