Bosphorous Turkish Cuisine - Winter Park — Restaurant in Winter Park

Utter disappoint, customer service was atrocious. Waiter was missing in action a majority of the time. If you want to know the whole story...read below.

Today, my kid wanted to try Turkish food so we decided to take him to Bosphorous because my wife and I always had a good experience in the restaurant. We were the first one there and the host sat us down and the server took our appetizer (calamari) and meal orders promptly. Approximately, 20 minutes later we were still waiting for our appetizer so we ask another waiter for an update on the appetizer, 2 minutes later all our food was brought which included the appetizer and the main course. As Olivia our server placed the food down I said, “Shouldn’t the appetizer come first since its the appetizer” she replied “sure, you know how it is in the morning it just crazy” without any apology. Are you kidding me Olivia, you only had one table and we were the only one there. After placing the food down my wife asked for a spoon and 10 minutes passed by and no spoon was delivered. When the appetizer (calamari) was placed down we tried a couple pieces and it was very very soft and barely warm. My guess would be it wasn’t fully deep fried and it was sitting in kitchen for a while. I complained to the Manager (Nadia) about the appetizer and she explained that she took out the appetizer as it was finished cooking….”that may be true but it sure sat there for awhile”. We decided to order another calamari appetizer and that came out promptly….”finally somebody was paying attention”. Our first bite of the 2nd order of the calamari was burning hot...”as it should and unfortunately it was very, very soft”. In our experience, calamari is usually crunchy but apparently in Boshporous it’s the total opposite. By this time the restaurant had several customers seated and has already ordered there appetizer. We could see that the appetizers for the rest of the patrons were brought out first prior to their main course. Apparently, Olivia screwed up and couldn’t face the fact that she messed or muster an apology.….”do your job better Olivia its not that difficult to pay attention one table”. In the end the restaurant gave us a free dessert because of my son’s...

Quality at the expense of Volume

Bosphorus has been one of our favorite, go-to restaurants on Park Ave. Unfortunately, this past Father's Day they did not live up to their normal high standards for either food or service.

We expected a large crowd and a busy evening. However, both the wait and kitchen staff seemed to have been overwhelmed. Our minor issue was with the wait-staff. Even though our table was ready and clearly visible, we were forced to wait for almost 20 minutes past our reservation time to be seated. There didn't seem to be much of a reason, other than they didn't have anyone available to wait upon us and decided to have us stand by the Hostess stand, vs letting us sit unattended at the table. This was a nuisance, and probably not worth mentioning, if it hadn't been for the Kitchen.

We ordered our typical favorite dishes. As always we started with the Appetizer plate, followed by Lamb and Chicken Sis Kebaps. Once seated our waiter was attentive and took our order. Within a few minutes he returned with the appetizer plate, so far so good. The problems started less than 5 minutes later when he also returned with our main courses. We had barely started to work on our appetizers when the rest of our food arrived. The waiter made an off-hand comment about the Kitchen being rushed, dropped our food and left.

We were highly disappointed. The menu describes the Lamb Kebaps as ...

LAMB SIS KEBAP Skewers of tender lamb marinated in our chef’s unique seasonings and chargrilled to perfection

If you look at the attached photo you will see that the Lamb that was served is missing two important items. 1) there is no skewer hole and 2) the meat has not been chargrilled. The meat came out cool and with a grainy texture and bland taste. All indications would be that both our lamb and chicken had been prepared via "sous vide" . When cut into, the lamb had a very thin brown layer while almost the entire interior was a consistent red-pink color. There was every indication that the meat had never been placed on a grill.

It's a shame that Bosphorus allowed themselves to be rushed and focused more on the crowd volume than providing their normal...

Terrible experience. It’s hard to know where to start. I went to dinner with my family and friends on Friday night. We sat outside because we had three kids with us. While waiting for our food, it started to rain, but we weren’t too concerned since we were under a roof. However, when dinner arrived, my 4-year-old daughter started complaining that her t-shirt was wet. When I checked, I found her shoulder and back were soaked. This was alarming because she’s asthmatic and can have episodes easily.

At the same time, my friend, who has a severe allergy to water (which, though rare, is true), began to get upset because water was dripping on him and over our food, which we hadn’t even touched yet. The ceiling started leaking, and soon all of us, along with the table and our food, were completely wet.

I called the waiter and politely asked him to address the situation. He replied that it wasn’t his fault because he couldn’t control the rain. I then asked to speak with the manager Jackie. To my surprise, she echoed the same response: “It’s not our fault, I can’t control the rain.” While that’s true, it’s the restaurant’s responsibility to ensure the ceiling doesn’t leak and to provide proper customer service. She could have offered to move us to another table, bring new food, or at the very least, comp our uneaten meal. But she did nothing. Instead, she rudely started removing our plates, so we decided to leave.

After we left, they immediately seated another group at the same table, which shows they don’t care about their customers. How can they seat another family at a table with ceiling leaks?

We ended our night at urgent care because my daughter began having complications, and my friend needed medication.

I don’t recommend this place—this was the worst experience I’ve had in my eight years living in Orlando. It’s not a family-friendly restaurant at all. They don’t accommodate kids, offer a kids' menu, or have changing tables in the bathrooms. I had to change my baby on the sink. Not even in a cheap fast food place has something like this...