The Twisted Fork Bistro

Had the bananna French toast last weekend. It was amazing!!! 35 minute wait to get in but Sooo worth it!

Excellent food. Great menu with interesting and diverse breakfast offerings. Corned beef and prime rib hash are both homemade. The eggs are humane and locally sourced. Bar with great looking mimosas. Super nice waitstaff. Love that the food is locally sourced and farm-​to-​table. Service is slow but that’s because everything is made to order. Come with some time, relax and enjoy a leisurely brunch.

6÷5÷2016 — This is only my second restaurant review but it is worthy of one.
My wife and I along with two friends have been doing breakfast every Sunday in CT and out of state (NY, NJ, RI, and MA) for approximately 4 years. We have only gone to one restaurant more than once. this restaurant is worth a second visit, considering we are 1 ½ hours away.
We met the owners, Jay and Nancy, when she learned we traveled from CT. Nancy came to our table and chatted with us for a period of time giving us some history of how the restaurant uses all fresh ingredients and how everything is made to order. The portions are big and delicious. The menu is extensive and many specials. The staff is friendly and courteous. I FOUND This restaurant by chance on the computer and were are very glad we made the trip. We will be back. Jay does the food prep and cooks. He Is a real hoot.
Rich Astorino

What a gem! The food was fantastic, fresh and cooked to order. The Irish Benedict was PERFECTLY prepared with just the right amount of hash and eggs. The atmosphere is down home and personal. Our waitress, Lisa was a pleasure to talk with throughout the meal. This place is worth going to and I hope to make it there again. EXCELLENT!

I’ll start by saying that this hole in the wall establishment needs way more recognition than they receive!
Both my fiancé and I wanted a quick sit-​down dinner and head home after watching a dreadful two hour film at a movie theater. So we decided to pop in here as we’ve never eaten dinner here but are usuals for their delicious and original breakfasts!
As we arrived we were the first and only customers there and were greeted by the owner, Jay’s wife. I cannot seem to remember her name but saying she was a delight is an understatement. The interior was beautifully set up with small butane lamps at each table accompanied by seashells. The dim lighting was a fine touch as it got us prepared for the emotionally invested meal Jay was about to prepare for us. It did take a while for our meal to finished as the owner needed to go purchase ingredients as they just opened the minute we arrived. Yet during this elapsed time his wife engaged both my fiancé and I in numerous, hilarious conversations and stories and made our 1 hour wait, feel as if it was only minutes. This woman has «people» skills like no other and was even kind enough to offer us a free dessert after our dinner.
My fiancé had a meal with Chicken, Peas and Ziti in a mouth watering sauce. She even stated that it was THE best pasta dish she has ever consumed. The pasta was cooked perfectly along with the chicken and all the ingredients from this handmade dish accented each other like no other!
I chose the Fish and Chips dinner and Jay even seemed to take the most boring of dishes and make it a jaw dropping meal from start to its unfortunate finish! The fish had a batter that actually had flavor! Yes you read that right! It laid on a bed of French fries that I personally couldn’t even finish myself and needed assistance consuming it all from my fiancé.
All the while more and more people arrived to have dinner and you could see and hear the owner Jay greeting each person as we busted his a** in the kitchen. He made our meal and visit the most personal and enjoyable dining experience we have had to date. I truthfully believe you cannot get better customer service at a mom and pop shop and if you can, I challenge you to show me! Highly recommend for dinner or breakfast or lunch!

Food was really good and well priced. Went with the colossal breakfast… also tried the banana foster French toast… which was delicious… The serving size of the French toast is huge… so make sure u can finish it…

It’s rare that restaurants give Veteran recognition discounts but Uncle Jay does. My coffee was «on the house», thanking me for my military service (1985 – 1989). Breakfast was absolutely delicious & the service by Lisa, outstanding! When I first arrived around 10:10a, she was the hostess, waitress, cashier & bus-​boy for the entire restaurant. She was highly organized, pleasant & unhurried in her approach. I came in alone but it felt like I had company at my table because Lisa was so warm & friendly… not just to me, but to all. If I’m ever in the area again, I’ll definitely stop into this little country diner.

The food was delicious. The service was so slooooow. We waited nearly 40 minutes for eggs Benedict and an omelet… The place is about 40 minutes away from where live. Probably won’t make a trip back there again.

I’ve been to this restaurant many times for breakfast and have always been very happy with the food. I went this morning and there was a 20 minute wait, which is to be expected on a Sunday morning. However, we were asked to wait in our car. REALLY? I’m going to drop $ 50 for breakfast and you expect me to wait in my car? Clearly they missed the customer service module of owning a business because this approach is just rude. Here’s an idea, if you’re a popular restaurant, have a waiting area for your guests, like every other restaurant has. Show some respect to the people who are responsible for your success. We won’t be back.
I can’t seem to reply to Jay’s comment so I’ll add here. Maybe before opening a second location you could find more appropriate space for your first location. Your response clearly signifies your level of maturity, which is very disappointing of a local business owner.

