A Salute Italian Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Matawan

Five of us ate in this restaurant last night. I will not even get too involved in the service except to say that it was a bunch of nice young kids (there was not an adult in sight) who had no idea what they were doing. It was almost as if it was a preopening and they got some kids off the street to bring some plates to the table. But sadly, now to the food and drink. We tried ordering a few different bottles of wine. They were out of our first couple of choices. Perhaps understandably in this day of supply shortages, they were experiencing some difficulty in obtaining certain wines. But we finally settled on a pino. Much to our surprise, the wine was warm. It was not room termperature. It was not served chilled as it should have been. It was actually very warm to the touch as if it had been siting in the sun. The waiter, or more to the point, teenager, had to feel that the bottle was warm. But in credit to his parents, this kid did not know that this wine should be served cold. And that's how it should be for someone his age, but not for a waiter. So we initially put some ice in the wine--which of course watered it down--until we found the young man who then put it in what he called a flash freezer. We then requested an ice bucket, which of course and par for the course there, was not offered. For appetizers we ordered calamari, a Caesar's salad and what they call a Detroit style margherita pizza. The calamari and Caesar were okay. The pizza had a wonderful texture but it was pretty much tastless. The flavor of the sauce lacked any hint of character and if the mozzarella was actually fresh (as it was listed to be) then it was of a blister packed supermarket grade. Further, I probably would have had to hire Pinkertons to find the roasted mushrooms that were ordered as a topping. Of the five entrees, the linguini in clam sauce was enjoyed the most. The diner of that entree joyfully gobbled it up. Another of our party had the chicken marsala. She approached her meal with some reserve as the coloring of the marsala sauce was darker than any of us had ever seen. She managed to eat some of it but as an overly polite guest, her criticism was muted in deference to the hosts (my wife and I) who chose the restaurant. Another guest had the gnocchi. She said it was good. She left about a third of it on the plate and did not want to take it home. The portion was what one would expect so if she really liked it you would think she would want to take what was left home. My wife ordered the muscles with crostini. It was initially served without the crostini. But more important, the muscles were overcooked to the point of being inedible. She tried a few then left the whole dish. My eggplant rollatini was a mess. The dish is suppose to be lightly battered rolls of eggplant stuffed with creamy ricotta cheese. It was overcooked in a skillet with everything mushed up into a clump of melted cheese and I guess eggplant. I don't know what the dish was but it was not anything that even slightly resembled eggplant rollatini. In the spirit of complete transparency, I did eat it. It was sort of a grilled cheese with sauce--edible but not something you would expect served in fine dining and certainly not at that price. Also, I ordered a side of grilled asparagus. I never saw such pathetically thin spears. It resembled long green beans. Usually it is served with chavings of parmesan cheese. Not in this place. They just threw a paltry amount of anemic asparagus spears on a pan and warmed it up. There are so many options for good Italian food in the area I just don't see any reason to go there. Maybe they had a bad night. There appeared to be nobody on premises with any experience. Unfortunately, there just wasn't enouth upside for me to give it...

