Sidney’s Grille

I stayed at Le Meridian while on a business trip. The entrees are definitely pricey, so I decided to get two appetizers. The caprese salad and the hummus with pita chips were a great choice. Healthy pours of wine. Great option for a quick dinner while on business travel. Friendly service.

Good food and restaurant but pricey for what you get
Salads were better than entrees.
Did not like my lobster roll which did not have much lobster and tasted a lot of mayo. Legal’s has better lobster roll
Good bread

Love the service. Very attentive and I was able to order off the menu!!! Kid friendly.

The pan roasted potatoes that come with the breakfast omelet are cold and slimy and taste horrible. Stay away. The omelet itself is dry but at least edible.

We stayed in the La Meridean Hotel, which is where Sydney’s is located. We hit Sydney’s all three nights we stayed there. It was our last stop of the night. The bartenders were fun. The food is amazing! The last night, we struck up a conversation with one of the assiatnt managers. Fun place!

I’ve been here a handful of times for lunch. The flatbreads are amazing, the sandwiches are excellent. It’s worth it if someone is taking you out for lunch to mention this.

Expectations were set when the two of us were led to a table with only one seat. They brought over another chair, but we then realized there was only one coffee cup. (Odd, because the restaurant was completely empty, and we walked past many full tables for two to get to this one). There were two water glasses, but both were dirty. The table was sticky, so the waiter wiped it down (but did not dry it). etc. etc.
I ordered oatmeal ($ 10) which seems hard to screw up, especially for the price. But it arrived very watery — not as good as say oatmeal at Cosi or Au Bön Pain. The regular drip coffee I ordered was fine, but nobody mentioned it cost $ 8 until the bill came.
Even if you are staying at the hotel, don’t go here — you can do much better just a few blocks away.

Wanted to give it two and a half stars but rounded up to 3 because the tea smoked salmon.
I avoid hotels restaurants like the plague but when travelling for work and with colleagues sometimes concessions have to be made.
The place was livelier than a lot of hotel restaurants I’m used to which was a good sign and at least it had atmosphere.
The menu is pretty disappointing reading mostly like a menu you would find in a cafeteria.
I opted for the most interesting dish on the menu at tea smoked salmon with beurre blanc sauce ie butter. When it came out I was a little shocked because it was as brown as a steak. The tea smoke flavour was very good but the salmon itself was a little dry. But overall I was pretty happy with my choice.
My colleague had the spaghetti with meatball — yes one massive meatball. He said it was a little dry and needed some salt.
On the night we were here service was very slow, it took ages to get our entrees and they didn’t fill up my water.
Bottom line — service is patchy, the menu is uninspiring but the tea smoked salmon is worth a try if you are here.

Came here for a quick lunch at the hotel and because we were too lazy to walk. They have typical hotel food with seafood choices and they were not bad for a hotel restaurant. I went with the crab cake sliders, which were a little too salty for me. The lobster roll looked pretty standard and the burger was pretty decent. I tried the calamari as well and was up to par. Overall the food is ok and the service was ok too.

Nice place, pleasant staff, good hours… however the dinner food that we have had has not been very good… and it is overpriced for not being very good. I like the menu selection but I haven’t had anything that knocked my socks off or that I would crave or go back for.

We were staying in the Le Meridien and in an effort for convenience, we decided to eat here for breakfast on our first morning in Cambridge. Man, I wish we had just left the hotel and took our chances finding a different place to eat because the convenience was just NOT. WORTH. IT.
First of all, the restaurant was not very busy, but for some reason we waited a really long time for our server to come take our order. I actually thought the water guy was our server because he came by twice to check on our glasses even before the server made his first appearance. Hmmm, strike one?
I ordered the French toast. Just wanted something light, not harsh on the stomach since we were going sightseeing in Boston all day. I also had a coupon from the Le Meridien for a free Cappucino. Nice touch there because free = good.
Cappucino was just okay. Kind of bitter so I added a pack of sugar and it helped. French toast was served and after I poured the syrup I noticed a red film on the inside of my syrup cup. I kept staring at it while eating about 2 or 3 bites, trying to determine if I should be concerned or not. I finally took my fingernail and scraped a bit of the sticky film off, smelled it, and it was freaking ketchup! Disgusting. For one, dishes didn’t get cleaned properly from the night before, and for two, the person filling the cup up with syrup didn’t even notice the cup was dirty? In other words, no one was paying attention and that makes me sick. What other things slip by their attention in the kitchen? Ewww. Strike two.
We did get the entire meal replaced because I did not want to eat any more of the French toast after it was covered in the syrup that was sitting in the dirty cup. The server apologized, and I’m sure he was really embarrassed. And once I got a clean plate of food, the French toast was very good. But my horrible experience thus far just tainted everything.
And I spent the rest of the next couple days waiting for the food poisoning to kick in. Granted (luckily) it never happened, but it sure ruined the first half of my Boston experience. Strike three.
They’re out.

