Volver restaurant Review

Food was amazing. Perfect portions, unusual combinations, and oh so tasty! I think we didn't mind finding out the show had been cancelled because dinner was such a delight! Try the milk and cereal!

Great spot to catch a pre-show meal. Nice selection. The tartare had great texture and taste. The gnudi was amazing! And the chocolate dessert was a perfect complement of texture, with the chocolate crust and creamy center. The wait staff was attentive and helpful.

Great food, services and drinks from a Garces-owned restaurant

The meal opened with the bread as a Course. Where else will you find that! The squab dish" for this course is unique to the restaurant. Chef Garces partnered with the manufacture to make unique dishware for the restaurant. Each dish is uniquely suited to the course it serves and beautiful. It will be interesting to see if the dishes are repurposed in the future when the menu changes. I suspect they may not be or only be reused in special circumstances.

My wife and I loved our meal at Chef Garces restaurant Amada, so when we were given "tickets" to a pre-theater dinner at one of his other restaurants we were extremely excited. The anticipatory excitement was probably the high point of our meal.

The kitchen puts together a pretty plate and the service is prompt, which is very important for a pre-theater seating. Beyond that it was very underwhelming.

My prawns were trimmed, but not fully so that was a little odd and seemed like a kitchen mistake or oversight... Fully trimmed: great; Deveined only, head and legs left on: okay, not my preference but it adds to the presentation; Parts of the legs left on: easy enough to remove, but huh? Anyway, as is readily visible in pictures, the sauce on my prawns either broke or way too much finishing oil was added to a dish that needed none. Texture leads my to believe the former and my plate was an oil slick.

My wife's entree worked as a complete bite. However, the individual components did not hold up. The chicken wasn't necessarily dry, but it wasn't moist either and it was most certainly bland. She enjoys al dente pasta, but the cannelloni was pushing the boundaries into undercooked and crunchy.

Our server seemed very green and flustered. The support wait staff that came by to clear our plates and offer refills was much more personable and engaging than the waiter that owned the section. The cocktails were okay, notable in neither a positive or negative regard.

Outstanding place,food is on point.The location and pretheater menu is why I know this is an affordable treat I will do at least twice a month from now on.

It's expensive, but worth it. Truffle Rush cocktail is a must!

quality meals, yeah, super tasty. the place has a cool atmosphere. feeling here is like a restaurant in fort worth i liked.

Nice experience for hors d'oeuvres and drinks on a Saturday evening.

Nice atmosphere. Pleasant staff. Good wine. But, food salted to the point where you can no longer taste the ingredients.

A great dinning experience in the heart of downtown. I would recommend this restaurant to anyone seeing a play or for a romantic date night. The restaurant is quite enough so you can easily hear other people at your table plus the decorations are amazing. I would highly recomend the Lamb Frites and Milk and Cereal. I would also suggest skipping the Cocoa Choux dessert.

The food and the service here was probably the best I've ever had. Our server helped with food selections, made adjustments with allergies in mind and vividly described every item we ordered.

I don t even know how to describe this place. It doesn t feel like a normal restaurant. It s not even open for dinner routinely. It s attached to the Kimmel Center and functions as a pre-show venue ( or so it seemed to me). Very limited menu during pre show times. I m confused.

Good food, but not spectacular. The place is nice, the service is good. On weekends it is usually full.

One of the best dining experiences. The 12-course was absolutely amazing and very memorable. The staff and the chefs are wonderful. I would definitely recommend and would definitely come back.

Fantastic dinner. Food was wonderful, staff was pleasant, and helpful and overall reasonably priced.

Excellent service, attractive plates, food very good.

Beautiful place with amazingly creative and delicious foods and flavors

Best culinary experience I've had so far. Very complex flavors. It was my first time trying some ingredients like duck liver, Hamachi and trout and I can say that I enjoyed them very much. One of my favorite dishes was the Hamachi tartar which is weird cause I don't eat much fish in general. Another must try is the Milk and cereal, at first it's a little confusing because of the presentation, but when you taste it...OMG it was amazing. Thought I would have given a 4.5 because one dessert was supposed to have coconut sorbet but they used banana instead. And didn't care much for the king crab risotto. Besides that overall a great experience filled with new flavors.

