Asado Steakhouse — Local services in Tbilisi

Pseudo premium and overrated place with pricey food and poor service.

Visited twice. First time they didn’t allow to sit inside because “all tables were reserved”. Big empty restaurant with only 2 busy tables, lol. It looked very stupid. After a couple of hours there were still free tables. Second time haven’t even tried to get inside. You can reserve a couple of tables for hotel guests (at least for guests with elite statuses). Or if you have some dress code rules, let guests know about them!

Unprofessional staff. Waiters just don’t know how to do their job. Unwelcoming and slightly arrogant attitude. They don’t know basic rules of food serving. I only started to eat a soup and in a few minutes already got a meat and a garnish. At least 10 minutes food is on the table and gets cold. Or you should eat your soup very fast. But when you finish, dirty plates can stay on a table for a very long time. Hard to catch a waiter and ask for a bill almost impossible, I’d say. Got the impression that they don’t like what they do at all.

The food is good. It’s not great but most dishes are tasty. Some ingredients might be of better quality (potatoes for example). Kitchen works pretty well.

The terrace is stylish and cozy but a bit dirty. Table was sticky. Some chairs are also dirty and with stains (specific material that’s not so good for a terrace). Sometimes there is a smoke from a grill on the terrace.

Had to go to the reception/cash desk to pay for a dinner. Instead of giving some apologies and offer a small compliment a waiter/administrator just asked for a table number, accepted payment and shouted “sorry” when I was leaving. Pretty indifferent attitude.

Overall impression - expensive for what you get. You can get much better experience in other restaurants...

Saturday, early evening, lots of free tables. We ordered a ribeye steak and a T-bone steak, both local beef, both medium rare, and a salad and drinks. The service was very fast - drinks in 2 minutes, steaks and salad about 15 minutes. The salad and drinks were tasty.

Both steaks were seared on the sides by direct fire. This dried out the edges of the meat. Maybe someone likes this, but I do not. Despite this, the ribeye was quite tasty, but unreasonably expensive, considering that the meat is locally produced: 25 euros + some additional 18%, which were added to each item in the final bill (total 30 euros). The bill says that this is VAT, but this is not true. According to Georgian law, all prices must be indicated in full on the menu: 12 Feb 2024 The Competition and Consumer Agency has established a standard for indicating the total price in the food service sector.

The second steak - T-bone - was also made from local beef. The edges of the meat were also overdried. The steak had a sharp smell of rotten meat, the taste was sour.

The waitress listened to the complaint and offered to replace this T-bone with a second ribeye. I agreed.

After that, another waitress came to us, although we did not invite her. She said something like this: "We will replace this steak. But for the future, so that you know next time, T-bone steaks have such a specific smell because their meat is next to the bone."

After that, our mood was completely ruined.

In other places where I ate T-bone steak, the taste of the meat was not sour and the smell...

This was my second time ever trying steak, and this time it was at a genuine steakhouse. I went with my family so we had to order for 4 adults and one child, the total ended up to 491.00 Georgian Lari, which I think Is a respectable price for a 5 person feast. First came the bread with garlic butter, which was amazing, soft with a good crust and with the garlic butter it was even better, after that we got the homemade lemonades, although very good, they were kinda expensive (15 GEL per cup). Then came the final meal, we ordered one Medium rare ribeye steak and the "meater" a big plate of 4 steaks which were: sirloin, tenderloin, ribeye and T-bone, all cooked to medium-well, the steaks came with their own sauces such as chimichuri and truffle sauce, and appetizers: mexican potatoes, grilled vegetables and mushrooms. Everything was made as ordered and it was delicious, I ate the medium-rare ribeye steak and it was amazing, but it was a little bit undercooked near the bone. I also ate a bit of the tenderloin and the T-bone, all of my family liked the T-bone steak. We also ordered fries and they were also perfect. The service was great and the food came pretty quick but one thing I didn't like is that the restaurant is positioned at the 1st floor in the Mercure hotel, and there are no enterance banners outside to lead to the restaurant, which makes it pretty confusing for newcomers to find it, but that does not bother me that much. The whole experience was amazing and I will definitely visit it again either with family or...