08/05/06

Romantic. Well priced. Excellent food and fun experience (appetizer-based dining).

by gbutler

I can't say enough about Ivy. Fantastic and inventive Italian fare. It's perfect for a romantic date and won't break your budget. It isn't cheap, but it is a good value for the ambiance and quality of food. The service is quality, if a bit simple. The wine menu is simple to use - no anxiety since everything is the same price. They also allow purchasing 2 glass quartinos of wine for a fraction of the price of a bottle (great for sharing if you and your date only want to drink 1 glass of wine each).

• Pros: Romantic. Value.
• Cons: Location is a bit iffy after dark, but area is improving.

04/28/09

Great food and wait staff

by Karalyn12

Ivy is a great place to grab dinner in an upbeat atmosphere. The waiter was top notch and really made the experience. The food was exceptional as well. I would absolutely go back here and would reccomend it to anyone looking for a great italian meal.

• Pros: Food, service

03/20/09

Convenient Pre Theater

by Aym

This is a good spot for pre theater dinner/drinks or for an after work get together with friends. There's more of a bar atmosphere on the lower level.

03/20/09

Great Italian Restaurant

by YEAGER

Ivy is a great Italian place that serves large quantities of food at a very reasonable price. The food and the service were phenomenal!! They have a great wine list for around $25/bottle. I was unsure about a couple of things on the menu and the wait staff was more than helpful in explaining everything. Great atmoshphere anytime of the day. Highly recommend!

• Pros: Food, Service, Price

03/20/09

Great Theater Menu and Deal!

by IrishTemper

I went to The Ivy with girlfriends before going to see Dirty Dancing. We had wonderful and friendly service and the food was delicious. You can't beat the value either! They offer a theater menu with several food options as well as wine for only $30/person.

This was a wonderful start to a great evening.

• Pros: Great Value and Service

03/19/09

Great place to meet up

by miacomet

I've been to Ivy at least 10 times. Its a great place to meet up for a drink with friends as well as dinner. I highly recommend the Gnocchi with pull braised duck.

• Pros: wine list, comfortable
• Cons: Parking

03/19/09

Stay away!!!

by kbloor

My friend and I were planning on having a nice lunch here during restaurant week thinking that the food would be exceptional - especially during restaurant week. The food that we were served was not only tasteless and stale, but the service left much to be desired, as well.

1) When we were seated, we had to wait 15 minutes before anyone came to take our order (odd, considering there is a note at the bottom of your menu explaining that you try to be considerate of people that have to return to work and make every attempt to serve the meal in a relatively short amount of time).

2) My friend and I had both ordered the same 3 courses. The first course was the house salad with a goat cheese crostini. The lettuce that we received was soaked in salad dressing and appeared to have been soaking in the salad dressing all morning. Additionally, the goat cheese crostini was tough, stale, and cold.

3) Our second course was supposed to be gnocchi in a tomato sauce. When we received the second course, we also received the third course at the same time. Regarding the gnocchi, it was cold and I'm sure it had also been sitting out for quite a while.

4) Our supposedly third course (which came out with the second course), was a vegetable panini. Again, this was cold, hardly had any vegetables or goat cheese on it, the bread was barely toasted (and since it was cold, it had obviously been toasted a few hours earlier only causing it to be chewy).

This is one of the worst meals I have ever eaten considering the amount of money I spent on it. I would have much preferred spending $5 to get a burrito from the stand outside of the restaurant had I known how bad the food was going to be. I can only hope that the food is better when it is not restaurant week (although if anyone were using restaurant week as an opportunity to see whether or not they would like to go back during the rest of the year, I guarantee you they will not).

• Pros: None
• Cons: Old, stale food.

03/03/09

not worth the long wait and bad food

by olearym

I have to say that is was one of the worst restaurants my husband and I have ever been to in Boston and I will never go back and would not send anyone I know to go there either. We had a dinner reservation that we arrived on time for and had to wait for our table for two for nearly 45 minutes. We checked in three times at the hostess stand to see when our table would be ready and each time she seemed more annoyed. When we finally sat down and began to eat we realized that this loud and over crowded (with young club goers) restaurant served small over priced portions. Our "server" checked in once and brought us bread with our meal. DO NOT WAIST YOUR TIME OR MONEY.

01/04/09

Not worth my money..

by bostonchik

I went to Ivy for New years...first of all it was $150 for free drinks all night (which was good) and what was supposed to be food from 10-3...so for food there was bruschetta which was the size of my pinky and what i think was shrimp they left on spoons (so imagine how small that is) and gross who knows how many people were near it and touched it, and that was it...so all in all i wish i can call someone to get my money back..thank god the DJ was good and made it somewhat fun..i will never go here again..

• Pros: bartender was very nice..
• Cons: not worth my money

10/23/08

Great dining experience

by Ashley403

I went there on wednesday night with a group of friends and had a great time. We were sat quickly and greeted almost immediately. Our waiter went down the menu with us and told us about the $26 dollar per bottle wine list and the small plates. It was a fun to be able to order a few different things between us and share them. Our waiter was attentive and knew a lot about the menu and guided us through our first time. I would definitely recomend this place to anyone I know.

08/15/08

Very Poor Customer Service

by henmaren

I had one of the worst dining experiences of my life at Ivy. We went out to celebrate a friend's new job and pending move. Two members of our party arrived first and informed the hostess that not everyone was there but she said, "not to worry" and chose to seat us anyway. Within 10 minutes the hostess came back to our table to inform us that we would have the next 90 minutes for dinner and then our time was up b/c a larger party was coming in!!! WHAT? Who does that?

Within 15 minutes of being seated our entire party had arrived. As we were discussing our menu options the waiter informed us - again - that we should "make a decision quickly" b/c another party was coming in that needed our seats. Although we asked for 2 more minutes to look over the menu, the waiter took about 15!!! Apparently we should hurry up but not their wait staff???? I have never been treated so poorly. We asked if there was another table that we could move to so that we could enjoy our dinner without the rush and constant hassle from the staff but, we were informed that there were no other options. Our food arrived sporadically and we were never asked if we wanted anything else to drink or even had our water glasses refilled. Finally, when our allotted "2 hours" were up, our waitstaff went to get the manager so that he could tell us that our time was up and we needed to leave.

This was the second, and last, time I will ever go to Ivy. Who needs to feel stressed when they go out to eat? I try to be mindful of the time I spend at a table (I once worked in the restaurant industry) and we probably would have met their "guidelines" for time spent at a table anyway but, to be met with that attitude before we even ordered is just plain RUDE.

My gut instinct was to walk away at the first insult but, I ignored it. Never again.

• Pros: An eclectic menu with reasonable priced food and wine
• Cons: Rude staff and hit-or-miss food