My boyfriend and I just had a terrible experience at volver. We had a 9 o clock reservation got seated on time but waited quite some time before taking care of. We order drinks that never arrived waitress seamed to be overwhelming busy and over all we were there specifically for the TASTING MENU after a while a manager came by ( quiet under dress for this kind of restaurant) and tell us they changed their policy about tasting menu.

A bit pricey, some charges are sneaky, over all food was great.

A fav spot for tasty Quality Meals. Quick and friendly service.

The chef's tasting with wine pairing is fantastic and worth the splurge for a nice evening. I recommend and will return again.

A preferred place for Quality Meals. I love visiting here. Bring your appetite because portions are filling.

Tried Volver during restaurant week. Nice ambience and very creative food. Our waiter was polite and friendly but not quite on top of things.

Husband and I made reservations for restaurant week. Food was amazing but yet a tease. We wanted more and particularly enjoyed the buttermilk fried chicken. We plan to come back for the 8 or 10 course tasting. Dan was especially pleasant as our server. Everything he recommended was remarkable.

Impressive diversity of kitchen staff. Delicious food.

Appetizers and drinks at the bar. Joe and William took great very good care of us at the bar.

Terrible experience! Other people I've spoken to had a similar bad experience. Go anywhere else. Garces has lost it!

The 9 course tasting will have u full for hours....

Comfortable sophistication. Beautiful ambience coupled with old fashioned hospitality.

Good place for delicious Quality Meals. Got there about two, it was not packed. The bill was good for what you get. Makes me feel like I am back in Tucson.

Decent food didn't make up for the slow service. Drink order (champagne & beer) took 30 minutes. A Diet Coke ordered when first sat down didn't arrive until near the end of the meal. They recommended we have a 6p reservation for their 'pre-theater dinner' before our 7:30p show at the Merriam... didn't even get to have our 'included' dessert and we got there closer to 5:30p. Won't be returning back anytime soon.

Good food and cocktails. It's one of the few restaurant week restaurants that I've eaten at and needed food afterwards. More of a fine dining and tapas than meal restaurant.

Food was tasty but very small portions. Interesting German wine. Service was slow and meals didn't come out at the same time. Had to push them to get to Philly Pops on time. We were disappointed.

Good food. Long wait, despite reservations. Had to rush through meal to make it to a show. I would go again without later plans.

Dinner at Volver was delicious! I took my boyfriend here for his birthday. The ambiance is very romantic and chill. They have a new manager who was great and attentive. He presented our food and gave us the background and inspiration of the dishes. Everything was delicious. When I didn t like my cocktail they immediately replaced it with one that for my palate.

My only complaint would be they were out of the lobster appetizer. I had the hamachi instead and it was delicious.

Picture below is the milk and cream, hamachi, crispy lamb chops, roasted duck breast, coco choux, and s mores.

A Garces restaurant with amazing food located right inside the Kimmel Center off of Broad Street.

Worthy of their Forbes 5 star rating. One of the best restaurants in Pennsylvania. Most fine dining tasting menus in Philly cannot come close to the high level that Volver executes.

1.5 stars
Not for vegetarians.
This place is a great example of style over substance.
If you are vegetarian then this is definitely not the restaurant where you would want to end up at unless vegetarian food for you only means salads. We tried every single vegetarian dish on their pre - theater menu and except for the pea hummus which tasted slightly okay, everything else wasn't good.

We tried the restaurant week special menu which means we paid $35 per person for an appetizer, an entree and a dessert. Starting from the appetizer the green salad only had one or two good elements but just could not be eaten after a point.
The caprese was nothing extraordinary. It would the taste same even at a chain restaurant and you would pay much less.
The green pea hummus was probably their best dish of the night. Now, the hummus topped with crunchy quinoa tasted good but they did not even serve it with pita bread. Instead it came with carrot, radish and celery sticks. I mean why should I visit a restaurant to have veggies and hummus.

