The Chart Room — Restaurant in Bar Harbor

Visited Bar Harbor from out of town and wanted lobster to start the trip off. The Chart Room appeared popular as we passed it on our way to our hotel with most of their parking lot being full. So we decided to go here for dinner following our hotel check in. We attempted to phone the restaurant to make / ask about reservations but the phone went to voicemail. We left a voicemail but did not hear back from them within 3-4 hours, so we just went by there at 7pm to see if we could get a seat - as their website does say they take walk ins. Upon entering, we walked to the hostess stand to ask about seating. The hostess,a young female, was very taken aback by our request for a table when we informed her that we did not have a reservation. She seemed slightly annoyed at our walk in request for a table and had to whisper to a counterpart standing behind her. She eventually conceded and asked us to repeat our party size (3) and then asked if we wanted outside or inside. We were then seated inside as requested, which required a walk down a steep ramp outside. Our hostess was impatient because one of our group members recently had knee surgery and is mildly disabled and was taking the ramp slowly - the hostess huffed at the bottom of the ramp as she held the door open and one of our group members had to inform her of the disability to explain why we moved a bit slower. She was a treat. Once sat, our waiter service was good. Our waiter was informative, nice, and quick to check on us. The food was expensive for what it lacked in its pasta’s flavor. Our appetizer was a too overly cooked spinach artichoke dip with a hard over-cooked layer. Two of us had seafood pasta dishes which were not seasoned much and lacked somewhat in flavor - one member of the table wondered if she should ask for her own spices to add… but the seafood was cooked well. The boiled lobster was also cooked well and that table member loved the dish. At the end of the evening, our waiter did not ask us how we wanted our checks split so he brought us one check. We requested that he split the check between us three and he refused - stating that he could not do that now but that “there’s always venmo.” Surely he was being lazy in refusing to ask us how to split the checks and then refusing to split them after the fact. Overall not impressed with the service / atmosphere their staff create for this restaurant but otherwise their seafood was...

This is a quaint restaurant right off the road in Bar Harbor. They have indoor dining and then indoor dining with a view of the harbor. they also have a bar with seating for six. They have deck seating outside with umbrella coverage and then they have a row of seating on a pier that also overlooks the harbor.

The menu is primarily seafood based and they have a few kids dishes. Not particularly gluten-free, friendly or vegan/vegetarian friendly although there are some salads and steaks that would suffice. Three pages of the menu cover a variety of drinks so this is definitely a place to try cocktails, kombucha, etc. if you're a drinker.

We have the appetizer of Isca de Piexe (pieces of fish) with a pineapple salsa and spicy sauce and it was amazing and my favorite of the evening. We also tried the bread basket which had cowboy butter and strawberry butter. It was neat and novel to try the two different types of butter, but they were both pretty odd to the palette!

For dinner, our group had bangbang shrimp, clam chowder, crabcakes, and another order of the pieces of fish and the kids mac & cheese.

My daughter loved the mac & cheese, I tasted it and thought it was a little bit too tangy and cheesy. But definitely a young person Frazier. The bang, bang, shrimp, clam chowder, and crabcakes were excellent.

I will also add that all of the servers here hustle to take care of their customers like something We barely see in restaurants. Their hustle was impressive as well as their patients and overall service.

My daughter had a Shirley Temple and liked it and even though it came from the bar, it did have free refills, which made me happy :-)

They also had a lot of variety on the dessert menu from warm blueberry pie with whipped cream, strawberry shortcake, tiramisu, macadamia nut sundae, cheesecake, apple crisp that is homemade served warm with vanilla ice cream, frozen peanut butter pie, a gluten-free, flourless chocolate torte, and ice cream. we went with our waiter, Andy's, recommendation of blueberry pie. It was amazing and my daughter chose blueberry ice cream and vanilla ice cream. The blueberry was...

I left this restaurant with a sense of disappointment. We finally decided to have some local lobster and here are all of my honest remarks. Although we were there during Happy Hour and it seemed like a good idea to take advantage of the reduced oysters' pricing, it apparently applied to the bar and the outside area only. Well, we ended up eating a smaller portion, and the oysters were fresh and tasty. We also shared Crab Cakes appetizer that my wife enjoyed and I thought of being a mix of gooey "stuff" that lacked a crispy crust and a pronounced crab taste. Well, let's get to the lobster part. The restaurant offered quite a few options: the traditional whole lobster, Lazy Lobster (out of shell, sautéed in garlic butter), and Newburgh (in cream sauce). The sides were limited to fries, baked potato or rice. My wife ordered the Lazy Lobster and I asked whether it were possible to have the same dish served over pasta. Our very friendly and well spoken waitress recommended Lobster Carbonara pasta being what I'd enjoy, which I agreed to. While my wife's dish was as expected, mine constituted a plate of a flavorless "cream soup" with linguini with lots of peas and very little lobster or flavor to speak of. It was neither a Carbonara sauce nor could it be called a Lobster Pasta. Do not order it. Period. The waitress was nice to remove this dish from our check, but she should have not recommended it in the first place (hence 4 stars for service). We then decided to give another Maine staple a try, a Blueberry Pie. The crust was clearly salty, the filling seemed to consist of blueberries mixed with something like a jam and the fresh cut up strawberries in whipped cream still had their green stems attached (seriously?). The double espresso was served in a single espresso cup and was overflowing it, but tasted good. Call me picky, but I would not return to the restaurant where so little attention is paid to any essential details. Maybe kids and pets would have a better chance of liking it? It was the first ever menu featuring Kid-friendly cocktails and an Pets-section...