Aberdeen Barn Steak House — Restaurant in Charlottesville

This review combines two different visits to Aberdeen Barn.

The prime rib here is outstanding, although I'm glad they have salt and pepper on the table, it was a little bland. The doneness was perfectly medium rare as ordered.

And please, Angela, upgrade your pepper shakers to actually accommodate the coarse grind you are putting in them. Customers arent using less pepper, they just cant get much out of the shakers and dont think to remove the shaker cap to get an adequate amount of pepper like my wife and I have learned to do. This is not just an Aberdeen problem, its a systemic restaurant problem. I see it all the time.

We liked our server, Jimmy (spelling?). I just wish we could have seen his face. This place is still "masking" their servers. I feel sorry for those who are required to wear them that dont really want to. Charlottesville is still a "masky" place, so maybe the clientele like this? I dont recall seeing any patrons wearing them, so...

Our previous visit was some time ago and I cant remember the server's name, but we had no problem with the service then either.

We all ate prime rib at this recent visit, so I cant comment on the other dishes. Unless you eat here all the time, I cant imagine why you would come to the premier prime rib and steak house in Charlottesville and not eat prime rib or steak. On our previous visit, the only negative comment is the onion rings we ordered were oily and limp. Not good at all. The escargot was OK, everything else good.

The bread sticks are strange for such an upscale priced place. Hard and crunchy and essentially a cold cheese whiz served with them. Both taste OK, it just...doesn't make sense. Granted, they and the bread are not a separate charge from the meal. I wont say "free" because the prices here well cover them.

That's one of the issues I have on the menu. At these prices, they cant include the only hot green vegetable they offer, "broccoli", as well as the potato starch side choice? Really, a handful of broccoli is going to break the bank? No small side salad option with the meal? Just too pricey for the restaurant to absorb? At these prices?

If you have a fat wallet and know what you are getting in to here, its a good restaurant. This is a "meat and potatoes" place. I dont recall seeing any other starch choices, like rice, etc.. There are salad choices, but those, broccoli, onion rings, sauteed mushrooms and French onion soup are all of the vegetable options as I recall.

I would like to try many of the menu offerings, but this place is too expensive for average income people to eat at frequently. I'm sure some of the other dishes are very good. The only reason we came back here is my Dad likes expensive places and pays the tab. Even he was a little paused by the prices. It is what it is, and plenty of people can afford...

The only positive attribute about this place is the friendly waitstaff. To start we were seated in the bar section after passing a section with 6 open tables. When the UVA Basketball game that was on in the the bar went to commercial the waitstaff brought us the butter squares and the left over Halloween inspired paste (I think it was cheese of some kind). This was brought to the table with the basket of stale bread sticks. I was really unsure what the butter squares were for but when I tried "dipping" the bread stick in the paste, it snapped in half. My wife ordered a medium prime rib with barn potatoes and I ordered a med. rare strip with steak fries. My salad that came with the meal contained more romaine ribs than leaf and was covered in what tasted like store bought blue cheese. Next came the steaks. My steak while cooked correctly was room temp (at best). The steak fries were warmer than the steak. My wife's prime rib was no where close to medium but rather so rare the Aus Ju was stained red. The barn potatoes were essentially deep fried quartered potato wedges and true to form were warmer than the prime rib. The thing is they only brought 3 out of the 4 wedges. For the cost of the meal Id figure you'd get a whole potato. The finale to probably the most overly priced disappointing, and downright disgusting dinner I have had in C-Ville was the sour cream and bacon used to dress the potato. I find it hard to believe that after every table they empty about 2 cups of sour cream and bacon bits after every customer. I am going to go out on a limb and say they smooth over the sour cream and place on the next customer's table. Made me wonder how long the sou cream was sitting at room temp (and was coughed on during flu season) before it is placed in the fridge for service the next day. The bill was 75 dollars for two meals and a (one) Bold Rock Cider. If you are wanting a steak dinner avoid this restaurant at all costs. You'd probably find a better steak at Outback...

On 3/5/22 we had a large party of 17. Let’s start by saying when the reservations were made that the lady answering the phone was super rude & right there that should of been our sign to not visit this establishment. So a few of our party got there a little early & reservation was at 7:15 & they were greeted rudely as well saying “they’re too early”….well they wasn’t asking to be seated that early so the commentary was NOT needed. Now let’s get to the food…I ordered the lobster tail & chicken breast. Let’s just say I’ve had better lobster tail from Outback Steakhouse at least I could chew theirs. The lobster tail was extremely tough & even my steak knife had difficulty cutting through that meat. Now onto the chicken breast…one word BLAND! I tasted my husbands scallops & was like that has no taste. Ok to be honest everyone’s food was BLAND & some of our food was COLD! Not one person out of 17 people enjoyed their dinner. The absolute only reason no one complained was because our waiter was awesome. However; some food was sent back because it was cold. I’m not sure how this place has a rating of 4.4 stars at all. I’ve been to a lot of steakhouses in my time that was definitely worth the price but this place to serve such mediocre food…the price should match the food!!! It was truly a waste of money! As we were walking out one of the women that worked there walked outside to what appears to be other workers saying very loudly “woohoo the BIG party finally getting up to leave”…my sister & I overheard her & my sister confronted her & of course she tried to downplay what she said. So from start to finish our visit to Aberdeen was NOT enjoyable outside of our server. I highly do not recommend this place & I guess people that’s eating here don’t have...