Coming to the entrees there was just one vegetarian option: the quinoa tabbouleh. It was basically quinoa served with roasted okra, cucumber, yuzu mayo and falafel. I am usually very gentle with my criticism but this was an awful dish. More so because the first course was literally only salads and the second course too was like eating quinoa salad. For some reason there was a very meaty smell and taste to the dish making it difficult for me to eat. The falafel was okay but wasn't enough to save the dish.

Now finally for the desserts. It is usually very difficult to get desserts wrong but volver managed that too.
Starting with the black sesame panacotta. The panacotta itself had no sugar in it. It was served with a yuzu curd, a cherry and some fruit flavored foam and a delicate touille on top. The elements did not come together at all and they tasted bad even individually.

Next up the chocolate choux which again hardly had any sugar. I am all up for moderately sweet desserts but that doesn't mean sugar is completely avoided.

It wasn't just the food that was bad but it was also the service. There was a difference of at least 30 minutes between each course even on a night where the restaurant wasn't completely full. I am not sure if it was because of the restaurant week but I was so disappointed with the place. I ended up paying a lot more than I ideally would have for all of that food.

Just serving up pretty dishes in the restaurant isn't going to work if your food lacks taste. I cannot call this restaurant good or bad because I did not taste the meat which may have possibly been good but it was a nightmare for a vegetarian person. Not a single dish we ordered today was cooked. It was all raw and salads. I can't understand how someone even with a very refined taste would like that food. Please incorporate some hot dishes to the menu and maybe serve something filling like bread with the food instead of vegetables.

To summarize: I am never going back unless the menu is fully revamped.

Literally nothing on the menu is less than exceptional. The caramel egg is fabulous, order 2!

My boyfriend bought a champagne tasting and plate of oysters as an up sell with a concert. The hostess was very nice, but didn't lead us to a table. We tried unsuccessfully to sit at two tables in the bar area before being asked to move again. A little annoying to start. The waitstaff was aloof and not interested in serving us attentively. They seemed to be lacking communication amongst themselves and we had to keep repeating that we bought the tasting. We ordered two snacks immediately but they forgot to bring one of them out until we reminded them. Oh! Our tasting came with a petites fours that we also had to remind our waitress about - as she brought us the check. Ugh what a beautiful space and delicious food but the service killed it for me! Not on par with swanky places like Tinto, Minibar, or Boqueria that it tries to be.

Good enough if you're going to the Kimmel or The Academy.

Amazing restaurant!!! Drinks were fabulous and the Pan De Bono with Guava Butter.... ::no words:: !!! Absolutely amazing!!

We've been there for pre-dinner theater and the tasting menu.

The wine selection is great but IMHO neither the food nor the service merits the prices.

This place has great ambiance and wonderful food, but the service was lacking. We were told there was a 30 min delay, so we headed to the bar for drinks. It was a little harder than usual to get a bartender's attention, even though we both were seated at the bar. When our table was ready and we were being served, it again seemed difficult to get the attention of our waiter when we needed them. While I'm glad I finally tried this place, I was also glad I did so during Restaurant Week for the lower price :)

The Barbecue shrimp was delicious. I took this 6 foot 4 gentle giant with me and he made me take him for a burger after! Try several courses if you are hungry and you will not be disappointed.

Great spot for quality quality meals. A preferred evening place. I will be bringing friends next time. The bill won't shock you. I can see why they have a lot of good reviews.

We did the chef tasting menu. Most of the food was delicious and beautiful. The halibut was overcooked. Other than that, the brussel sprouts were unbelievable, the shrimp was perfect. My cocktail was too sweet despite my telling the bartender I don't like sweet cocktails. the rest of the dishes were amazing. I feel bad giving 3 stars, except I realized that I have trouble recommending this place to too many people. Service was incredibly slow - almost 3 hours for a tasting menu with the restaurant almost empty on a Friday night. Beautiful atmosphere though, pretty cool with the glass wall overlooking the street and open kitchen.

Mediocre meal.
Disappointing.
Service was scripted. Not accommodating to dietary restrictions. Presentation was
Weak and not compete.

