Bad Roman
Shops at Columbus Circle · New York · what guests are saying on Yelp,
Source: Yelp reviews → Postgres · public reviews · generated 2026-06-28
From Rocky Opening to Steady Crowd-Pleaser
Each dot is a review, placed by date and star rating. The amber line is the running average across all reviews to date. Bad Roman opened in February 2023 to instant buzz but a bumpy start, with quarterly scores dipping to 3.8 in spring 2023 as service and seating chaos dominated reviews; it climbed above 4.2 by late 2023 and has held a stable 4.0-4.3 ever since, settling at a 4.1 lifetime average across 977 reviews.
Highlights & insights
Read across all reviews. Guests are nearly unanimous on the gorgeous room and a handful of signature dishes, but the praise is persistently shadowed by complaints that the food doesn't 'live up to the hype,' arrives over-salted, and costs more than it delivers.
The dishes guests actually name
How often each item is mentioned across the reviews, and the lean of that mention.
- The room does the heavy lifting. The Deutsche Bank Center space is the single most consistent rave, described over and over as beautiful, gorgeous, and the kind of place one regular calls "the epitome of cool."
- Garlic babka is the consensus must-order. It dominates the reviews as the dish to get; even skeptics cave, with one warning they were "hesitant but ultimately I was proven wrong - SO GOOD!"
- Lemon cheesecake closes the meal strong. The signature dessert lands in regulars' "top 5 cheese cakes" and earns the line "as delicious as it is beautiful and unique," making it the most-named sweet on the menu.
- Filet mignon meatballs win converts. When they hit, they really hit: one guest who got them as a surprise from their server called them "the BEST meatballs I ever had," and added them to every future order.
- Short rib pappardelle is the standout pasta. Across years and ratings it's repeatedly singled out as the best plate of the night, with diners flatly stating "the short rib pappardelle was amazing."
- The hype sets a trap. "Hype" appears in roughly 140 reviews, and a recurring verdict is that the food can't match it; one elite reviewer led with "Yikes - if anyplace in town is currently overhyped it is Bad Roman."
- Service runs slow and uneven. Late seating and long waits for food are the most common operational gripe, summed up by "service was terribly slow. Be prepared to wait for everything but the check."
- Over-salting is a repeat offender. Multiple guests flag heavy-handed seasoning, with one describing a pasta as "like eating a bowl of salt. So bad I almost sent it back."
- Value doesn't always land. Prices are steep and not everyone feels the food earns it, with one blunt take calling it "a small step up from airport food" and others saying it's "not worth the hefty price."
- Filet doneness is inconsistent. The signature filet dishes draw complaints about execution; one diner who ordered medium got it "burnt outside and all done inside and dry," a problem that recurs across reviews.
Scene-versus-food tension runs through every era.
The ambiance is almost universally loved while the food splits the room, and the mall setting sharpens it. One guest captured the unease noting there was "something about walking around dressed up while everyone was casually shopping that felt strange." Bad Roman sells an experience first and a meal second.
The babka is so hyped it can disappoint itself.
It's the most-recommended dish on the menu, which becomes its own liability. A five-star reviewer still wrote that the babka was "kind of disappointing because of all the reviews telling you how good it is... it simply can't be that good." Expectations, not the dish, are the risk.
The signature filet dishes are genuinely polarizing.
The filet-mignon meatballs and the filet with cacio e pepe raviolo generate both the warmest and coldest reviews. One diner called the meatballs the best ever; another wrote "SKIP THIS! These tasted like the school meatballs from elementary school." The swing factor is kitchen consistency, especially how the filet is cooked.
Connecting a review to its check
Bad Roman · Reviews & Insights · internal · figures from live Yelp + POS data