I have to admit, I am a bit of a snob when it comes to atmosphere eating. For this reason, I had pretty much avoided going to The Twisted Fork even despite rave reviews from my friends. Finally, one of my friends was able to get me to go there for dinner and I am pleased to say that never was the ‘can’t judge a book by its cover’ more apt to describe a place than at The Twisted Fork. Upon pulling up outside, it looked like a small town 1980s strip mall where I was more likely to find agricultural products and a seamstress than grass fed steak.
It is my understanding that this place is very popular for breakfast … I rarely get out of bed before 10 a.m. so I can’t speak to the homemade Hollandaise sauce or quality of the free range eggs. We went for dinner and I have to admit I was surprised at how many ingredients were sourced fresh and locally. Never would I have guessed just 30 minutes from a city like Worcester (ugh) were so many great ingredients sourced.
When we arrived, we were greeted by Chef Jay who from 8 feet away from us screamed a welcome to us so loud it was as if he was standing at the other end of a football field. When we mentioned it was my first time there, he ran over to us and began pointing out all the ingredients on the menu and where they were sourced, etc. with the excitement of an 8 year old kid showing a grandparent their new favorite toy.
Although subtlety will never be on Chef Jay’s menu (he is one part Chopped Judge, one part Carnival Barker and one part those infomercial-​type guys who sell Ginzu knives and magic chamois at The Big E) he is very knowledgeable about ingredients and cooking. He trained at a very good culinary school and it is clear that his reason for owning a restaurant probably has as much to do with the desire to put good food on other people’s tables as it does to put food on his own table. It becomes apparent quickly that the restaurant is more than just a business to him but rather a passion. (probably one of the rarest and greatest of all ingredients a chef can have in his pantry.)
Our meals were great. There wasn’t a ‘miss’ on the table. I liked that the menu sort of told a personal story. An old recipe for Canadian Meat Pie which had been passed down through generations in his family is on the menu. As is (occasionally) a pea soup from his grandmother’s kitchen. What better way to share your family history than through food? (Also, the fact that the peas were literally ‘hand harvested’ fresh from a garden was another selling point.)
The service was understandably a bit slow. A small trade-​off considering that everything was freshly prepared ‘à la minute’ which means made to order … sauces are prepared in the same pan as the item (per order) rather than prepped in advance and simply kept warm and ladled over the food. (at least that was my understanding, anyways) Anyone who complains about slow wait times should be advised that there is an Applebee’s within a 10 minute drive of The Twisted Fork and the food will come out much quicker there. (did you catch the sarcasm?)
The only reason I take one star off would be for atmosphere. A paved parking lot, tables and chairs that didn’t seem like they could double for use at poker night at an American Legion Hall and maybe a design specialist who could create an easier and more visually appealing ‘flow’ to the restaurant’s traffic would be great. A 15 top restaurant is on the small-​side to begin with but can feel even smaller when tables are not laid out with a flow pattern in mind. But honestly, given the quality and taste of the food … after a while the aesthetic details melted away as easily as the yummy freshly made sauces do on the entrees.
Give the Twisted Fork a try next time you want a dining experience that few other restaurants in the area can offer. There need to be more places around like this which focus on farm to table sourcing and attention to quality/​detail. Eventually, I am hoping the producers of Hell’s Kitchen cast Chef Jay for a season of their reality competition show. That would be a very entertaining season.

I won’t come back. The omelet was sad and just egg thinly folded over veggies not mixed together. The service is extremely slow. Go some were you can get faster service and better omelet. I would have sent my food back but I would have waited forever.

We had eggs Benedict. It was delicious! My husband had BT Benedict and the bacon was awesome! We sampled the corned beef hash. Best we have ever had! Great Belgian waffle too! We would definitely come back! Great service too!

Friendly staff, really good food and they had some really good tunes playing in the background.
Good vibes since the second I walked in.
Definitely will be coming back!

At Chef Jays request I visited the Twisted Fork again (on a day he was cooking for breakfast with the bf. We arrived pretty late (to our advantage) and didn’t wait long for a table.
We ordered an Apple Crumb Waffle, Lobster Benedict, and Twisted Benedict. The lobster bene is made with both the claw and tail (I’m a claw girl) and I was worried I wouldn’t enjoy it much. Boy was I wrong! The hollandaise was light, English muffin full of nooks and crannies, and the lobster? Super fresh!
Every aspect of the meal was fabulous and that Apple Crumb Waffle is to die for! Next time I’m not sharing. I don’t know what each ingredient is but the taste and complexity of texture was a perfect balance! PLEASE make a calendar just for this dish, I’d pop in every time is available!
There weren’t any bill discrepancies and the meal was enjoyed without a single hitch. I’m happy I obliged bcz this place really is a gem. Be sure to check-​in with Unilocal for the $ 25 for $ 15 deal. It comes I’m handy.

