The last time I was in Village Tart was mid-January when the bakery, café and wine bar had just debuted with a limited bakery menu (the full café menu would not be available until the following week). During this first visit my friend Sarah and I sampled two different pizzetas, an outstanding Valhrona triple chocolate cookie and a runny meyer lemon tart. We chalked our terrible service (a painfully long wait accompanied by a counterperson who gave us the wrong change on two separate occasions) up to opening week jitters. The sweets we sampled, along with the promise of a café menu with more lunch-centric options, intrigued us enough to want to return a second time, and we made a mental note to do so before stepping out into the cold January air.
Nearly 5 months later, Sarah and I found ourselves back on Kenmare Street and back in Village Tart. Unfortunately, aside from an expanded menu, not much has changed. Village Tart still boasts a quiet, cozy atmosphere, is still serving decent food, and is still extremely lax in the service department. After placing our order for one side dish, one beet salad, and one 3 mushroom tart, the food arrived in just under 45 minutes. At the 30 minute mark (when my growling stomach started to turn me into something of an ogre) I made eye contact with our absent-minded waiter. He returned my helpless, hunger-filled glare with a smile and gave a quick shrug of his shoulders. He then proceeded to make his way into the café from his post behind the counter to serve other customers, but never once offered an explanation as to the whereabouts of our meal or asked to refill our drinks (drinks that were sucked dry by that point). The food was good as far as lunchtime fare goes, but not so fantastic that it excuses a 45 minute wait and poor service. Clearly, time has done nothing to rectify Village Tart's service woes. My suggestion- stop into Village Tart for Pichet Ong's inspired baked goods or skip it altogether.
The buttery baked kashi is prepared with pear, feta, ginger, and mint- $6
The candied pistachios were a great addition to the red and yellow beet salad- served with grapefruit supremes and Greek yogurt- $9
The three mushroom tart arrived with sour cream and a side of dressed arugula- $12
Our dessert- an oatmeal, ginger and cherry cookie that we purchased on the way out the door was the best part of the meal- $2 each or 3 for $5
Mushroom tart looks gross
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