Obika NYC: Give It Some Time

Obika, while an excellent concept, needs more time to turn things from being completely unhinged into a smooth and enjoyable dining experience. Basically everything that could have gone wrong at Obika today did: outlandishly long waits to place and receive orders and pay checks; multiple menu items not available, including those "exquisite orbs" traditional mozzarella di bufala DOP; an overly sour Vermont mozzarella, and on and on. I'll be kind and leave out numerous other misfires that had me and all of my neighbors experiencing varying levels of anger and frustration throughout lunch today. The main culprit, I was told, was that some of the waitstaff didn't show up today.

The unavailability of Obika's signature mozzerella an hour into lunch service and a lackluster Vermont mozzarella notwithstanding, having only one server covering the entire restaurant was a pretty massive error in judgment. Only opening the circular bar and the seats at the communal table, and leaving the window seating empty, would have allowed our hapless server to maintain at least some semblance of control. Sure a few people would have been turned away, but that sure beats dissapointing, and in some cases angering, a large number of new customers.

If you're dying to check out Obika, my advice would be to give them at least a week to get quality issues worked out and their service staff committed and trained. You might also want to call ahead to make sure that they've got plenty of Italian mozzarella on hand. Once they do we'll be back to see if the Mozzarella di Bufala Campana DOP lives up to the hype.