Friday night we met Parisa and Tim’s friends Sam, Alex, Dave & Emma for dinner at The Botanist, a very chic (and very popular, judging by the crowds at the bar) restaurant in Chelsea. 

The restaurant was extremely game-heavy (pigeon, partridge, etc). I tried a bunch of things I’d never tasted before, including pigeon, crayfish, eel, and monkfish (my favorite, oddly enough, might have been the pigeon, although it’s very dense and probably best in small doses). The only problem with the evening was that Tim & Alex were both served duplicates of their appetizer for their entree, and had to wait around for about an hour for their food to arrive (which it finally did well after everyone else had finished eating). The management was surprisingly unapologetic, and didn’t comp anything to make up for the error, which I found…odd. Seems like kind of poor business practice.

Overall, I’d say the bar scene at The Botanist is better than the restaurant experience – stylish and a bit rambunctious, with an excellent bar menu that includes some very delicious-looking burgers.