Wildwood Still — Restaurant in Asheville

Second time giving this place a chance after I swore I'd never return, and this time I really won't.

First visit was a reservation for Mother's Day, which featured a prix fixe menu clocking in around $65/pp. This feels like a fairly consistent going rate for an upscale holiday brunch, but the immediate vibe was not great when upon sharing a credit card number to secure the reservation the full price of the dinner (excluding drinks, but for all guests) was charged without notice, to the tune of ~$700. I can't remember the last time I prepaid for a meal I hadn't yet eaten outside of maybe Taco Bell? Super weird policy. Presentation of the restaurant was nice, the view is great as well but they seem ill-equipped to contend with certain angles of the sun so you can easily find yourself blinded if you're sitting in the wrong spot. Service was friendly but incredibly slow- all told it took our party of 9 nearly 2.5 hours to finish the meal, with 20-30 minute gaps between courses which consisted of a round of drinks, pastry tray, fruit tray, entree and dessert (which was brought to us after all silverware had been picked up so we had nothing to eat it with until we asked the waiter). Wait staff was very infrequent in their visits so I was only able to place a single drink order in our time there, and they managed to mix up two of our orders despite the limited scope of the menu.

Second visit: same(ish) as the first, this time there to celebrate a friend's birthday. We had a larger party this time and it was a non-holiday reservation so we thankfully weren't forced to prepay for our meals, but we were informed there would be a ~$20 cutting fee for the tiny cake we'd brought in. With that in mind we decided to skip the cake and took it to our next stop, a local bar where they were happy to cut it for us free of charge. Again we experienced considerably more mix-ups with our orders and long service delays, as we watched staff bring dishes we hadn't ordered to our table only to have them returned to the kitchen (and presumably just thrown out). The kicker at the end: the items we didn't order and explicitly told staff about wound up appearing on our bill anyways- a bill we were told could not be split because our party of 10 was too large, which seems preposterous to me (after all it's 2025, we have the technology to split checks!).

Food on both occasions was decent enough with some fairly creative options, but $5 bread service for a small square enough for a single person feels a bit off. I'm not sure what their angle is- sort of feels like a loose Asian-American fusion?- but they had a few hits (lemongrass shrimp were plump and well cooked) and a few misses (crab and shrimp pasta was nearly absent any crab, seabass was tasty but the portion was meager).

As a bourbon collector I couldn't help but note that most of their single pours were priced nearly the same as an entire bottle of each spirit. I understand bar pricing is well removed from what you'd expect from the liquor store but I've frequented many bourbon bars and rarely seen prices this high.

Do want to make clear before closing- despite the bumbling and snail's pace of service the staff were exceedingly friendly even though they...

As a local, Wildwood Still is a restaurant we would frequent, bringing out-of-town guests, both business, as well family and friends, especially those who love well-crafted cocktails, which Wildwood Still makes. With that said I will no longer return to this establishment. The cocktails are very good, and the food is good. But in a city that is jampacked with excellent restaurants, I will not be returning to Wildwood Stills. Recently, my wife and I hosted 11 people, spending nearly $900, to celebrate one of our closest friend’s 50th birthday. A tradition in our family and friends group that goes back almost 30 years is the cutting of a cheap grocery store birthday cake that we eat after the birthday meal (that we bring to the restaurant). This tradition has not only stretched decades, but across countless restaurants during that time, some of the best restaurants in Asheville, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc. and we’ve never had an issue with this tradition except recently at Wildwood Still, who wanted to charge us $25 dollars. It was tacky. We explained to them our tradition of each person having a token slice of an inexpensive cake, even as we ordered desserts from the restaurant itself. But they were inflexible on their nickel-and-diming us. It kind of put a damper on the 50th birthday party (luckily we went to a nearby restaurant for aperitifs, and they were more than inviting of our tradition). The spirit of Wildwood Still in this situation is not representative of the spirit of Asheville. We had many out-of-town friends in for the birthday, and we felt quite embarrassed at the lack of hospitality offered by...

Our experience- not so good

We were really looking forward based on reviews to visiting Wildwood still. We have just lived in Asheville for six months and are still making our way around. From the reviews and photos I didn’t get the idea that this is a hotel bar restaurant not that there’s anything wrong with that. I was just expecting something a little more local Asheville.

The bar has an incredible view from outside tables. That’s a big plus the bar was full of drunken conventioners. Including one girl, whose shrill laugh you could hear two City blocks away That was a big minus.

We ordered an appetizer while we decided If we were going to stay. The calamari was edible, but very mediocre. Additionally, the portion was ridiculously scrawny. Which maybe they could’ve gotten away with if the calamari was like the best we’ve ever had…. It didn’t really make the top 50 calamari we’ve ever had.

At this point, we had both finished our doubles. My Buffalo trace was a decent lour, but it was $28. A bottle is less than that. Kind of like the price I would expect to pay in Manhattan.

The reason I’m reading this three star instead of one star was our delightful waitress and nice Mater D. Also, I’m factoring in environmental factors such as a bunch of loud people with name tags. That was just arm, misfortune and likely not yours.

Bottom line we would still go back if we’re in the area for a drink on the outside patio to...