Orinoco Harvard Square

Food is great!! Service could be better, they mix orders with large parties and weitress are a little distracted

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 5

Service: 3

The food didn’t seem fresh, the portions were small, and the lamb was mostly bones with very little meat. Overall, not a good experience—I wouldn’t recommend it.

Atmosphere: 3

Service: 4

Salmon and bacon wrapped dates were amazing. My bf got the steamed yucca and empanadas. He couldn’t stop raving about them!

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 4

What an amazing experience!!! Food was incredibly flavorful and portions were great. We recommend the empanadas, pulled pork, and salmon. We will be coming back 😊

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

A hidden gem! If you're not careful you'll miss the alleyway leading to this restaurant and that would be sad, it's worth the search. The wait staff is very friendly and forgiving of my horrible attempts at saying the names of menu items. Everything we ordered was fantastic and I was sad to leave my leftovers behind, the casualties of vacationing.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Venezuelan restaurant with an entertaining selection of bites. I particularly liked the braised beef in the arepas, and the juice drinks. However, i think with having a restaurant in Harvard square that is a bit upscale, something is lost along the way. Small-ish servings, and a vibe that feels it caters more to the parents of Harvard students than to a community. The service was great though. No complaints there.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 4

Service: 5

Everything was amazing. The service, the atmosphere, and the appetizers and meal! Outstanding.
I’ll be dreaming of the salmon.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

The restaurant isn’t what it used to be. I frequented Orinoco’s South End location for years before they opened their Harvard location. In the years past, I’ve always had a good experience going to both their Harvard Sq and South End restaurants and deeply appreciated their food, atmosphere, and attentive service.

I was there recently for dinner with my family and had a vastly different experience.

After being seated outside, the server did not come around to take our order for what seemed like a long time, didn’t even check with us when they came out to serve other people seated around us.

The QR code led me to an online menu that listed just about half of the items as “sold out”—particularly their arepas. Finding this to be odd, I asked one of the servers if the restaurant had arepas and he responded with a confused look and confirmed that they were indeed out. A bit disappointing to come to a Venezuelan restaurant to not get arepas but we just ordered other things. Just a few minutes later, we saw the table next to us being served a plate of arepas. Confused, we asked another server if the restaurant was serving arepas, who now confirmed that they did have them in the kitchen. Couldn’t the previous server have just gone and asked the kitchen if he wasn’t clear about what was available? Shouldn’t the server taking orders know what is being served that day from the kitchen?

Sangria was solid but the rest of the menu items we ordered were underwhelming. The outside of the tequeños were undercooked and chalky. Empanadas were decent but the salad that came with it were over dressed and didn’t feature julienned jicama that gave it a nice texture in the years past.

I don’t know if it was just that day or what but the experience was frankly unpleasant and I couldn’t wait to leave once I realized that other people were being served better than us, even though we didn’t do anything to warrant that kind of treatment.

I really wish they had been clearer about what was actually on their menu, communicated with us clearly, and had actually given us a decent service. It’s really disappointing to see a place I’ve always supported this way and I really don’t feel like spending that kind of money to be given the wrong information and served in that manner.

Again, maybe it was an off day for them but I won’t be following up any time soon.

2.5/5 overall.

Atmosphere: 3

Food: 3

Service: 2

The food was amazing highly recommend it !! The staff was great !

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Recommended dishes: Baby-Back Ribs

The arepas are pretty small, and I’ve definitely had better elsewhere. The positive side was lots of gluten free options.

I got the Pabellon Criollo and it was great, but what they did with the rice is the most amazing thing, it has a nice depth of flavor. I highly recommend the plantains!

Orinoco offers very yummy Venezuelan food, and their steak arepa is incredible—tender and flavorful! The cachapa was divine, sweet and savory with the perfect texture. The pastel de polvorosa was a bit small, but still delicious. When they had their plato navideño, it was a fantastic surprise, and I couldn’t get enough of the flavors. A great spot for authentic Venezuelan dishes!

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Media noche sandwich and tostonsitos completely lacked freshness, flavor and texture.

Atmosphere: 3

Food: 1

Service: 3

I didn't have the chance to try their food, but I saw a few dishes come out of the kitchen and they looked delicious.
The atmosphere is very pleasant and the attention is wonderful.
Today we had the pleasure of having two delicious papelon with lemon courtesy of the house. Grateful?????

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Tasty take out, though they could improve by labeling boxes within an order.

Food: 5

Recommended dishes: Bacon Wrapped Dates, Adobo Smoked Churrasco, Roasted Portobella Arepa