Food was decent, ordered an old fashioned, was not asked what kind of liquor I wanted. Â I had to ask what I was getting when it showed up.I figure if I am dropping ten bucks I should at least get a say. Also for a wine bar my date did not get stem ware with her sparkling wine. Not a huge deal but easy things to fix especially when you drop a couple bucks on dinner I expect good service.
Review Source:A great addition to Davis Square, Spoke has a modern vibe and excellent atmosphere. The waitstaff are extremely knowledgeable about the dishes they serve, along with their wine selection.
My friends and I had the pleasure of being waited on by one of the most friendly and attentive Sommeliers I've ever encountered. He gave suggestions to some dishes we should try, and what wine would pair with them without being pushy. He refilled our glasses when they were low without being invasive. He even treated us to some on the house Italian sparkling wine with the cured meat platter we ordered. To top it off, since we spent a good dime there, he also treated us to some of the in-house made fudge for desert (which is incredible). The food was very well prepared, plated, and delicious. The wine selective extensive but not overwhelming.
I couldn't be more impressed with this tiny establishment. Keep doing what you're doing Spoke!
Best old fashioned in Davis Square. You'd think Saloon with their excellent whiskey selection would carry this title, but no. They make a good old fashioned, but not the best. At Spoke, they make it the way it was meant to be made. Their other cocktails are creative and delicious as well. Wine selection is good (as you would expect). The food is fantastic. The only downside is the cost of the food. It costs just a little too much for what you get. Our $22 pasta dish was super small and maybe could have passed for $18, but really should have been $16 max for that size. The prices just don't match up with either the atmosphere (nice but not $22 pasta dish nice), the quality, or the size. The meat plate that we got was pricey, but they definitely piled it on, so I feel like that was less overpriced. Basically: recommend for drinks, but maybe not for food.
Review Source:Heard a lot about Spoke recently and decided to try it out on a first date last night (eek!). It certainly lived up to the hype. Our waiter was extremely informative and when it was clear that were unsure what type of wine we wanted, he brought out a taste of a light red and a sweet white; perfect for the 90 degree heat... They were both delicious and we promptly ordered full pours. The guy I was with was hesitant about the menu- small plates tend to freak macho men out :) Our waiter was very informative and recommended the panini special- fantastic idea, because my date ate up every last morsel! I let the waiter surprise me with an appetizer and an entree. The baccala was scrumptious and served with perfectly crisp crostini. The seafood pasta was fresh, vibrant, and delectable.
Spoke is tiny but comfortable- makes it unique. Great location. Would love to try a few more of the small plates and, of course, ALL the wine! :) Highly recommended.
Everything that I wanted on a cold summer evening. Everything that I needed to put in my face, in one place, at the same place. Good job Spoke, good job indeed.
I pulled up to a bar stool at about 6:15 on a Thursday, by 6:30 the place was packed. Amazing to see the dinner crowd, literally, rush the door. The place is pretty small so it got a little claustrophobic, but the glass of sangiovese helped calm the nerves. My lady in crime was running a bit late and I was afraid that we would not be able to seated, but after staring down a few departing patrons I managed to hover over an empty bar spot.
Commence more sangiovese, a plate of warm olives, a beautiful pea and chantorele pasta and a plate of perfect spring vegetables with fresh salted butter. Commence food porn, happy mouths and pissy post-work/commuting moods turned to playful wine-fueled table talk.
Kudos Spoke, see you soon.
P.S. can you do exactly what you do, someplace other than Davis Sq?
Spoke is smaller than your bathroom. The kitchen is the size of your toilette. The bar is the bath tub and the seating area the leftover space. Dark and inviting, the wood walls ans aluminum chairs help to create a vibe that is not evident elsewhere in Davis Square. Â A hard but smooth stone bar, embedded lights shining up from the surface highlight your beverage.
Jonah crab crostini provide a tablespoon size dollop of crab mixed with mayo and celery on a crispy french bread crust.
