ZINO

Great food and service. The ambiance always wonderful at GE hotel.

The room is gorgeous. the food is great. We had the branzino fish and special lamb. Both delicious. the cocktail I had called golden mouthful is one of the best I've ever had.

The menu is interesting and appealing, but the execution of the fare leaves room for improvement. It’s also noisy. Service was fine.

Extremely expensive for portion size. Also, being vegan I only had the patella choice. It would be great if some sort of protein could be included in restaurant vegan options so a vegan dish is balanced nutritionally. Tofu, beans or nuts could be that protein.

Came to celebrate a retirement, notes on the reservation but not acknowledged by our server. It was okay because our service was good as was the food. My only issue was that the prices are quite high for the value. It’s surprising to spend $34 for a plate and left a bit hungry. No bread offered... even when ordering pasta.

I would recommend but would offer the suggestion of being careful of what you order if you want the best value.

We enjoyed our dinners, even though we had to pick from a considerably reduced menu.
However, the service fell off radically for dessert, so much so that we didn't have time to enjoy it. It was almost 30 minutes from the time we ordered it until it came to the table -- that was truly excessive, and very disappointing.

Perhaps Zinos was understaffed the day we came. But, our food eventually arrived but we had no eating utensils. We requested them, twice. When none were forth coming, we simply nabbed them from a nearby empty table.

I love the food here -- no matter what I get, from simple to fancy, it's always wonderful. The staff is kind and usually quite attentive. Oh, and they have great desserts, too.

Go there -- you'll love it.

Service was terrific, attentive and not intrusive. The space is lovely, open and airy. Food was great, a prix fixe special. And you can converse without shouting, imagine! It's not a cheap meal, but it's a wonderful place, highly recommend it.

I paid $32 for a main course seared scallop dish, which must have had 3 scallops thinly sliced and browned. The dish was described on the menu as including salad. There was as much salad on the plate as you could easily fit into a single tablespoon. The food was tasty but unbelievably skimpy for the price. In answer to your question below about recommending ZINO to a friend, I would say only if you wanted a delicious small snack for dinner.

Enjoyed the ambiance

Delicious Mediterranean-centric food. Competent, efficient service helped us get to the theatre on time. Good cocktails.

This was their "special" fixed Valentine's Day menu, no other choice. The food was very good but overpriced. It was a three course meal at a seven course price. The wine servings were also expensive yet ordinary at best. Service was too fast for a special meal.

The WORST meal I’ve had in an open table restaurant by far!!
Bill was nearly $200 with tip...they had a price fixed menu for Valentines Day.
They advertise a "Mediterranean Menu"...our Open Table reservation didn't indicate that the meal was a price fixed menu...to add to our frustration the fixed price menu offered had NO Mediterranean dishes.
You should not allow your customers to book at this place...it's that bad!!

Our group was attending a marathon session at nearby Berkeley Rep.

The restaurant was serving a special Valentine’s Day prix-fixe menu. They were quite sensitive to our time constraints. The food was good; the service excellent.

I have eaten here before and will certainly do so again.

We has valentine’s reservations and were told we had to choose from a prix fix menu. There was no Mediterranean food in sight. We had a beets and goat cheese appetizer, bouillabaisse, and a tart. Each course underwhelmed in its own way, and just displayed a high class idea executed poorly and without care. Paying $65 per person plus tax and tip after that meal was even more painful after our botched dinner date.

Salad so-so. Octopus good. Pork Chop good but small portion. Nothing to make me repeat.

Truly mediocre experience. Food was OK but definitely nothing special. Service was abysmal. Nice people just not attentive to needs and had to be asked twice for things. This is open air through to the bar. Personally, I find it distracting to have TV on during dinner, especially what is touted as 'nice.' Finally, a little pricey for what it is.

I'll not go back, there are just too many really great options to spend money at Zino's.

The meal excellent and the service surpassed the meal. We really enjoyed the grilled octopus was prepared allowing it to remain tender. I’ll go again.

Thank you for a great meal, great service and yummy dessert!

With happy hour in the bar the restaurant was much to noisy

We had a marvelous time and enjoyed every bite. The space is so much more welcoming and fun now; we look forward to lounging about with drinks on the retro sofas next time!

Nice ambiance! You can have a conversation without having to shout or lean in! Food was very good.