Our Server, Jared, was wonderful. He was attentive & his suggestions were spot on. The Pastrami Sea Trout with the unusually delicious side of GRILLED CARAFLEX CABBAGE, GREEN APPLE, KOHLRABI,
MUSTARD SOUBISE, literally brought a tear to my eyes. It was a most satisfying meal. The chocolate dessert, which I do not remember the name of, was tasty also.
I prefer that we were Not attending a show. There was no rush and things went well.

Great ambiance . Extraordinary service. We loved all the food on the menu . Expertly crafted. The manager Day was great . I would have asked to dine with us. Drinks were on point , mixed to perfection. The chef delivered my dessert and I was impressed . I will be going back soon . Hope to see you there.

Small portions but great location. Cocktails were a little pricey but reasonable for center City

Great service. Me and my lady went here to celebrate our two year anniversary in Philadelphia and couldn't have been more happier. The manager was very nice and respectful and made sure we had an excellent experience. I definitely recommend this place.

quality meals and the scene at this place is super good. Filled me up in no time. Fast and courteous service. The prices are fair for the quality of food. Feels like a cafe in Phoenix that I enjoyed visiting.

I was so tired after I saw a show Friday at one of the theaters. It was almost 9pm and we were walking around. The car was parked at the Kimmel my friend saw the restaurant as they were coming out on the way to the show. Why not check them out... Just the greeting alone brightened up my night the show was okay not what I expected. This experience made up for it. The GM was great and suggested what we should try on the menu and it was wonderful. Their version of shrimp toast was great and the lamb it was so tender and did not have that taste it usually carries. It was fried like southern chicken. Definitely will be back because of the friendliness of the bartender and hospitality of the manager. I need to mention the decor and ambience, cool and relaxing. Definitely a nice place to wind down after a show or go for the Happy Hour during the week starts on Wednesdays I believe. I'll be there I work in Center City.

Perfect choice for restaurant week. All selections superbly prepared and the pistachio dessert was heavenly.

Just amazing!!! Words cannot describe how good the food is!! The service is even better than the food!

Elegant and upscale spot for elevated food. Limited selection and slightly expensive.

Had the Pre-Theatre menu...everything was fantastic...just be prepared to have a second dinner...lol...5 stars from me

Spectacular. We went on Valentines, which is a day most restaurants are overstretches.

They worked with our food preferences (we called in advance) and provided a 10/10 custom tasting menu, better than many 1* Michelin Star restaurants I ve been to.

Oftentimes tasting menus are all about the chef showing off and not about giving the customer an experience - not so at Volver. Every dish was a taste into their menu, and every one was spot on.

Three areas for improvement:

1) Our server was inexperienced and a bit clumsy. He d leave with our dishes and come back to the table with them to ask something, for example.

2) Mixed drinks were only OK. All three cocktails were not well mixed, and I sent one back. The wine was excellent though, and whilst the wine menu was mega expensive, we found a $60 Merlot.

3) One dessert dish (some sort of deconstructed chocolate cake) didn t work for us, and we left it. The server confirmed it wasn t a favorite.

But these are small quibbles in an incredible meal. It wasn t cheap, but great food isn t cheap.

Fine spot for delicious Quality Meals. Everyone at our table was very satisfied. I had a cousin come into town and she asked me to go back here. Prices were decent.

Over priced. Decent service but disappointing food and drinks quality

Despite having the entire restaurant reserved for a private party shortly after our arrival, they welcomed us with open arms. Expert advice on wine pairings and interesting takes on some classic dishes are only a couple things they offer to every guest. Would definitely go again and again.

Amazingly unique. The 9 course tasting menu is a foodies delight.

A perfect dining experience and nice atmosphere with great staff

Great location and tasty food and friendly but otherwise occupied staff. It took an unusually long time for us to place our drink orders and even longer for us to actually get our food. Half way through waiting, the place cleared out because their show at the Kimmel Center was starting. I assumed that the food would have come out faster because the kitchen could not have had any other orders at the time. By the time our main course/large plate arrived 1.5hr later, we no longer had much of an appetite. It was only the organic chicken plate and we only ordered one because we had other small plates. The food was tasty, servers knowledgeable, nice seating, good drinks, but the service is very slow. We actually ended up missing our post dinner show.