A half dozen local oysters are exceedingly salty - the only dislike of the meal.
Two orders of the Nero pasta are a squid ink colored linguine in a thick garlic, butter and white wine saute. The mussels are fresh and plum. The lobster is plentiful. The squid tender. An amazing rendition of a this classic Italian tradition.
Drinks are prepared to order. The wine list overwhelming but manageable if you ask for help.
Go here often.
A nice new wine bar. Food was good but it was pricey - typical I suppose for a wine bar. Selection of wine by the class was solid but not extensive. Service (we sat at the bar) was very good. A good addition to the neighborhood, but nothing extraordinary. There are sexier wine bars in Boston.
Review Source:I'd caught wind of this new wine bar a month or so ago, but it didn't seem to be open. Â Imagine my surprise when I saw people reviewing it on Yelp! Â I checked the Facebook page, but there wasn't a menu listed, and other people seemed to be asking about it as well.
I had dinner plans with a girlfriend last night, and we decided to go there for a pre-dinner drink and stay if the food seemed hearty enough.
Lemme just tell you--I LOVE THIS PLACE. Â Would the food satisfy my boyfriend? Â Probably not...it's all small plates. Â But it's great for a light dinner with a friend, and it was perfect for us last night. Â We shared the vegetarian panini (a special for the day, served warm & toasted with egg, cheese, and some sort of dark greens). Â We also shared the charred eggplant dip (which came with thin little slices of toasted bread), and the whipped goat cheese with roasted beets.
The beets and the sandwich were my favorites... we each had half of the panini, and it was big enough to complete a full meal with the beets/eggplant as sides. Â The beets were scrumptious, but I'm glad we shared because it was served on a bed of goat cheese...a lot of cheese. Â (Not that I wouldn't eat it all myself if given the chance!)
You can tell that even though the servings are small, they care about food and its presentation and quality.
For wine, I had the Syrah on the pour list ($10/glass). Â There was a long list of wine by the bottle, and they also had some beer bottles. Â Spoke ALSO has a full bar, and my friend got the "Teenage Riot" which was really delicious (and kind of reminded us of drinks at Saloon).
The waitress was also super friendly and didn't mind us chatting her up (and complimenting her teeth...is that weird? Â Yeah, it's weird.) Â Between the two of us, we each had 1 drink, shared 3 plates, and it came out to $25/each.
I'd definitely go back to Spoke with girlfriends soon...it's not really a "dude" spot, which I'm totally happy with.
My friends and I were very excited to get a table a spoke! It is a very intimate venue, so be prepared to make some friends with other tables.
Food was small portions. Actually, food was NORMAL human portioned not American portioned. It was just enough. Get the goat cheese spread. Its amazing! Be prepared to ask for more bread though, they really don't give you enough.
Not as pricey as I expected. Perhaps more expensive than Davis is used to but the prices were fair considering the quality of food.
The only reason I am not giving Spoke 5 stars is because after we paid our bill we were finishing up our wine and relaxing and got multiple weird looks from the owner/hostess - she obviously wanted us to give up our seats! It made us very uncomfortable and we eventually just left for that reason. It was a bummer because other than that it was a nice night.
Went to Spoke with a larger group of people so maybe that had something to do with my fairly negative experience overall.
 The waitstaff didn't seem happy to see us or serve us. The waiter wasn't super helpful in explaining all the words on the menu that none of us recognized.
 I got a very pretentious vibe the whole night and was really uncomfortable. The manager was pacing back and forth throughout dinner in front of our table making me even more uncomfortable.
 Food was ok, small portions which we were warned about, but not good enough to warrant the price.
 I would not go back here. I don't want to give anyone business who makes people feel like they don't fit in. I've already experienced high school, thank you.