Amazingly fun place for breakfast. Food is awesome. Our server, Katrina, rocks the house. Come for the bloody mary’s…stay for the bloody mary’s. A real gem!

They goofed up the value of our Unilocal deal and when we came back at a later date the server said she didn’t know how to fix it, since the owner wasn’t there. ugh. This was after we sat down to order expecting a reimbursement.
Aside from that they have the only free range organic eggs we’ve found in a central MA breakfast place, making it our preferred option. Their homemade corned beef hash, benedicts, and pancakes are extraordinary.
Never done dinner or lunch, but I’m sure anything you get will be quality, since they focus on local, etc.

TL;DR: pass on this place.
Wow. Rarely have experienced such ineptitude and careless disregard in wait staff. From the moment we entered my wife and I found ourselves waiting — a theme that would be present through the entirety of our stay.
Though there were no less than five open tables and no lines when we arrived, it somehow took almost five minutes before some acknowledged our presence and seated us. From there we waited another 15 minutes before someone finally came to query us about drinks — which we had to wait through the same waitress not only taking three other tables’ orders but also delivering drinks to two of them before she brought us one water (which, sadly, we hadn’t ordered).
Eventually we received or drinks (coffee water and two decent orange juices) but then after being asked if I want cream, I found myself waiting through her taking care of other people’s needs again (including fetching someone else’s cream) before finally asking her for the cream again. It showed up… Another five minutes later.
So with her there, we ordered our food (two orders of French Toast — Texas cut bread, yaay!), and began our wait again. I suppose I can’t blame them that it took a little more than 20 minutes to make something as simple as French Toast — they are farm to fork after all, and growing and milling the wheat for the bread can take a while…
When the food finally showed up, it was quickly obvious that my idea of a Texas cut is about twice as big as what they presented us (maybe I’m just greedy but if you tell me it’s a Texas cut toast, I kinda expect it to be roughly twice as big as a normal cut). I sucked it up though and asked if they had Real Maple Syrup ®™, which she replied affirmatively to.
At this point, in retrospect, I think there might have been some communication problem because what I received was definitely just your typical synthetic (HFCS based) syrup. Apparently when I said real maple syrup, she only heard «syrup» — otherwise I’m sure she wouldn’t have had to have the bus boy turned waiter tell me that they don’t actually carry Real Maple Syrup ®™. Whoops.
At this point our waitress was too busy hanging out at the register talking to other staff to help anyone, let alone poor us. Fortunately, the bus boy turned out to be a somewhat decent waiter fetching my bill for me and returning it to the waitress — though, after much prodding and reassurance that he wouldn’t get in trouble taking it to her. She was quite busily engrossed in conversation after all — I’m sure she welcomed the help.

I have two previous reviews. One excellent, and one not so good. This update is about how the owner, Jay, handled the issues raised in the subsequent review.
He emailed me with a fully apology and we were able to hash out the issues raised.
My opinion of the owner is that his heart and soul is in this business. This is not a franchise location of a corporation with support staff and other resources. This guy is it! And he admits that this was a bad day with a lack of staff which would explain what happened with me.
He expressed the frustration of being under the microscope and being under constant evaluation, but still took responsibility for the bad day.
One extremely valid point that he brought up is that if people have issues with his restaurant, there is a way to go on his website and send him a message directly. It is very obvious that your message will be heard.
Sometimes Unilocalers can get a little out of control. I often read through reviews and I evaluate what is written and try to interpret what may have happened. Many times, I give the business a chance and I am usually pleasantly surprised. This is part of the struggle for small business owners.
As in both of my reviews, I still stand on the fact that the food is a sure thing. Fresh made dishes with real ingredients, not many shortcuts. But I am really giving a big boost to Jay right now, that when you go to his business, you have his heart behind your experience. He deserves our business just for that, but the food stands by itself!

Ate here when I was visiting Mass this past summer. I have been on the hunt for a great breakfast please and these guys had good reviews.
Thought the actual place was adorable. Nice from the outside and very cute and trendy inside. I ordered a special skillet breakfast dish. It came in like a large sized, very hot ramekin type dish. It was good, however parts of it were burned on the edges and thus took away from the flavor a little bit. We were in a hurry and appreciated that the service was quick, and the food was fresh and hot. They were very prompt and courteous too! I will definitely try them again when I’m back east again this summer, when I have more time to spend.

This place is the perfect brunch spot: excellent service, perfectly good, and drinks!
My date ordered the Irish benedict. The hash on the benedict was homemade and packed with flavor! Accompanied with a velvety smooth hollandaise and a perfectly poached egg.
I ordered the banana foster French toast with a side of sausage. The French toast is full is fresh banana flavor, and the sauce is just sweet enough without killing your taste buds. The sausage was so plump! I was happily surprised by the flavor and size. Very well worth the $ 3!
As I said before, the service was wonderful. We came 20 minutes before the lunch closing, and the servers were still happy and attentive. The owner also walked around and said hello to each table. Wonderful spot to spend your mornings/​afternoons.