Artu

Food great...service needs improvement

by kseaman at Citysearch

My husband and I stopped in last Sunday during the St. Anthony's festival for an early dinner and were pleasantly surprised at how nice the bar area was. So, we grabbed a couple seats. Ordered the capreze salad and a couple entrees, all of which were fantastic! Great flavor for cheap prices! Unfortunately, the only low was the service. There were two bartenders for the afternoon and the male bartender waited on us...or should I say we waited on him? Everything was very slow. Our wine took forever. He brought out bread before placemats and didn't give us bread plates until we were almost done with the bread. Waiting for the check seemed like forever. But it was even longer to get the credit card back. We will definitely return, but will be skeptical with the service. Hopefully it'll improve.

• Pros: Location, freshness of food
• Cons: Bartender

Great food, friendly staff and some mean martini's.....

by endiamo at Citysearch

We popped in this past Friday around 8:30 w/ no reservations, greeted cordially by the hostess who told us "there was 30 min. wait, but we could eat at the bar", and as she spoke a couple seats opened up so decided to go that route, glad we did. The bartenders, Tanya and Stephanie were great!! Gave us some excellent dinner suggestions, my wife went with the veal carrozzella and I opted for the guazzetto (mix of fresh seafood), couldn't have been happier!! Our friends stopped by and grabbed a pizza (a grilled shrimp scampi pizza) while we split a chocolate souffle, they loved the pizza.....we followed that with several "mean" martini's and stoli doli rounds and we ended up staying to 1!!! Staff was very friendly, casual atmosphere, bar got a little more energy as the night went on ( don't know if that was the drinks or the crowd, lol!) People were ordering meals as we were leaving at 1a.m. , believe the bar closes at 2 we are all looking forward to heading back soon...

A Dissapointing Evening

by Ted75 at Citysearch

Stopped in for dinner on a fairly busy saturday night in the North End without reservations. My fiancee and I were relieved to find somewhere without a wait and we were seated in at a two person table in the corner of one of the rooms. The menu was decent, a bit heavy on the meat, but both of us quickly found something to order. Everything was going decent until our meals arrived. Neither one was particulary hot, but the main problem was the fact that my fiancee's breaded chicken dish had large pieces of egg shell all over the chicken. Both halvesof her chiken had the egg shell pieces. We pointed them out to the waiter and all he said in reply was that he had never seen that before (I would hope not). He did manage to get a replacement meal quickly, but left us with only 1 fork. After asking anearby waitress and recieveing a gruff response, I went and got my own fork.

Even the second chicken dish was not very hot and neither our waiter nor anyone else from the restaurant stopped by to appologize for the first.

Also, to top it all off, the bathroom was quite dirty which is never a good sign in my opinion.

When the bill came we were charged for everything. I know mistakes happen and it was not the waiters fault, but the lack of apology or anything was dissapointing.

Needless to say we will definetely not be returning to Artu...

• Cons: Dissapointing service, unfriendly servers, questionable sanitation

Great Food, Reasonable Prices, Great Staff

by dparsons28 at Citysearch

I went here with a group and had a great time. The food was fabulous. Our waitress, Prudie, was a gem - down to earth, fun and spunky. All 6 of us had a different dish and every person was more than happy with thier meal. And the prices were GREAT; I dont know why anyone would complain about that. It did get a little loud (probably mostly from my group) so I wouldnt suggest this for a quiet romantic evening, but definitely GO to this place. It's well worth it!

Quality Italian classics for a great value

by ern84 at Citysearch

I recently went to Artu to celebrate my birthday along with six other guests. We had a reservation and were promptly seated dispite a quite busy atmosphere. We were treated like family from the time we arrived until we left, and the service was adequate despite the obvious crowds. The menu offers several Italian-American staple dishes that were good yet not outstanding, however for the price they tasted quite nice. The wine list is small but also moderately priced, although it lacks the high end punch offered at other north end haunts. Overall, if you are looking for good food, a family style atmosphere, and a great value, Artu offers a great choice located in the heart of the north end.

• Pros: Value, Atmosphere
• Cons: Crowded