The Washington Square Tavern

This restaurant is a neighborhood gem! Most importantly, their food is consistently good and offers great value. While many restaurants/bars now focus on offering expensive tapas type bar food, Washington Square Tavern still offers proper dinner entrees. There's always a good variety of choices and kids friendly. Our favorites are the pork chops and fish and chips.

Service is friendly and efficient. The interior is a bit dark for our liking but we happily eat there because they do food and drinks well and we leave satiated and don't feel overcharged.

Atmosphere: 3

Food: 5

Service: 4

Really great time having dinner at Washington Tavern! We had X/Zander as our waiter; he was attentive, knowledgable, and friendly. He recommended a couple beers to try and the clam chowder, which was amazing.
My husband ordered the fish and chips and I the salmon. There was plenty of fish and the chips were crispy despite their thickness. The salmon skin was delicious and so crispy. It was such a great texture difference when taking a bite of the skin and salmon. The mussels were great as well, no overcooked and the sauce was well balanced.
Highly recommend coming here and will be returning!!

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Wonderful dinner 10/10 service food and atmosphere! Great place for date night or a meal with friends,

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

This place is awesome! The food is great and the staff are great. In particular, John and Sam at the bar were engaging, kind, and make amazing drinks! We’ll be back.

Service was steady, and the overall environment felt tidy and comfortable.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Good food seemed short staffed, but they hustled

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 4

Service: 3

I ordered the steak and I believe truffle fries the fries Amazing but the steak not so much. This steak had a sauce all on it no flavor at all i quickly had to send it back. My bartender was also Amazing but I truly just wanted a steak last night and was highly disappointed.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 1

Service: 5

Fantastic establishment. Great food, great drinks and even better service. Hidden gem on washington and beacon!!

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Love the Tavern! Staff are awesome, polite and respectful. Food is creative and delish. Drinks are beyond!

Some of the best wines and whiskey selection. For an Irish Pub you will not find better food.

Great food! Best burger in Brookline period. Good was on point, drinks were fantastic, bartender amazing!! Loved every second and I highly recommend going. If you want good wine than this is the place to get it.

I'm done eating here. I've been two times prior, and I keep having the same experience of rude waitstaff and hosts. For our most recent visit, it wasn't busy, and the whole ordeal took over 3 hours for our party of 2 to eat. Our server was really disinterested and we were watching her socialize in the service station area as we had our menus closed and waited to order. The host, an older lady, seemed really annoyed when we showed up for our reservation as we appeared to interupt her chatting with another worker. While we waited to be seated, the host socialized with another table, looked around, and then waved us over to sit. The whole vibe of the restaurant is basically that if you aren't buddies with the server or host, they don't care about you. There are better food options in the area with much more hospitable staff.

Edited review to a 1 star due to the restaurants response. The restaurant says they fired their staff (what a joke) and there is a difference in training and socializing. What I witnessed was not training so thanks for trying to gaslight about that. This establishment would rather place blame on the patron rather than look internally at the low standards they have for their staff. As I said originally- there are much better places in the area that are worth your time and money.

On another note- other reviews also mention the poor service so perhaps this is worth looking into. But, I appreciate the reminder to post about positive experiences in the area at establishments that care about patrons! Thanks!

My siblings and I came here for my brother's birth day. I had the burger, my brother steak, and my sis the salad. We also had drinks and calamari. All of these were delicious.

Best restaurant in Washington Square. The menu evolved over the years but there are always several excellent things on offer (such as duck breast and octopus as of my last visit) and they offer simpler gastropub fare as well. Service is good and the ownership has the right sensibilities.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Recommended dishes: Burger, Pan Roasted Duck Breast R I Johnnycake Blackberry Jam Cracklings Greens, Steak, Fish & Chips, Grilled Octopus

[Update: after posting, the owner of the venue got in touch to apologise for the handling of the situation. This showed great customer awareness and desire to address this lapse in their service.]

Had a bad experience here with my daughter. We ordered a burger and steak, both came out pretty cold. (They were served on cold plates, can't have helped.) Sent them back, waited 10 minutes, they returned - cold, again. Sent them back, were told they couldn't heat them up without overcooking them - so what we would like to do? Eventually they said they'd redo the meals. Waited another 25 minutes - by this point well over an hour at the table with no food. (Also nobody came by to fill our water, offer any drinks, comp a snack while we waited etc.) The food finally was delivered on plates that were hotter than the sun, with everything scorched. Maybe just me, but it sure felt like someone in the kitchen was trying to make a point! Why not just cook the food like normal, put it on a heated plate, and send it out? Not that hard, and we weren't being unreasonable. Food in the end was fine, not great.

Atmosphere: 2

Food: 2

Service: 4