Love Zino for food, drink, ambiance. It is a regular spot for me to share with friends and will continue to be so. However, I was very disappointed in the service this visit. There was hardly anyone in the restaurant. We ordered an appetizer and when that was served and server stated our entrees would be right out, I asked for that not to happen. We wanted to enjoy our appetizer. Soon after our entrees arrive. The table was too small to accomodate all the plates... we were left juggling trying to move our appetizer and the small plates somewhere while the server was holding the entrees... anxiously trying to dump them on the table. We eneded up stacking our appetizer plates to send away before we were done. Then when it was time for the check to be paid, we waited forever before someone returned to take the check and process the payment. I hope for better service next visit. Thankfully the rest of the restaurant and experience is so good, I will go back. Others might not.

Nice place, low key, pleasant and warm.
It’s quiet. No loud music
Great place to have a meal.

Raucous crowd in the bar made it impossible to converse.

Crab in the Crab Louie was tasteless. Dressing had cayenne pepper in it, not the classic dressing, and I had specifically asked for no pepper. Pine nut tart was blah. Will not be returning!

The latest dining room iteration of the downtown Berkeley Hotel Shattuck and it is, by far, the best. Quiet, great food and calm, competent service.

When i came into the restaurant, there was no one at the maitre d' kiosk and none of the employees in the vicinity acknowledged me. Luckily, I saw the others in my party seated already so I joined them. I had the crab louie which seemed small although there was A LOT of crab but no much lettuce (the opposite of what one expects!). I had the rosemary pinenut tart which seemed a little herby at first but it grew on me. The inside part was a but runny and cloyingly sweet so I think the dessert chef has to go back to the drawing board on that one.

Zino is probably one of the most convenient restaurants to BART train in the bay area. Walk out of the BART Downtown Berkeley BART station at the Allston Way Exit station and you are at the restaurant.
Friendly staff , good service and atmosphere and food is good to excellent depending on what dish you order. The prices are high, but that's the new normal in the bay area. Worth going.

As vegetarians, there are a limited number of dishes available, but friends wanted to try it, so we went back. The service was great, and we had a corner table that was relatively quiet and thus good for older folks.

The menu descriptions sounded amazing for our group. We tried the branzino, the vegan paella, carrots, okra and hummus. They ran out of the broccolini and the desserts all had gluten, so that was not an option. The branzino promised bright flavors- no grapefruit came thru and the dish was completely bland. The best thing was the okra.

Beautiful, open environment and not noisy--a classy place. The hummus and appetizers were good, but all three of our main courses were very bland and disappointing.

Good option before a show at Berkeley Rep or Freight. Fattoush salad , and scallops, were delicious! Muhammara was good.

We had a noon reservation before a 2 p.m. curtain at Berkeley Rep. The place was almost empty, and we were surprised to see that the menu was for brunch--at noon on a Saturday! They did have a "new" entry, which I ordered--crab louie salad. It was laughable. The crab was delicious, but it came in a tiny little pile with almost nothing else--a couple of strips of something. But it was in no way an adequate meal.

The service was awful. The waiter kept disappearing for long periods of time, which was strange since there were few other people in the large dining room. (Maybe he had a second job somewhere else!)

We thought the food was pretty average. Pork chop was average to good but the branzino (fish) was lacking any flavor. Both dissappointed

It may have been that it was NY day and they were short staffed and those who were working just weren't that into it. Had to wait for table set up even though we had made reservation and room wasn't even half occupied. Food was decent but I see no reason to go back.

The place is large and there were only about 5 of us in there yet everything was super slow. Example: we asked for water, so thirsty and rather than turning around to the bar 4 feet away, he left the dining area for a while. The same happened with food. He’d go to go to pick it up for us and rather than drop it off, begin waiting on other tables.
Food: octopus ok. Soup: plain no real flavor. Roulade chicken smelled bad and we sent back (weren’t charged for that one)

Beautiful and peaceful dining room, very sweet server. Outstanding Christmas buffet, something for everyone. I especially loved the smoked salmon!

We truly enjoyed the Christmas Day brunch. All the offerings were delicious. Loved the variety. The bottomless mimosas were great. We were particularly happy with the wonderful staff, who were warm and friendly, attentive and polite. We will most definitely return next year.