Bambara Cambridge

My friend and I came into lunch recently, as we work nearby and had never been in. Unfortunately we weren’t impressed with our experience. Service was laughable and food was only okay. We would not come back.
My salmon and crab burger did not taste right, though I will say the fries were awesome.
My friend ordered ice cream for dessert and it took the server almost 10 minutes to go ask what the flavors were, and he comes back, VANILLA AND PEANUT… how did that take 10 minutes?! Then he asked how many scoops she wanted. The price on the menu was $ 7…just give the amount that costs $ 7…she said 1 scoop (which ended up being a teeny tiny scoop), and they charged $ 4? Where did they come up with that? If the price is a set price, just give what the person ordered lol… anywho.
They did give us cookies when we were paying which was nice, unfortunately it took forever to get the check, and once it was time to sign the check we were so over it, and definitely tipped accordingly.
Bummed because we thought this could be a new lunch spot for us… not the case.

Went for lunch and they had what I would consider a breakfast/​brunch menu. My wife had the Scottish salmon which was ok but her decaf coffee was not hot, Luke warm at best. My daughter and I had omelettes which were also ok nothing special. At least my coffee was almost hot. The service was slow spotty and inattentive. The place is convenient and that was the best part of the experience.

Ok at best. Had poached lobster on brioche. It was more like microwaved lobster on a roll. Just ok, but I suggest looking elsewhere.

Stopped in for a late breakfast with the family before going to the museum of science. This seems to be one of the only places within walking distance, so we have it a try.
The food actually exceeded our expectations, the caramel French toast was great, as was the omelet that my wife ordered. All the dishes came with lots of nice, ripe berries which was a pleasant surprise. The service however, was lackluster at best. We had several different people helping us, they were mostly uncommunicative, and then we went for 15 minutes without seeing a single employee. I had to go into the attached hotel to find someone so that we could get a check. With good service, would have been a solid 4 stars, but was dragged down to about a 2.5 I’ll round up to 3 in case it was just an off day.

Visited for drinks on a Friday night. Place was busy. The drinks were pretty good but wow the appetizer menu was amazing. Give it up for the chickpea fries!

Hello, and thanks for your comment. For a similar price at Neptunes, you get a higher quality bun, with more lobster meat that is of higher quality. The roll was not bad, but there is better. Your restaurant has a great ambience and friendly staff, I am sure the other items are great.

Heat was broken it was 1 degrees in the restaurant according to my phone. Short staffed. Food was cold and over cooked. The manager Gabriel I believe was very nice and waited on us thank god for her we may have waited even longer. Very disappointed and was expensive. We stayed in the hotel and had a great experience it was a shame breakfast on vday was horrible.

I’m obsessed with this place, and I think it is so underrated. They have a great menu and a great space (right by the Cambridgeside Galleria, inside Hotel Marlowe). They have a lot of fresh seafood dishes and seasonal dishes — things like raw oysters, lobster slides, clam chowder, braised cod, and so much more. I loved the Tuna Tartare and the Braised Cod with shrimp risotto.
The desserts are also spectacular, and they have a huge selection. We tried the Vanilla Bread Pudding and the Warm Caramel Date Cake, both of which were amazing. They also have a TON of flavors of gelato/​ice cream/​sorbet including nutella, apple cider, chocolate, and olive oil.

Not good for brunch at all. Eggs Benedict’s are tasteless. The sauce is very far from ok. The service is close to nothing.

We were in town for a visit and went to Bambara for an anniversary dinner. The service was excellent! We were greeted by Darren (?) the general manager, who wished us a happy anniversary upon our arrival and sent us a glass of champagne which was very nice! The food was exceptional, the lobster sliders and bouillabaisse were especially delicious. They also sent us a complimentary «date cake» which was excellent and a really nice, classy thing to do! The bar was busy, and so a little bit noisy, but nothing too bad. We had a wonderful night and will definitely recommend to all our friends who live here!

This place looked amazing and me and my friends from out of town took a cab all the way here, going based on the fact their Google business page said they were open until 2. When we got there to our surprise they were closed, the manager was there and quite rude about the fact they are closed. When I mentioned on google it says open and they may want to change that he said «sorry but it doesn’t allow and changes». Anyone who knows anything about Google knows it’s their business page and you CAN update the hours of operation. This makes me questions especially consider its the manager and he doesn’t know and didn’t seem to care that they were misleading customers. I’m sure this would have been a 5 star review if we ate here but unfortunately I’ll never know. Be sure to check hours first or just find a place that has accurate information online.

