Food: ☆☆½

Service: ☆½

Ambiance: ☆☆☆½

Cost: $$$

Must try: Burrata and Prosciuitto

Let me preface this review by saying that I am a huge David Burke fan and love both David Burke Townhouse and Fishtail uptown.

Having said that…. “awful” is the word that comes to mind as I think back on my lunch experience at the downtown David Burke Kitchen.

Though Burke’s Kitchen is staffed with perfectly nice people – it reeked with incompetence both on the plate and the service. Our waitress could not answer a single query we had about the menu and bumbled through our entire meal!

I do think that the ineptness of the service did overshadow my experience but the food was really disappointing too. Some dishes were decent like the burrata salad but for most part it just seemed like the kitchen was churning out badly executed clones of the uptown menu.

Take for example Burke’s signature pretzel covered crab cakes which are a big favorite of mine. These were over fried to a point where the pretzels were indistinguishable and every bite first tasted of oil first and then the rest of the ingredients.

My entire experience at David Burke Kitchen was erratic and very “un-burk-ish”. Given all the choices of great places I had around me in SoHo….I was sorely disappointed with what I chose!

Here is some of what we ate: