Forage

Forage in Boston offers a cozy and intimate dining experience with a focus on locally sourced ingredients. The omnivore tasting menu shines with creative and flavorful dishes that truly showcase the chef's talent. However, the vegetarian tasting menu, while decent, lacks the same level of excitement and complexity. Overall, it's a great spot for those who enjoy adventurous, meat-centric meals, but vegetarians might find the options just okay.

My companion received a response to an email she sent with feedback similar to my review. I was surprised to not get a response here, but maybe they don't do that.

Came for an anniversary dinner as this is one of few restaurants in Boston that offers a more fine dining experience for vegans. The service was amazing, but the food had its highs and lows. We decided not to go with the vegan tasting menu, which i think is a good decision. The table next to us ordered the tasting menu, and it's literally just a selection of the main menu vegan items-- the Brussels sprouts tops, the roasted potatoes, risotto, and some dessert (we left before they got it). It is definitely a lot to eat for one person. Between the two of us, we just ordered the potatoes, Brussels sprouts tops, matsutake mushroom, and stuffed honey nut. They arrived in that order, and we both agree that the food only improved as the dinner went on. The roasted potatoes were paired with a cabbage slaw that had a unique floral + almond extract flavor, which was unexpected and didn't feel cohesive with the potatoes. The almond extract flavor felt too overpowering, and the potatoes didn't have enough browning and flavor themselves to work with the other strong flavors. We appreciated the acidity of the slaw, but others did not (the table next to us didn't even touch the cabbage). Next came the Brussels sprouts, which I have no complaints for except that they could be improved with a little more crispiness on the sprout leaves. They were cooked perfectly tender and paired with a pumpkin purée and cranberry sauce, both delicious, but the pecan topping was the only thing adding textural variety. I personally love the crispy edges of roasted veggies, and was missing that in this dish. Still, it was very yummy. Next came the Matsutake mushroom, which was a large whole roasted mushroom on a bed of polenta and collard greens. These collard greens were the best I've ever had-- not a hint of bitterness, a roasted smoky flavor, perfectly seasoned. The polenta was not bland at all and paired perfectly with everything on the plate. But the mushroom, being large and whole roasted, lacked flavor on the inside, and was a little bland. I think cutting into smaller pieces to allow more seasoning coverage as well as caramelization surface area would have been much better. Finally the honey nut squash. This was amazing, and I want to go back just for this. The honeynut was roasted so buttery and smooth, and the stuffing had hints of sweet tartness with the golden raisins (I promise even raisin haters will enjoy) and pickled onions. The salad it came with was dressed simply but very complementary to the warm flavors of the squash. Definite must order!We ended with the chocolate hazelnut tart, which is also a must order, though rich enough to be shared happily between two people. It was like eating a spiced chocolate fudge-- super unique with subtle spice flavors and altogether delicious. We also got a complimentary Concord grape and crabapple sorbet, the ice cream of that day. It was very sweet and almost candy like, and we ate it all happily, but I wouldn't pay $7 to have it again. All in all we had a great satisfying dinner that came out to ~$51 per person after tax and tip, including dessert. The portions were larger than we expected considering the label "small plates" on the menu, and we were very happy with the service. The lighting could be a tad brighter so as to see the food (and take pics) better, but all in all a cozy elegant atmosphere.

Amazing mushrooms and great service! The menu changes frequently and everything I've tried has been very flavorful and fresh, though some of the appetizers were too salty for me. I've especially enjoyed their mushroom dishes (boletes and chanterelles). My friend also loves their steak.I like the vibe of this restaurant. It's cozy and feels nice, without being pretentious. Very down-to-earth.

Came here with friends for a dinner. Food: 3.5/5Got the hen of the woods, mushroom sausage, seared fish, steak, and "papparadelle". The food was really good however, the fish dish came out cold and needed to be reheated and the peppers with the mushroom sausage was so burnt it couldn't be eaten. Service: 2/5This is the real kicker for me, the servers were really nice and explained the menu thoroughly. The cocktail menu was designed by one of the servers. HOWEVER, at our 8pm reservation with everyone seated on time without the restuarant being too busy, we waited an hour between our app and our main with the waitress saying "we serve you your main when you're ready for it" which confused our group given that we were ready for our entrees for an hour. Overall we didn't get to eat our dinner until 9:45. Food was good but not worth an almost 2hr wait even if we were already seated.

Last night I took my friend out for a belated birthday dinner. I hadn't been to Forage so wanted to check it out after looking inside one night while on a neighborhood stroll.The place is cute with a nice let's-get-lost vibe. The wine was really good and priced accordingly. The food was good - my friend liked her steak. I had Swimming Chicken which was fine. I took most of it home. The desserts were good - the olive oil cake and lemon sherbet were very good and my friend liked her hazelnut chocolate dessert, too.We sat at their small bar which may have had 6 seats? I like to eat at bars in restaurants. It's fun and communal.The service kind of tanked the dinner afterwards - we sat at the bar. Our server/ bartender seemed to have contempt for us asking her what was good, to make recommendations since we had never been there before. She just waved her hand and said, "it's all good", as if she couldn't be bothered to be specific. We tried to ignore her prickly personality, but each interaction we had with her was unpleasant, which isn't what you want when you're taking your friend out for an nice dinner! I do not typically drop $200. plus tip on dinner.Even paying her was a pain: "we don't count out change, we round up!" Maybe she was having a horrible day, but couldn't figure out how to handle that and work with the public? It is a tough thing to learn, though necessary when dealing with the public.I would go back and try the place again. I ended up speaking to the owner as I was searching where to get that wine. Turns out he owns a wine store in Dedham which carries unique wines so that's cool. And he was unhappy to hear about the server, which shows he cares! He gets we want to have a nice experience when we're dining out. All's well that ends well.