I stopped in there because I had a free drink coupon. I wanted to eat there but didn’t want to spend $ 10 on soup. I heard the breakfast was good.

Food was good for a hotel restaurant. Elevated, creative New American cuisine. The service was friendly although did not go the extra mile, a stark contrast to the service in the hotel. Wrong food was initially brought to our table. Prices are high and portions are small. The lobster rolls were good and buttery, served on four cute, bite sized rolls. The herbed fries were classically prepared. The chopped salad was not remarkable. My vegetable fricasse was original, with a polenta cake, lots of wild mushrooms, trace amounts of truffle oil, and whipped parsnips – multiple tiers of preparation went into it but the end result wasn’t amazingly flavorful or filling for that matter. Still, I was thankful that they had a vegetarian entrée that wasn’t just the requisite pasta dish. My fellow diners’ food looked expertly prepared. Scallops seared perfectly, tuna perfectly rare and sesame crusted, lamb on the rack that looked crispy on the outside and red on the inside. I’d definitely come again if I was too busy or tired to leave the hotel.

Ordered room service while staying at the Marlowe which is where this place resides. The two stars I am giving equal the 5 stars I would give for the nice girl that promptly delivered the food (wonder if she can cook). Pretty simple order given the largely negative reviews on Unilocal I didn’t want to stray too far out of the comfort zone of simple. Best was Tuna Tartare it was bland and would have been more tasty had it not had a blob of catsup and a torn receipt on the plate beside it. Likely dropped down from the underside of the dirty lid that covered it for delivery. I know gross but I was really hungry.
Flat bread was cold soggy doughy and most likely nuked or run through one of those bagel toasters. It had fake grill marks on it. Really bad
Chopped salad was soggy, wilted, watery and other than the dried fruit (which I hate on salads) completely flavorless.
Proof positive the web designers can make things appear better than they really are.

Was staying at Hotel Marlowe. Just ok. The food was mediocre at best. What was really troubling was the service. Restaurant was maybe half full capacity with one large party. Restaurant was understaffed that it took 20 mins for a drink and 30 mins for food with little follow up.

We came here in June with a group of friends for brunch. I’m pretty sure we were the only people there. It was nice since we all could hear each other but strange it was so empty. The food was good. The coffee seem like it had been sitting for a while.

I found this place to be very pleasant. I was in Cambridge, which can sometimes be hard to find a unique place that is not off the charts price wise and that is really good food.
This is one of those great finds.
I actually found it because, of one of my co workers. She knew about it.
It was Lobster Season. Which I am a big fan of!!!
They have fantastic Lobster Rolls. They were great. Not too much sauce on them and not over whelmed with bread.
I also got a Burger with Sweet potato fries to go. Also very good. Everything we got was hot, fresh, and very good.
The service was fantastic! It is attached to the Fancy Hotel on the other side of the Galleria. I had never noticed it before after all the times I had been down there.
I loved the décor. The color it is painted is a Colonial Blue. Which I now love. There is a huge Painting on the wall of what Boston used to look like back in Colonial days. I thought that was a perfect touch.
It is worth a try!

Convenient if your staying at the hotel but do not go out of your way for breakfast. We ate here twice, but only because we didn’t have time to go anywhere else.

We came here for an early dinner tonight. We had such a lovely dinner thanks to the yummy food and friendly service at Bambara.
The ambiance at this restaurant was beautiful and the seating is spacious and comfortable. We ordered the chickpea fries with aioli dip to start. The fries were not my favorite and could have used more salt and flavor. For dinner, however, I ordered the beet and goat cheese salad with chicken and my husband ordered the goat cheese and arugula flatbread. Both were delicious! I was so happy with the salad size but I should have ordered the dressing on the side because the arugula was covered in too much dressing. Our server was very pleasant and attentive. He answered any questions we had with the menu.
I would come back to this restaurant and bring friends with me!

