What we love: The concept if it were executed well, the fries which are almost as good as McDonald's.
What we could live without: Poor execution of the concept, the prices, music so loud and acoustics so bad you can't talk to the person next to you, the extremely strict reservation policy when the restaurant is half empty, inefficient restaurant layout
Burger scale: B-
Price range: $$$ out of $$$$
Payment method: cash, major credit cards
We love the idea of a
locavore restaurant dedicated to products and food found primarily in the five boroughs. Unfortunately, Borough Food and Drink wasn't the restaurant we were thinking of.
Despite the restaurant's attempts to feel
authentically local -- a deli counter and dining room shelves stocked with local foodstuffs from Little Italy, the Pickle Guys and Chinatown, all for sale -- it somehow misses the mark. It feels very much like a suburban chain restaurant trying very hard to create kitsch that it believes represents the Five Boroughs.
Maybe it was the space. The restaurant space was H U G E. A long and awkward expanse of hardwood floors, reclaimed wood finishes and exposed brick. One third the length of the restaurant was partitioned into a bar which was spilling over with a young
sceney flatiron crowd. The other two thirds of the cavernous restaurant, separated from the bar by a banister or a low wrought iron fence (our memory fails us at present as we are neither young or
sceney), was the sit down and eat portion. The proportions were wrong. There were too many people at the bar, and not enough at the restaurant. The space was
echoey. It just wasn't conducive to sit down
eatness. What? We can't hear you. Can you repeat that again
- gain - ain - in - n?
Then again, maybe it was our experience with the service. We made our reservation the previous week, and the restaurant had stressed that our entire party arrive before we would be seated. When a few of us were running a few minutes behind, we were told to sit in a small crowded waiting area near the hostess station, which gave us the impression that the restaurant was busy and packed. Once everyone showed, the hostess took us to the back of the restaurant, which was EMPTY. Which is why we couldn't figure out why our server was nowhere to be seen for much of the night, why our food took so long to arrive, and why our hostess thought it wise to seat us at a long table right next to the aforementioned rail that separated the extremely crowded and noisy bar from the dining room. It made it hard for us to have any conversation over dinner.
Or, it could have been the terribly loud music. We don't know about you, but we like our dinner music to be at slightly below conversation volume so we can speak to the people at our table but not have to hear the people at the table next to us. Borough Food and
Drink's interpretation of dining music was deafening house or trance music. Perfect music for a bar or lounge, but not so great for dinner.
All this, and we've yet to discuss burgers!
The
cheeseburger in question, a 10oz house blended beef burger on a seeded white bun with heirloom tomatoes, lettuce, onion, caper
aioli and a choice of local NY cheeses, was decently inoffensive. For $15 a burger ($17 if you add bacon), we expect more than decent and inoffensive and a side of shoe string fries. (The fries were quite good.) We expect burgers that are at least good if not better than good. If we want an "okay" burger, we'd go to our neighborhood
Applebee's. The burgers might not be plated as well as the burgers at Borough Food and Drink, but they'd taste the same nonetheless.We don't know if we just happened to arrive at a night where the service, the music and the food just happened to be slightly off, or if our experience summed up Borough Food and Drink on most nights. From what we can tell, the place caters more to people who go to socialize and drink, not to people who go to socialize and eat. We won't be back to try our luck again.