We had a large family gathering for brunch and it was just ok. The buffet was pretty well stocked, but my husband’s omelet was made with onions when he didn’t want them. They remade it for him though. I had the eggs benedict which wasn’t too flavorful, have definitely had better. The staff were very attentive and helpful so that was nice. Pricing was fairly reasonable for Cambridge and they validate for parking.

It’s a hotel lobby restaurant and that seems to be about the limit of its aspiration. Not recommended unless you’re stranded or pressed for time. On the bright side, it’s not awful.

A truly unbelievable disaster. Place was mainly empty but we were looking for a nice dinner and there was not much open Labor Day. We sat down and the waiter was nice but not very knowledgeable. We ordered some wine, but when the waiter brought it over he let the full glasses slide off the tray and down the back of one of us. Our friend got soaked. Ok. Bad break.
But then the manager came over and did nothing other than lamely offer to have the shirt cleaned. No one offered to move us to a different table while the staff was mopping the floor under the table and cleaning up glass shards. We finally decided to leave since our friend was completely drenched. The bus boy said he understood (the waiter was nowhere to be seen.)
That was it. No apology from the manager. No offer to have us come back. No offer of a free drink, no free meal. No free meal for 5 of us. Nothing.
F for customer service.
What else is there to say?

Super swank surroundings, but just okay everything else — the menu was uninspired (I, for one, have seen a more riveting «American» menu!), and the food itself was nothing particularly special; I would rather have gone to a pub for the same culinary experience, with a more down-​to-​earth feel.

I didn’t have the buffet because I’m not a baller. but I unfortunately subjected my stomach to the burger.
NO BUENO.
«Medium» was basically raw and it accompanied by Oda-​Ida type fries. Should’ve gone to Star Market and bought all the ingredients myself and made the meal…
bottom line — don’t waste your time unless the meal is gonna get comped by your company. try Asgard or go on to Mass Ave for other stuff…

The only reason to go here on New Year’s Eve is because you waited until New Year’s Eve to make a reservation anywhere and you’ve run out of options. Four of us went and it was OK.
The pluses: the food and the service. The minuses: lack of atmosphere.
Our server, Larry, was great. He was very friendly and attentive.
We all had appetizers that were nice: shrimp wrapped in bacon, scallops, and crabcakes. For the entrees, one friend and I had the seared tuna with sesame seeds. It was very good. My boyfriend got the beef tenderloin and he liked his. One friend got the sea bass and he thought it was kind of dry. The sides are excellent and they give you a lot. We all had asparagus and mushrooms.
The bar looks cool and I wouldn’t rule it out if I was looking for a quiet place to grab a drink if I lived in the neighborhood. The restaurant has the shell of a nice restaurant with an open kitchen and copper ceiling over the kitchen. There are high ceilings and big windows. However, the dining area is lacking because the tables and chairs have kind of a cafeteria look to them and the tables were all set up in a kind of iHop fashion. The nicest table had a big party and as soon as they left, the table was reverted to the buffet table for the next day. This really stood out because there were only a few diners in the restaurant besides us.
I probably won’t be going back there anytime soon, but I can’t say I regretted going there.

For a hotel restaurant (inside the Le Meridian), this place is quite nice. Oftentimes hotel restaurants skimp on the food quality since they get by on the convenience of having hotel patrons dine in their establishment. This was not the case at Sidney’s!
I was brought here for a working lunch during a job interview, and I ordered off of their daily specials menu (fall gnocchi). The gnocchi were amazing! The pumpkin and spinach gnocchis had a lot of flavor to them, the cream-​based sauce they were in was amazing, and the chicken was perfectly prepared! It was great, and was semi-​reasonably priced at $ 18. The service was great and we were able to get in and out in a very reasonable amount of time without having a reservation.
The people I was with ordered the tuna melt with soup and some sort of lobster pasta dish. They looked delicious and as far as I could tell were enjoyed by their respective owners.
I’d say for a nice lunch this place is great, and the location very convenient to all of Cambridge.

Great Svc. Nice enough environment and the food is surprisingly good. We read some of the other reviews and they did not look very good. We even read some reviews from 2009 that suggested bad service and terrible food.
Well a year must make all the difference. We ate here on Thanksgiving morning. breakfast was fine — the kitchen staff need to learn about hard, medium and easy eggs — all of ours were wrong. But the rest of the food was great and the coffee was terrific. They were bringing out Thanksgiving desserts and they were all fresh made. The selection looked great and the what really made this a success was the staff and their great attitude and service.

I practically live in the Le Meridian thanks to my current project, so I have had to eat at Sidney’s on a number of occassions.
Definitely a big hit and miss place… a few things are fantastic, others leaves a lot to be desired.
Star rating based on the food items:
Belgein Waffels — 3
Breakfast Potatoes — 1
Salmon — 3
Lobster Roll — 4
Tuna — 2
Stake — 3
Bacon Wrapped Shrimp (appetizer) — 5… oh my gosh, out of this world
In short, I CAN NOT whole heartedly recommend this place, but it’s decent, and if you find yourself there, definitely have some bacon wrapped shrimp!