Food is good. Coffee was not good. Tasted like it had been sitting in the pot too long

My Fiancé researched this place, so we came for Easter brunch. This place is located within a hotel and appeared to be very nice when we arrived. We were sat at a table and the brunch was served buffet style. Not our favorite setting but the place appeared to be nice.
They had different stations set up with omelets made to order, smoked seafood, salads, meat carvings, traditional breakfast fare and deserts. Everthing seemed promising. Once the waitress delivered our complimentary mimosas, we were off.
The food was mediocre to say the least. The girl at the omelet station couldn’t make an omelet to save her life. The worst part of it was that she didn’t fold the omelet in the pan, she folded it on the plate, WITH HER HAND. Yes ladies and gentlemen, no gloves just her raw, bare paws all over our very unattractive egg white veggie omelets. Not wanting to cause a scene, we graciously took the food to our table, sat it down but of course didn’t eat it. We told the wait staff who removed the failed omelet and notified the manager. The manager stopped by and apologized and offered to personally make us omelets, which we declined. A bit later the omelet girl appeared to have put gloves on and learned what a spatula was. Great news for everyone else!
Good thing there were other food stations full of mediocrity for us to partake in. However brunch was all but ruined at that point. Knowing the place was a bit pricey even made it harder to stomach. But we snacked on fruit, tried the crab cakes Benedict and a few other things not worth mentioning. Overall a very «blah» experience.
I’m not sure if this situation was the result of the restaurant trying to overachieve for Easter or if this is the norm. Either way we won’t be back. They did give us an extra complimentary mimosas for our troubles. But the fact that the girl thought it was perfectly ok to handle food that way, was a bit scary. Thanks but no thanks…

Taste good but over little bit pricy.
Great chopped salad but really small amount.
Not include any bread. And cost 10 $.
You should get 2 dishes to get full.

After a few months of renovations, my team was looking forward to trying out the «new and improved» Bambara! Unfortunately after our visit, I can’t say the new Bambara has improved. In my opinion, it has actually gotten worse. Why? No more power lunch.
The power lunch special was the main draw of coming out here to this otherwise random hotel restaurant in East Cambridge in the middle of the day. After arriving and learning that there would be no special appetizer, entrée, and to-​go cookie/​coffee combo to power us through our day, we were all disappointed. So we ordered 2 salads and a flatbread for the table and an entrée each.
The menu offerings haven’t changed very much — they still have some of their signatures such as the salmon & crab burger and the bisque as well as other salad, flatbread, and sandwich lunch options. They advertise one larger entrée lunch special which changes depending on the day of the week, but unfortunately on this Tuesday at 1 PM they were already out of the fried chicken. Another bummer.
Both the chopped salad and arugula salad with goat cheese and beets were large and tasty. Great for sharing! The smoked tomato flatbread was smaller and pretty standard in terms of flavor. As for entrees, they forgot the include the spicy mayo on the salmon & crab burgers. This is one of the main draws of the dish! Bringing it in a cup on the side just doesn’t feel the same. The «spicy» squash soup was warm and creamy but definitely not spicy. Still good, but I call this false advertising.
Still craving the power lunch ending, we ordered some coffees to go. Overall the food quality of the «new» Bambara is similar to before, the service fine although a bit inconsistent, and the deal worse because they no longer offer the lunch special. Serious bummer. We may need to find another regular lunch spot to power us through the workday.

We stopped into Bambara during restaurant week but opted for their regular menu since the offerings seemed a little dull.
It’s a very clean and warm space with a beautiful open kitchen. The seems almost a little gloomy, but the lighting plays it off well. I ordered a steak salad while my partner in crime went for the salmon burger. The steak was beautifully prepared over a well dressed salad. His burger was devoured quickly so I can only assume he’d agree on the quality of the food.
I removed one star from this review because our waiter was not as attentive as I’d have liked. Our drinks were refilled only shortly before we asked for the check.
But all in all, the food was delicious and it’s a very enjoyable space for lunch.

Popped in here for a post-​work sponsored dealio. That means-​I didn’t foot the bill, we had a limited menu, so I can only comment on what I had.
Blasphemy, I know, but I ordered steak. It was prepared a perfect medium rare — my salad? Perfect. Desert? A sampler — which was fine.
They had a nice selection of scotch, an okay selection for beer.
Being a «hotel restaurant» it was better than I expected, but it’s not the kind of place that screams «bring a date here!» — except, I guess, from what I’m reading, you want to show off how much money you can spend on dinner.

Four stars for great service! The order took much longer than it needed to about an hour and 15 minutes and therefore part of my order was comped; I didn’t ask for it they offered and I found that really respectful. Because of their customer service I will eat there again this weekend.
The Lobster bisque was smooth, delicate, almost velvety with a hint of spice. I wish there was chunks of lobster in it though.
The Arancini was the best thing we ordered. Wonderful taste, crispy, and the short rib pairs well with the sauce
The Helen’s pot roast had incredible mashed potatoes & wonderful vegetables; the sauce was the star but there wasn’t enough sauce, and therefore the pot roast ended up being really dry at some points. I wouldn’t recommend the pot roast it wasn’t bad but I think they have better.