Intimate, fun and amazing food. I went with 5 friends and although Spoke is small, they did a great job seating us without reservations on a Saturday night. The food is creative, tasty, and skillfully prepared. Appetizers were all good especially the dip things (Sorry F. I forgot what they were called). My ragu on hand made pasta was the best I have had outside of Bologna Italy. We also had the Porchetta panino which was moist and flavorful. I am from out of town but I come to Boston/Cambridge often and i will go back!
Review Source:I've had my recent run in's with so-so restaurants and waiters recently, so it was a welcome surprise that Spoke absolutely floored me last night. Â I enjoy wine, but I'm not too familiar with types other than Italian. Â So when my fiance and I sat down and told our waiter David (who might be the best waiter we have ever been served by) that we wanted him to choose our wines and dining options for our, he was blown away and welcomed the challenge. Â We had 4 courses: 6 Oysters with a nice Mignonette, Â White Anchovy and Crab meat Crostini, Almond and Pepper spread and Creamy Ricotta, and Homemade Cavatelli with a farm egg, chive, mushroom, and kale. Â We even opted for a goat milk pasta with a mint lamb ragu sauce and the frozen yogurt for dessert, because you know.... when in Rome.
With each course minus the two that we chose, David gave us a wine pairing to complement the course and explained to us why he chose this wine. Â He was very detailed and enthusiastic about his presentation, something most servers in a setting like this lack. Â Most of the wines he suggested were excellent. Â In fact, my favorite wine of the evening was a Piedmont wine that came out of a box. Â Yes wine-o's, a box wined was probably the best glass option in the house and it really was delicious. Â Suck it.
Spoke is going to be a place where we will bring relatives and friends for a nice, chill night to chat over a good glass of box wine and enjoy great food. Â The portions are small, yes. Â But the quality of the food and especially the quality of the service certainly makes up for the price. Â Will definitely return, with others
I really, really enjoyed Spoke. Â The appetizers are delicious and the bottled-wine selection is voluminous. Â The single-serving drinks - wines, beers, and cocktails - are more... curated. Â There are a handful of beer, cocktail and wine-by-the-glass options, and there's a full bar of possibilities. Â The decor is understated - lots of wood, rounded edges, different-sized light fixtures. Â There's variety, without chaos. Â Overall, it's a great addition to the West-side-of-Davis-Square neighborhood.
Review Source:Welcome, Spoke to the neighborhood! And we are really glad you are here! I know that I personally had been waiting for what seemed like years for this place to open once I had heard that Dave's Fresh Pasta had bought the space next door to open a wine bar, but it was definitely worth the wait, and this is an awesome addition to the Davis Square area and another great place that when you come here, you really do feel like you are out for a night on the town--well a night on the 'ville?
This place is a wine lovers heaven--but pretty much if you don't get a bottle, spending $10-12 a glass will add up very quickly, so make the economical choice and go with one of their hand selected bottles of wine that are actually pretty reasonably priced. Our server helped pick each of them and you could see how pumped he was to be talking about his prized possessions with us He also had tried literally every item on the menu and was a huge help in Deanna D and my ordering of nibbles for the night. That being said, when we both said we wanted to try their pork dish that was a fancy sliced pastrami like piece of pigs head that had been cured and dried in a special way while also wanting their porchetta panini, he kind of did call us  oinkers in a sense, since he thought we weren't sharing at first and that was a lot of pork ha ha So we were slightly offended, but then took it as a fun challenge and ordered both of those dishes and their anchovies and their piquillo-almond spread.
The verdict? The pigs head dish was awesome. I loved every bite of it. The panini was good, but since Deanna D. had just gotten back from Italy, she wasn't 100% impressed with the porchetta and said the real Italians do it better, but I mean when is that not the case? ha ha But the panini itself was still very tasty. The anchovies were awesome though. Paired perfectly with some crunchy bread crumbs and their cauliflower wow. Just wow those things were good. And the piquillo-almond spread was also pretty flavorful but they definitely served it not with flatbread as advertised but another tasty type of bread instead, which was addicting on its own level, probably because of the salty crust it had. Really there seemed to be a lot of salt action in our dishes in general which is great since we had a whole bottle of nice French wine!
