Augustine Tavern — Restaurant in Elsinboro Township

We are local and have been to this restaurant before. The food is amazing so we thought for our wedding anniversary we would make a reservation for dinner. We called and made a reservation for 7pm. They asked if we wanted the porch or inside. We asked to be sat inside. A few days later we showed up for our reservation. When we walked in they told us the table was being prepped. Then I’m assuming the manager (she didn’t introduce herself) came over and asked if we had a sleeved shirt. Both my husband and I were wearing tank tops. I asked excuse me? Both of us? I mean who carries around extra clothes in the summer for a dinner reservation. She said no, men need to have sleeved shirts. My husband felt as though he was being discriminated against because he has tattoos. We asked where this was posted. Their Facebook states they are a casual dining place, there are no signs indicating there is a dress code and the guys walking in behind us had grungy band T-shirts with holes in their jeans walked right in. The band was wearing sports shirts and flip flops....... we have been to fine dining restaurants and if there is a dress code those items aren’t allowed either so we were confused. Especially since it’s not posted and listed as casual. She said she hasn’t had a chance to put it up yet on their new website (as if that’s our problem) and wanted to see if he would wear one of their restaurant shirts. Since it was our anniversary and we wanted a nice dinner my husband agreed to the shirt but was not happy about it. His shoes costed more than we would have spent at the restaurant. She said that men don’t shave their arm pits and she doesn’t want to sit next to someone with arm pit hair. Which we felt was totally rude, there are some women that have arm pit hair. He explained and showed her that he actually shaves his arm pits and she said he was one of the few and he still had to wear the shirt. Fast forward and they say our table is ready, we follow the hostess out to the porch (which when making reservations we said we wanted to be sat inside) to a table with no chairs in the corner on the porch that only has a ply wood floor. The hostess was trying to put the table cloth on and said she had to find chairs. We told her don’t worry about it and we left. Super disappointing because we had liked this restaurant. We had supported them with take out all through quarantine and this was a terrible experience. We ended up going somewhere else for our anniversary dinner and it was perfect. Definitely lost our business. Would rather go...

I would certainly give Augustine Inn another visit, but there are certain criticisms that the back of the house should be aware of, especially when a table for two can expect to spend well over $100 for a meal.

First and foremost, you need a wine list. You can't expect a fine dining experience without offering the guests at least a few options. When asked about a selection of wines, we were just given a handful of grape varietals to choose from, e.g. Chard, Pinot, Blanc, Merlot etc. As one would expect from this level of offering, the wine was pretty horrible.

For appetizer, we got the Asian Ahi Tuna. The tuna was seared perfectly. The liquid content of the seaweed salad, Soy Glaze and Wasabi overwhelmed the texture of the tuna a bit, but overall a decent app. Recommended.

My wife and I both got the Surf and Turf as an entree which included a bacon wrapped filet (ordered med rare), half lobster with crab imperial, roasted asparagus and yukon mashed potatoes. Overall, a nicely composed dish, although the asparagus was actually hericot vert (green beans). Not the end of the world, but if you've 86'd an item, your guest should be aware.

The cook on both filets was on the higher side of medium, which was disappointing, but I find that is often the case when you are wrapping a filet in bacon and ensuring the bacon is cooked through. Loose the bacon and you mitigate some of the risk of overcooking the filet.

On a sad note, the toothpick needed to hold the bacon was left in my wife's filet, which any cook will tell you is a sin. Again, lose the bacon, and that won't be an issue.

The lobster was terrific, well seasoned, cooked perfectly, and accompanied well by the crab imperial. Highly recommended.

Overall, I think Augustine is just going through some growing pains and identity challenges, but has the potential to be a great offering in Middletown if it can find that appropriate balance between a fine(r) dining experience and...

Good food. Inept service. We were excited to try the Augustine Inn after seeing the strong reviews it had received. We arrived and were seated promptly on the porch. Unfortunately even on the porch the noise level was very high. We ordered drinks and appetizers which were delivered surprisingly quickly, however our experience went downhill from there. We ordered our meals with no special requests and that's when the waiting began. After 45 minutes we inquired and the waitress told us our food would be out in about 5 minutes. 20 minutes after that she told us another 3 minutes and the food would arrive and finally 10 minutes after that we were served our meals. Overall it had been approximately 75 minutes between ordering and being served. For all of us our potatoes were tasty, but cold. For one of us the wrong sider order was delivered and for another the utensils had been removed when clearing the appetizers and by the time the waitress returned to request new utensils that meal was cold. We received replacement potatoes, which were cold again and also the correct side order that was mentioned earlier. The waitress was apologetic and after speaking to the manager they did make a significant reduction in our bill. The only explanation we received was "we get very busy on Saturday night and out kitchen gets behind". The final disappointment was that this was a birthday dinner so the birthday person wanted a dessert and was looking forward the the chocolate cake, but that was sold out. Overall the quality and taste of the food was very good, but it would have been a much more enjoyable experience to have been served timely, fresh and hot which should be a reasonable expectation at this...