Shalel

Such a lovely hidden gem on the UWS. Food was excellent, a nice healthy mix of North African and Mediterranean, great for meat lovers, vegetarians or pescatarians and plenty of gluten free choices. I enjoyed my cocktail as well, I got the Arak mule. The underground atmosphere is truly unique, it feels like a little escape from the city, and there are lots of cozy nooks that make the experience more intimate and private.

The food was excellent and the atmosphere was so cozy, but since dining here this experience hasn't sat right with me and I feel the need to bring it up to the restaurant and other people dining here. I told our survey that I had a gluten allergy and he was nice and accommodating, let us know what on the menu could be made gluten free and what couldn't. We ordered two appetizers and the mixed grill entree and the server let us know one piece of meat in the entree wasn't gluten free and he offered to bring it on a separate plate for my boyfriend. He then turned to me and said "what would you like instead, we could do chicken, filet mignon, fish, etc." implying he would sub that for the lamb that had gluten in it. I told him that whatever he recommends would be fine. Come to find out he added a $43 filet mignon entree to our ticket. Luckily my boyfriend realized what was going on and told me "he just upsold you a filet mignon" and we were able to remove it from the ticket, but the whole thing felt really scummy. The waiter's entire demeanor changed after I said "excuse me- when you said to add filet mignon was that an entirely separate entree?". He seemed sheepish and the rest of our dinner was just kind of awkward. For such a nice restaurant that isn't cheap, to feel like the staff is being dishonest and upselling two young customers like that was upsetting. We watched him talk rudely to an elderly couple sat next to us as well when their entree came at the same time as their appetizers. He rudely told them they should specify next time if they don't want the entree to come at the same time as the appetizer (I feel like that is something that wouldn't need to be specified??). The food was fabulous and the rest of the staff was genuinely lovely (there was a hostess who was so kind and made our night really special) so I think it is a problem with this specific server rather than the restaurant as a whole, but the whole thing was very shady and unsettling.