Nubar Restaurant and Bar Review: A Hotel Restaurant That Tastes Like One

Tucked inside the Sheraton Commander Hotel, Nubar Restaurant and Bar seems, upon first glance, like an intimate yet unassuming fine dining spot just a little ways off from Harvard Square. With its sleek, contemporary decor and warm lighting from the fireplace and candles dotting every table, the restaurant sets the stage for an upscale yet comfortable dining experience.

Simultaneously, though, it is unmistakably a restaurant attached to a hotel: It exudes the same elevated yet generic, polished yet impersonal feeling of the Sheraton Commander itself. Professionals getting off work engage in quiet conversation over drinks and dinner, as the waitstaff and hostess warmly welcome new diners in.

While the inviting atmosphere and attentive service suggest the promise of a memorable meal, the fixed Dine Out Boston restaurant week menu options leave much to be desired.

The prix fixe offerings include three each of appetizer and dessert selections and four entree choices, with the entire three-course meal amounting to $46.

The Dine Out menu begins on a relatively high note with the crab cake, served with arugula and celery seed aioli. The crab cake is crisp and golden brown on the outside, offering a satisfying crunch with each bite that soon gives way to a salty fishiness on the flaky interior. While the textures make for a complementary consumption experience, the taste itself is too salty, despite the acidity of the celery seed aioli which only mildly helps balance the excessive seasoning. The crab cake texture, along with the arugula, which adds a lightness to counteract the potential heaviness of the dish, make this dish the standout of the menu. Nevertheless, it does not elevate itself beyond a competent, standard crab cake; the Nubar version lacks nuanced seasoning and a delicate balance of flavors, making the dish unmemorable.

Among the entree offerings is the shepherd’s pie, served with a thyme and gruyere bechamel. The shepherd’s pie seems promising initially: The top cheese layer, melted underneath, has a perfectly golden-brown crust. Yet the rest of the dish disappoints: The layer of mashed potatoes underneath the cheese is excessively thick and the texture is dry and grainy. The mashed potatoes are bland, and this lack of flavor, along with the sheer density of the layer, makes each bite of the dish feel more like a chore than a delight. While the beef at the bottom of the pie is quite tasty, the ratio of the beef layer to the rest of the dish is minimal. Every bite thus requires a generous dousing of the bechamel to make up for the dryness and overall dullness of the potato layer, making for a rather tenuous culinary experience.

Moreover, the temperature of the dish leaves a lasting impression — and not in a good way. From the first bite, the dish is colder than expected, a lukewarm chew rather than the piping hot sensation expected from a shepherd’s pie that has been removed just moments ago from the oven. The dish quickly loses heat while being eaten, leaving much to be desired from the last couple of bites. The overall impression is of a dish that has been assembled, rather than thoughtfully crafted.

For a satisfying conclusion to the meal, be sure to steer clear of the strawberry tart for dessert. Its unnaturally bright pink color and too-perfect dollop of whipped cream are reflected in the artificiality of its taste as well. Although the rose and vanilla whipped cream is light and not overly sweet, the freshness and quality of the cream is subpar. The strawberry compote drizzled on top is excessively sugary and only exacerbates the manufactured taste of the entire dish, overpowering the presence of supposedly-fresh fruit on the tart. For those who might desire a more homemade taste in their dessert, the strawberry tart at Nubar fails to deliver.

Although they are not featured on the official menu, Nubar offers a couple crowd-favorite mocktails: The Garden and The Lemon Sky. Advertised as a refreshingly fruity drink that spotlights blueberry as the main flavor note and has a visually striking indigo tint, The Garden regrettably ends up tasting overwhelmingly sweet, reminiscent of a concentrated blueberry syrup rather than a subtly-flavored, high-end beverage. Any intended floral or herbal notes are drowned out by the excessive syrup. Meanwhile, the effervescent Lemon Sky, which initially creates a pleasant surprise with its slight fizz, also quickly becomes too cloying, lacking the crispness and complexity of a well-made mocktail. Both drinks lack depth, with no emergence of any unique flavor profiles, and their intense sweetness makes them difficult to finish.

Certainly, the hospitality of the servers and hostesses, with their friendly smiles and eager-to-please attitudes, deserves no complaints. But, at the end of the day, a dining experience centers around the food, so such service cannot forgive the fact that the whole meal was underwhelming, lackluster, and boring, with little evidence of the craft and meticulousness that define truly great fine dining.

Ultimately, Nubar’s Dine Out Boston menu falls short of expectations for how it presents itself as an upscale restaurant. While the restaurant certainly offers a comfortable space, wonderful mood lighting, and excellent hospitality, the food itself fails to impress. As one might expect from a hotel restaurant, all the items are quite generic, lacking complexity in flavor and a general experimentality in the cuisine. Perhaps this restaurant’s ambiance makes it a favorable option among visiting professionals seeking a sit-down dinner at the end of a work day, but a more adventurous diner will certainly feel disappointed leaving Nubar. Although the benefit of the doubt could be given to the unsampled menu items, with so many other establishments in the greater Cambridge area that are creating inventive menu selections with genuine care and authenticity, it is difficult to justify a return visit.

—Staff writer Juliet Bu can be reached at juliet.bu@thecrimson.com.