Homemade GF pasta and mozzarella sticks!!! Yes please!! My sister and I both have celiac and our waiter put us at ease right away, letting us know that the gluten-free food was prepared in a separate area. I did have my 10 year old niece with me. She was not as appreciative of the menu. There were not many options for her as a child.
A BOSTON GEM! So happy we ate here. I wanted a romantic place for dinner and this place did not disappoint. Everything on the menu sounded amazing so we definitely over-ordered. We got 4 apps and an entree. We ultimately let the server decide our entree and he chose the duck, which was perfectly cooked. Also had MANY gluten free options for my allergy.
We got the chocolate soufflé and flourless chocolate cake for dessert because we couldn’t decide between the two. I loved the soufflé and my hubs preferred the chocolate cake.
Highly recommend for a romantic dinner or if you want to splurge on a high end meal!
Cute little hole in the wall (or ground as the case may be 😅) serving a blend of Thai and Japanese-American staples. I tried their hamachi nigiri, which had an excellent quality fish. Their fried tofu was some of the best I've ever had, except there wasn't enough of the sweet and sour sauce so it was a little dry. But the tofu itself had this amazingly crispy outside and cloud soft texture inside. Their fried tofu is gluten free and they GF soy sauce as well. Don't be alarmed, they label their gluten free soy sauce as "gluten".
Delicious, fun lunch date after the MFA. We had a mixto cerviche which was chock full of seafood & shrimp. Instead of the Baja citrus style, this had a creamy sauce. I am gluten free and they made us a batch of corn tortilla chips, otherwise the 4 sweet potato (?) chips that came with the dish would not have been enough.
THE RIBS!!! OMG, I’ll return just for these! Succulent, all meat, fell off the bone. The BBQ sauce was fantastic.
Chicken tacos were also tasty & had abundant filling.
Great service, our waiter was so nice. However, the food took quite a while to come considering we were the only customers at 3 pm on a weekday.
Parking on Newbury St is always challenging, just keep circling the area til you find something. We recommend Puro!
CGK is fantastic. The food was delicious. We got the But Make It Spicy chicken sandwich and a plain burger on a gluten free bun. Both were phenomenal - juicy, salty, flavorful. The service was friendly and super fast. Lots of good gluten free options.
Dear Sonsie, you’ve never let me down but today was a bummer. My mother has a severe celiac allergy, highly highly sensitive to gluten. As in she will end up in the hospital if she has contaminated food. This was explained to the waitress. It was clear the waitress didn’t fully understand because she asked if my mom wanted to sub in wheat toast. She cannot eat bread period. None the less we saw she made a note about the gluten allergy and submitted the food. Her meal came out with toast on the eggs. We grabbed the food runner and told them we said very clearly no toast. He went back to the kitchen and they came out less than two minutes later with the meal minus toast which showed it was clear they just pulled the toast off. This is unacceptable. You could have put her in the hospital. When we sent the food back it then came with a side salad instead of the potatoes because they said those had gluten. So not only did you put toast on her meal but you were going to serve her contaminated potatoes until you were heavily challenged, twice. I don’t blame the waitress. I blame management and hold management accountable. You put her health at risk and what’s worse is the waitress said the manager would comp the meal, they didn’t not, and the manager NEVER came over to acknowledge anything. Issues rot at the top. It rots with management not training staff. Honestly cannot come back after this and I would warn anyone with a celiac/gluten allergy to stay away. This was scary.
This restaurant was just wonderful! We stumbled upon it walking down the street looking for a place for dinner and I’m so glad we did! The food is absolutely delicious and the service was impeccable. Our waiter, Dany was truly one of the best waiters I have ever come across. Not to mention that I had gluten free options. I 100% recommend this place.
If I could I would give this restaurant a score of 4.5, so don’t be turned away by the score. If you are looking for an authentic French cuisine experience, I think this is your bet and my dad who I ate with was blown away by the restaurant and will definitely eat there again.
I ordered the escargot, the basil soup, and the duck. My dad ordered the tuna tar tar and the Sole.
I’ll get the two bad things out of the way: I did not care for my soup, at all. But also I wasn’t expecting it to be chilled which may have been a product of my poor reading skills on the menu and the anticipation of a warm savory pesto soup and then confronted with a chilled grainy mush. I feel like I didn’t meet this dish where it was at and I do think I judged it unfairly and it wasn’t terrible by any stretch, I just didn’t care for it very much which was surprising as I love all the ingredients.
