Best Restaurants for Groups in Kearny Mesa

The spouse & I were visiting my daughter, who lives in San Diego. She had not been to Madison & neither had we. We all enjoyed the tomato & burrata appetizer. We also had the cioppino, Tuscan sausage rigatoni & chicken piccata; all were so good! Spouse & I had the Ibarra & The Woodsman, which were delicious. Service from Kylee excellent. We also enjoyed the music. My daughter plans to bring her roommates here.

We had a rough start to our dinner... right before we were sat the restaurant's system went down and we had to wait about an hour. The good news was that once it was back up and running, the place had cleared out pretty well and we were sat right away. Allison was our server and she was amazing. The star of the show was Paul, our Chef. An absolute legend of a chef and he made the evening super enjoyable. Allison kept our drinks full and checked on us frequently. What started as a rough dinner experience ended up being one of our best Benihana meals ever! Oh, and kudos to the ladies at the host station... they did a great job keeping everyone informed on the progress and handled angry customers well.

This was our first time at Arlo. It is to the left side of the hotel entrance and down a short walkway. It isn’t clearly marked in the evening. You park in the parking garage nearby and Arlo validates. We started with drinks and I had the blood orange gin fizz. It was very good. My husband had the Arlo old fashioned and liked it. We started with the bread appetizer. It was a small round split in four pieces and crisped in a wood fired oven before it came to the table. It was crispy on the outside and soft inside. It was served with sea salt and a compound butter. For dinner two people had the Wagyu meatloaf with mushroom gravy and I had the Calabrian chili shrimp pasta. Both were excellent. The pasta had some heat but not too much and the pasta was Al dente. We were too full for dessert but my mom had the espresso martini and said it was perfect. I tried some and agreed not too sweet with the perfect strength of coffee to balance the taste. The service was wonderful. We didn’t wait too long before our server came to the table. She gave us highlights of the menu and her recommendations. They were very good about keeping our water glasses filled and clearing dishes without us feeling like we were being rushed. We will be back to try other menu items like the mussels and Brussels sprouts!

I have not been here in a few year’s but San Diego Tiki Ladies met here 2 years ago so we came back. Wow! What a difference. The Paper Boat was very good and we all could not say enough about the food. Definitely worth it to go just for that.

Nice family experience on Christmas Day. Very tasty and wide variety of holiday foods, salad bar, fruit and cereal bar for kids, soups, and extensive dessert bar. We really enjoyed the experience, food, AND not having to cook! You get a complimentary glass of champagne and a gift of small bottle to go!