I thought long and hard about this one and finally settled on what I think is a deserved score and review. At first look, Forage seems like a nice quaint restaurant. They have both indoor and outdoor seating. It is a bit odd that they are situated in a residential area, surrounded by apartment complexes. I'd hate to be living there. Anyway, I made a reservation and they do one of the things I HATE most from restaurants. They charge a no-show fee. Honestly, it just seems like a poor way to do business. Life happens. What if I got sick? Would they want to me hacking my lungs up on my neighbors? What if I had an emergency? It is unacceptable. They make you put up a credit card as collateral but at least they don't place a hold on it. It was otherwise easy enough to get a reservation. We came here because I had a guest who was vegan and we wanted to try to vegan tasting menu. $60 for a tasting menu, seems ok, until you learn it is only 4 teeny-tiny courses that are simply non fiilling. I do have to hand it to the chef, it all did taste pretty decent which is surprising for vegan food. Often vegan food is bland and tasteless but this was surprisingly satisfactory. The texture of the main course of the tasting menu which was this triangle mix of beans and lentils was a bit off putting however.What I found to be the most appalling was the service. No table had one particular waiter it seems. People just came with the food as it was prepared. Our first one, the one that took our order, had just terrible behavior. She was sarcastic and rude and was just overall unpleasant. She made us feel so uncomfortable that we would just go silent when she was around lest we feel her wrath again. Another waiter just threw our food on the table and left. We had to ask him to let us know what we were eating because you know, it was a tasting menu. He gave this brief list of ingredients and abruptly left. The other two waiters were fine, and pleasant enough.I get that people have bad days, but if one is going to pretentious enough that they think they can demand cancellation/no-show fees and charge Michelin star prices, the service needs to be better. It wasn't like I was paying $10 a person kind of meal and would have no expectations of service. The bill came out to be over $400. We remained as calm as we could for the duration of the evening and just tried to minimally interact with the staff after those first encounters but overall the experience just left a bad taste in my mouth both figuratively and literally after that weird main course. I doubt I will return and certainly will not recommend any of my friends at this point.

Went for Southern Pines Supper club. Great service but food was definitely not so Southern nor was it good. Chicken was raw, potatoes were super salty. Drinks were decent. Miss this one if you're looking for Black Southern food. This isn't it.

The first thing that strikes you about Forage is its unique location - nestled up right in the middle of a suburban street block, the restaurant is in the basement of a rather nondescript building, and if not for the outdoor dining area, it might just blend in with its neighbouring residential buildings. The second thing is that it's really dark inside. Somewhat unsurprising, I guess, since it's in a basement, but our table in particular was poorly lit to an extreme.That's probably the most notable thing about Forage, though. The food, in a word, was bland. We had the One Cheese and the seafood starters, and honestly I was a little shocked at how.. boring everything was. The cheese plate came with a few tasteless crackers (the cheese itself was fine but certainly did not merit the price) and apple slices (somehow even the apple was bland - a bit dry and not at all sweet). Seafood extravaganza was similar - the place certainly looks nice but each component (especially the shellfish) just had very little flavour to it.Our mains were no less disappointing. Hanger steak was quite tasty, but that was actually it. Both fish plates felt unseasoned and unprepared, and the accompanying veggie selection was so lacking in flavour that we barely ate any of it.Was anything actively bad? Not really - but I can't really remember any particular item or flavour from the entire meal. Everything felt amateurish, from the uncreative recipes, odd and borderline pretentious plating, and most critically, the lack of flavour in... frankly everything. Overall, an extremely mediocre experience - and for this price point? I don't think I'll be coming back.

Absolutely phenomenal restaurant and completely devoured the plates! Food: looks like dishes are on a regular rotation here. -Fennel strawberry salad (4/5) crunchy, sweet, balanced, but would have preferred more of that anise-forward flavor. -Bluefish (5+/5)!!! Never had bluefish before and pleasantly surprised with the super meaty texture and none of the irony-fishy taste. Served with a mustard green salad + cashew dressing that made all the flavors really complement each other so well.Super well seasoned and much umami in this dish!-Earl grey chocolate brownie (5/5). Can't go wrong with this combination. Great the custard drizzle.The star was extremely friendly and quick. Lighting a bit dim (which I thought was comical since most people had to look at the menu with a flashlight on). Love that they also a forager deliver gems on a routine basis. I'm not usually a restaurant repeater and I came with a full stomach from another restaurant but was thoroughly impressed by the flavors and would definitely come back to this one!!!