I’ve been trying to get into Market Table for a few months now. Twice I’ve called and put my name on the waiting list when I learned that the place was fully booked. The first time, I had made other, unchangeable plans, and the second time, I readjusted my plans so I could give it a shot. I was joined by Sallie, Leslie and Christian, food fans who are always game to try new places and whose critical palettes I appreciate when assessing any restaurant, new or old.
Market Table is located on Carmine & Bedford around one of my favorite eating blocks in all of New York–the corner of Bedford & Downing, home to ‘ino, Blue Ribbon Bakery (and BR Market and Wine Bar) and AOC Bedford. This, along with its pedigree (owners of the little owl, chef from Mermaid Inn), boded well for me.
Sadly, poor service clouded any chance of having a good experience here. When I arrived at 9:20 for my 9:15 reservation, I was told that the people sitting at my table had "just paid", and that I’d need to wait til 9:15 for my table to be ready. Um… it’s 9:20… I was told that my watch was fast by 15 minutes. Sorry?
15 minutes later, I checked in with the hostess again. I was told that the people at the table were "just about to pay." Hadn’t they "just paid" 10 minutes before? I was also told by the hostess that she "couldn’t ask the people to leave," but we could have a drink at the bar. Um… you can’t tell a party that they table they were sitting at had been reserved and that they were welcome to move to the bar? What kind of operation were they running here? I pointed out that they were 20 minutes late for our table, and again I was told that my watch was fast. No sorry, no "first round of drinks is on us", no free apps. Nothing. (Note that at a recent meal at Osteria Mozza in LA, when my table wasn’t ready at reservation time, along with profuse apologies, I received a bottle of wine, gratis). At this point, it was 9:35, and I was hungry and cranky. We moved to the bar and ordered a bottle of wine, but before the bottle could even be opened, our table magically became available.
Fantastic. So we head to our table, menus and our wine come over (by the very nice bartender), we’re all chit chatting, minutes pass. Many minutes. And nothing from the staff. Not a peep. Not even water. After asking, we FINALLY get someone to come and take our orders. I will say that even though I was convinced that she hated us (or more specifically, me), the hostess was perfectly friendly and smiley when taking our orders.
We shared some apps: a beet salad with goat cheese that was tasty but nothing special, some housemade gravlax served on brown bread with a salad of hard boiled eggs and some other things that was pretty good and would make a great lunch dish on its own and some fried calamari which should have been a lot better.
For mains, I got a Fred Flintstone-sized braised lamb shank that could have been better seasoned but was pretty tasty with the other stuff that came with it (that I can’t quite remember now). Christian got some kind of shellfish stew. I tried the broth–it was briney and tasted like the sea without being overly fishy. It seemed pretty good, and I think Christian liked it. Sallie got cod which I think had some sort of crust. It was served over whole, small brussels sprouts. The presentation was cute, and the brussels sprout I had was tasty. Leslie got the crab cake, which was served on a bed of slaw and came with a side of fries. She didn’t like it. We also got a side of fries, and they were good.
Because my lamb shank was SO LARGE, I only ate about half of it, and I asked to take the rest home. Sadly, no one told the bus boy that (and the waitress didn’t seem to want to take the task of wrapping it up upon herself when I asked her for the doggy bag). He tossed it. On my way out, I asked the waitress about it. She felt so bad about it being thrown out that she had them make me a new one. I’m not sure that this was really what I wanted to have happen, since the whole point of taking the leftovers was not to let the food go to waste, rather than to consume MORE food. But since at this point we deserved something for free, given how bad the service was there, I took it anyway.
So in the end, I’d say the food is decent (it’s not The Little Owl by any stretch), but the service is so bad, I probably won’t go back. At least for a while. Maybe until that hostess gets a new job or forgets who I am. In that neighborhood, if I want a full meal, I’d much sooner go to Blue Ribbon Bakery, which has food of equal or better quality, and MUCH better service.
