Best Fun Restaurants in Mercer Island

Perfection with each course, and our server, Lucky, was fabulous!

This place is amazing, from the ambience to the delicious food and the wonderful staff. The menu is very versatile. There are so many choices. Everything was incredible! If you love meatballs try them for an appetizer. They are some of the best we have ever had. One of the best experiences dining at a restaurant. So beautifully decorated for the holidays Thank you Carmine’s for such a wonderful evening.

Fantastic dinner. Food, cleanliness and service are elevated with the new ownership. Always a fun experience, but we were pleasantly surprised with the flavors and quality of food. Be cautious when booking with Open table. The new ownership has created a dinning room that is not prepared at the table. You must book a teppanyaki specific table. Thankfully the patient hostess was able to wiggle us in. We were celebrating a birthday and were looking for the full experience. She saved the day!

My group of 4 were seated outside for dinner. It was rainy and somewhat cold, and our server offered us blankets to stay warm. There was also an overhead heater that kept us cozy. The restaurant was out of lemonade and sweet tea, but our server offered a "dealer's choice" non-alcoholic drink which was refreshing and delicious. It was a pink drink that had a sprig of rosemary in it (rosemary happens to be my favorite herb). Everything we ordered for food was delicious and cooked well. The hoe cakes (3 in an order) were moist and buttery. The mussels and clams dish was so good, and the sauce they came in was very flavorful with a slight spicy kick. We also got the mojo chicken over garlic rice and the unc's fried chicken which were very tender. The grilled okra with onions as well as the collard greens were really good sides. For dessert, we had the salted caramel ice cream and bread pudding which were just the right amount of sweet. They serve family style here, and all the dishes were ordered were enough to satisfy a table of 4 people (our server recommended we order 5-6 dishes total). The only thing we thought was weird was the last dish to come out was the collard greens which was just weird timing to finish our meal with a side. Your whole order is put in, so things come out as they are ready to serve. Besides that, the atmosphere was lovely, and the whole experience was great. The staff here are very friendly and knowledgeable about the menu and helped us make choices for what to order. I am definitely coming back and hope to get seated at a table inside because the music they play in the restaurant is some soulful rhythm and blues.

I was pleased with my soup/sandwich/salad lunch today. All three were delicious. I am still trying to adjust to restaurant prices post covid and post inflation. In the context of these changes, the price seemed reasonable. Service was GREAT. I LOVE that they offer seltzer water as an option to still water. I confess that I cannot hear well any restaurant, so I struggled to hear there as well. I would love to find a restaurant that understood the pleasure of quiet dining and would install fabric baffles from the ceiling or carpet to mitigate all the deafening impact of hard surfaces. If I do go out again though, I would consider coming back here.