What is probably the biggest black mark was the complimentary bread, which seems like such a pedantic thing to poke holes about but French cuisine is known for the quality of their bread and the bread was extremely basic, not a crisp baguette crust, no delicious window-pane gluten strands. I wouldn’t ordinarily care so much but I feel that bread is such a quintessential stable of Italian and French cuisine that to offer frankly subpar bread is a bit of a blemish.
But on the good stuff.
I quite enjoyed my escargot. Some of them were particularly meaty and juicy. I also greatly enjoyed the fact that it came with some slivers of other toasted bread (much better than the bread basket) that I could dip into the sauce once I’d eaten the mollusks. It was also very hot (temperature wise) which I enjoyed as a contrast to my cold soup.
The duck was very good. Very well cooked and served with a particularly tasty sweet potato (I think? It was orange) spread which was by far the tastiest thing I had during the meal.
I also had half of my father’s Sole dish which is apparently their signature dish and it was also quite good, extremely tender and delicate though essentially tasting of mostly butter, which frankly went for the escargot as well.
So I struggle with reviewing this restaurant because I walked away thinking that a good deal of the food was quite well made and served and I actually think it’s pretty reasonably priced for a high end meal. But there were two things that I struggled with and one them is just a personal preference thing with me:
1) Portions
I had soup, an appetizer and a main course, plus half of my father’s sole and once leaving I still felt hungry (I’m not really a dessert guy). And I’m not a big eater either. I usually walk away from restaurants with a to go bag, so that felt disappointing.
2) I mostly eat Asian, Indian, and Central American cuisine and I think I really missed the big bold flavors. French cooking is very subtle and uses richness and butter in lieu of spice and flavor (in my very pedestrian opinion).
I don’t think I would eat here again, but that’s not really the fault of the restaurant. I think overall things were cooked and presented very nicely and both the service and ambience were lovely (very reminiscent of the close quarters of a genuine French restaurant).
I think I just might have been so saturated with different types of cuisine that I found it challenging to truly enjoy what was being offered. If you’re looking for an authentic French dining experience I think this is your go to, but for me, I think I’m going to stick to spicier options.
We had a nice dinner here. If you let them know ahead of time, they will prepare a gluten-free tasting menu for you. The only course they skipped was the bread course. It would have been nice to have a gluten-free option for that as well.
Our first time to Boston and Back Bay Social was within walking distance from our hotel. We were quickly shown to our table. Marlena was our waitress and she was awesome. She was very informed about the menu and options. This was important since our kids are both gluten-free. She gave my wife and I suggestions and she was spot-on. The food was magnificent and the wait staff awesome. If we are ever back in Boston - we will definitely visit Back Bay Social again. Loved it!
Food was INCREDIBLE! Atmosphere was so cute and the menu has a lot of great variety. They had gluten free bread and accommodations for allergies were great.
The service however….. was subpar at best.
A different server than who we ordered with came to deliver our drinks and there was a latte mix up. We weren’t upset but were confused and said we didn’t order that. The initial server came over and gave us BIG attitude and insisted that we ordered it. Then read back the order to us incorrectly and said with distain SO WHAT AM I MISSING?! We reiterated our order with the drink that was missing. They came back with another incorrect drink which we decided to just keep to put an end to it.
Then a different server came to take our food order and it was clear that they were talking about us behind the bar and pointing. So we knew the servers switched sections WITH NO EXPLANATION or warning. The new server who took our food order never came back to check on us, see if we needed anything, and clearly ignored us many times when we were trying to get her attention. She noticed our plates were done and still left us without checking in for at least 10-15 minutes.
The HERO TO OUR DAY and who deserves all our praises and a good bonus is NADIA!!!! She was never our waitress or responsible for us but she corrected the latte incident (that they weren’t gonna correct), she checked in on us, she cleared our plates, and brought us the bill when she noticed we were being ignored, and took off the incorrect latte that we never ordered. Thank you Nadia for being so kind and excellent in customer service. All 4 of us really appreciate you and hope your manager knows your value and hard work ethic.
Celiac friendly