Perfect after concert spot to enjoy drinks and horderves. Very comfortable bar seating. The wait staff did an exceptional job. Perfect timing and top notch professionals. Best Irish coffee. Bartender credits his grandfather with the recipe. Nice location with large windows and great contemporary upscale motif. Highly recommend for friends and office gatherings.

This place was great! The food was great and the staff was even better! The milk and cereal was one of my favorite dishes; it sounds like it might be sweet but I found it to be a very enjoyable savory dish. We traveled to philidelphia and we were looking forward to going here, a jose garces restaurant, and doing the chef's tasting menu, but by the time we got to philidelphia it was summer time when they weren't doing that. We let the waiter know and they luckily were able to put one together really quick out of what was available, and I'm so glad that they did because it was all amazing and we got to try a little bit of a lot of things. Also the manager Day was great, very friendly and was very attentive to us!

Everything I tasted here was excellent. Service was excellent. My dinner was included with a concert and hotel stay so we were limited to certain things on the menu. Everyone ordered something different and they all loved it. I would highly recommend for a food experience you won't forget.

The service here was amazing. However the food was okay. Specifically the wagyu sirloin. It was so tough that I was inedible. Ordered it medium rare but it was cooked unevenly and very under flavored. For A5 wagyu to be served this way is a shame.

2nd time here, 2nd time having the tasting menu... both times absolutely amazing

Please stay! The best meal I had all year! Absolutely wonderful dining experience without the pretense!

Had the ten course tasting menu paired with wine. The food was very, very good, but given the price, every course should have been outstanding. In comparison to Vetri, who charge about the same, Volver was sadly unable to attain the same level or culinary mastery.

The experience was well worth the money. If I could give this restaurant a 4.5 I would.

We had the 9 course tasting menu, most of which was delicious and complex in flavor. I really enjoyed the experience and could taste the thought and care that was put into each individual dish. The service was also great with the waiter being diligent and personable the entire time, although he always seemed to be out of breath or generally disheveled.

The only dark spots on a practically brilliant dining experience were the the following:

The empanada that was given in the snack portion of the meal was somewhat greasy and wasn't pleasant to eat. The rest of the snacks were great.

The king crab risotto was definitely the least enjoyable out of all the dishes, but since it is an optional addition, you can simply opt to skip it.

Finally the origin desert which is a chocolate mousse with mango pearls and a banana sorbet was probably the only true disappointment. The sorbet was listed as coconut in the menu but banana was given. Overall the flavors were underwhelming and the banana sorbet was like eating baby food.

The final desert, the caramel egg, made up for the origin desert and then some. Delicious to the last bite.

Overall it was a satisfying and enjoyable experience that I would recommend to everyone who would like to experience a fine dining tasting menu.

I would still give it a 4.5 just because it wasn't a complete home run.

According to our waiter, the menu changes seasonally, so we might be returning to sample a different menu. Give it a try. You won't regret it.

Nice ambiance next to kimmel center theater...met Iron Chef Garces! So cool!

If Vernick is 5 stars, this place is 2. While the food presentation is lovely, the lack of substance and overly rich (too salty) dishes left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Not one dish, out of 3, would I get again. Honestly, I don t think I ll be giving this place another go.

We did the tasting menu. We had been waiting for over a year to get a certain group of us to visit Volver. At some point it was one of the Top 50 restaurants in Philadelphia. It can t be anymore, right? We had an 8:30 reservation on a Saturday night and the place was almost empty. We closed the place a little after 10! The food was wildly inconsistent. Some plates were fantastic, some pedestrian, others awful.

Ask to sit at the prep table! Delicious and artful food, a wonderful experience

We arrived on Valentine s Day with no reservation because of a foul mixup. The hostess spoke to the manager and he squeezed us in. We had the most amazing dining experience! Was greeted with roses! The manager, hostess and waiters were incredibly helpful and friendly. The food was impeccable! The atmosphere warm! We are definitely planning to go back for the lamb chops!