I travel most of the time and like most travelers have eaten in too many restaurants to count. This is the first time in all my years that I have written a complaint about a restaurant.
In this case, the poor service, low quality food, and lack of hospitality were appalling to us, especially for the high prices they charge for you to enjoy a view of the lake. It is a lot more fun to bring food and drink to the lakeside while enjoying the view without dealing with this really pretentious restaurant.
Like other reviewers, we have gone here now a few times on Sunday mornings in Central Park fooled into thinking that the view was worth the probability of obviously poor treatment by the restaurant staff.
However, on this visit, the restaurant outdid themselves. Since they open on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. (no reservations allowed), we arrived at the front door about 9:00 a.m. and were the first in line. At 9:35 we were allowed in, but the manager had opened the side door first and there were about 60 people ahead of us. Nevertheless, there were about 15 lake side tables available which the hostess had instructions to be reserved only for parties of 4 or more unless you had pull with the managers. Since there were only two of us this time, we were ushered to seats inside the restaurant.
The rest was worse. No one greeted us - not the hostess, the server, or any other staff member the entire time we were there. It was like it was a perfunctory obligation on their part to get us seated, get us served, and get us out. The bread and rolls were very stale and hard. The $40 steak and eggs came back undercooked (medium rare vs. medium well) and when sent back, did not come out again for about 45 minutes. The manager sat at the bar having breakfast most of the time we were there while his staff was pushing crowds in and out. For visitors to New York, I would say it is definitely not worth the risk of ending a fun trip to New York with an experience at this place. No we will not be back.
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