All in all, this place is pretty awesome. Both of us ate with a bottle of wine for $40 each, the service was awesome (with a slight delay between courses but that is to be expected during their first week of service), the decor is great, and I am so pumped to finally have a wine bar to call home in this beer loving city of Boston!
Spoke is a game-changer for Davis. The Square is already a foodie destination, but Spoke takes it to the next level, combining a dream team of chefs, bartenders, and servers into a near-perfect whole that provides a thoroughly satisfying culinary experience while remaining casual, friendly, and welcoming. Three days after opening, they are already nailing everything.
On my only visit so far, my friend and I shared two small plates and two "snacks", which were uniformly excellent:
- Steak tartare: velvety and pampering, with a crunchy vegetable accompaniment (radish[?] and a micro-green) that made me grateful for the first time in my life that there was a garnish on my tartare. Extra croutons appeared exactly when we needed them, before we even asked.
- Orata crudo (raw sea bream): This blew my mind. Rather than being seasoned with the traditional bright citrus acid, this dish went in a totally different direction, combining roasted broccoli and thrice-fried garlic chips to give a nutty, warm effect that still allowed the fish's flavor and texture to shine. There was an oil on the plate that I think might have contained roasted (mild) chile, adding to the roasty goodness. I am rarely surprised by food, but this surprised me, in the best possible way. I could have eaten four more servings. Maybe I will, next time.
- Peeky toe crab toasts: This is one of the $5 snacks. Two bites of perfectly seasoned crab salad on thin toasted baguette slices. The crab was fresh and tender, and the only bad thing about the dish is that it was small.
- White anchovies: My memory is embarrassingly failing me on the details, but I remember thinking that these were excellent and fairly generously portioned for a $5 snack.
The rest of the menu looked extremely tempting, but I wasn't really there for dinner, so I'll have to go back to start working my way through it. Watch this space.
Wine by the glass was limited to five selections (which I'm told will be expanded fairly soon). With the able guidance of the extremely knowledgeable bartender, I made several choices that I wouldn't otherwise had made, checking out an Italian and a Portuguese (?) wine that I ordinarily would have simply skipped out of ignorance.
In general, our bartender (whom we recognized from her previous incarnation as a cocktail master at Drink) was a great resource: she knew everything about the wine and cocktails on offer, knew the menu backwards and forwards, and was friendly, helpful, and attentive (and very indulgent with her over-talkative and somewhat inebriated clients).
The same was true of the whole staff, from the front of the house to servers who weren't even serving me personally. Everyone had the easy friendliness of people who really know what they're doing and really like what they do, and they're all obviously excited about this project.
Finally, the space - a darn nice place to have a drink: the design is creative but understated, allowing you to focus on your friends and the delicious things in front of you. I'll probably come here mostly with friends, but it would be a great place for a date.
I am going to live in this place. Go now before everyone else is already inside, which is going to happen soon.
Okay, there are only so many things that I want in life, and this bar provides all of them that a bar can.
Atmosphere: Yes, it's easy, it's not pretentious, but it's serious about output. What is it, post-hipster? No. Eager beavers? No. It's just good. It's self-respect. Thank you. How refreshing!
Food: So we only tried the appetizers so far, but they were excellent (the dips were modestly prices - not huge or anything, but for $4, exactly what I wanted) and the charcuterie was excellent. This is some excellent quality
Experience: Fantastic. I'm thrilled this place is near me and I get to reap the benefits. This is the quintessential neighborhood wine bar and it's just the type of neighborhood I want to be a part of.
So I give it five stars because it's just what I want. I'm not calling it gourmet (I'd have to try a dinner for that) but if you want to hang out with your friends in a relaxed atmosphere in Davis, this is going to be killer. I. Am. So. Happy.
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