Do not book your private events here. Was unfortunate enough not to heed the warnings of other reviewers about the poor experience they had over the last few months booking events, and had my daughters baptism reception here. While the head waiter was super nice, and the look of the place looked cool being an old church, the service was subpar and the communication with the GM/owner Paul to set it up was abysmal. For $72 per person, which is roughly the same as a small wedding venue, I expected more. All courses arrived ridiculously late, salads didn't have any dressing on them, sides for dinner never were received, all of the hot food came out lukewarm, and whenever we mentioned anything to the wait staff they blamed the kitchen. My wife had to unbox the cake we brought herself and basically beg for them to cut it and serve to our guests (which between that and coffee took over 40 minutes). I understand things happen, but it seemed like nothing was going right from the start. The family style menu was set ahead of time and only had one entree substituted, so I still don't understand how everything fell apart and things were missing. It even got to the point people were coming to me asking if there was another course, or even dessert, because it was just that slow. But then after speaking to Paul it all made sense, when the owner doesn't know his own menu or properly train his employees...this is what happens. He's impossible to reach, whether its email, text or by phone, and made us feel like he was doing us a favor by allowing us to book our event here. He's a busy man which I understand, but if you're difficult to contact for private events because of your busy schedule running the day to day, then hire someone to manage that side of things. It's my own fault for not reading the writing on the wall after realizing 2 weeks into trying to connect with these people that it was doomed from the start I'll admit. Also when the owner who rather than owning up to his restaurant's shortcomings would sooner throw his own wait staff and kitchen under the bus before throwing out a laughable $100 credit on the bill or $200 giftcard, it's not a good sign. Going as far to ask why I tipped them 20% when he wouldn't of, he's forgetting it was already included in the bill and when I commented on the poor service at the end no adjustment was offered. Not to mention the additional 2-4% credit card transaction fee they slip in there, when there's no reference to it on any of their menus. We anticipated having 50-60 attend, as we invited ~85 people. But unfortunately, between the holiday and the uptick in COVID cases this last month a lot of people opted to not come which I understand - so our final headcount the week prior was roughly about 40, and the final amount the day of ended up being 39 because a few more dropped before the days leading up to it because they weren't feeling well and wanted to keep the rest of us safe. Paul took it upon himself to accuse me lying about the party size in order to book the room because he "had other parties of 60+" he could of booked that day instead. Pretty terrible considering this is supposed to be the owner, especially since any other party likely would have faced the same issue we did. But it makes sense given he was more concerned with taking photos of the setup for his IG page rather than introduce himself or ask if we needed anything. Really wanted to love this place, but I honestly don't know how they serve 70+ people in a small room when 40 is painstakingly difficult. It's really more of a bar than a restaurant, and probably not a bad one to have a drink at because it does have its charm. Would be open to connect with the other owner if there really is one to...

We decided to spend Christmas Eve here because of the enjoyable experiences we’ve had the last two times we’ve been, including Christmas Eve last year.Tonight was unfortunately a completely different experience….. We had a reservation for 745 and the restaurant was still decently full. Upon seating we were told about the family style option the were offering which included appetizers, pasta, pizza, steak, chicken, desert and unlimited beer & wine. The option was really well priced and two of the members of our party took that option. This turned out to be a huge mistake and after nearly two hours and having to go find our server we had only received a round of drinks and a small antipasto salad. The other guests at our table had not even received the Cesar salad that was ordered.. We started speaking to the other tables around us who had been there for nearly 3 hours and they had still not received their meals. At quarter to 10 we decided that at the speed in which people were receiving food we were most likely not going to be eating till closer to 11 and it was just becoming far to late and since we weren’t even getting drinks, we decided to cancel the order and just pay for what we did receive. The manager kept insisting food would be out shortly so we stayed a bit longer but after still not seeing our server and food trickling out to other tables we made up our minds and asked for the bill. The manger was not very apologetic and said he would be back with the bill. We continued to wait for him to come back for several mins and another young server came over to the table and started to apologize and asked if there was anything he could do to make it right. That was the first time anyone has even acknowledged that the service wasn’t going well and he seemed a bit appalled that we were waiting as long as we had been on food and drinks. We again just said at the rate everyone around us was being served that we didn’t want to be here for the 4ish hours it seemed the rest of our tables were there for. We decided to go up to the front since the manger had still not come back with our bill and we wanted to find out what was going on. The young server was at the register while the manger was just standing next to him. At this point I walked over explained what drinks we had received and the server was able to just bill me for that. It turned out the younger server was related to the owner and he was truly fantastic. He took on the sole responsibility of what the manger should have been doing and I give him a ton of credit for how he handled the situation. The manger on the other hand should either not be a floor manger or should never be left alone to handle guests and especially not on a night like Christmas Eve. What should have been a fun night celebrating with friends and family turned out to be extremely disappointing and since we did leave till after 10 we weren’t able to go anywhere else to get a meal. Unfortunately our Christmas Eve was a complete bust and it really is a shame because we choose this restaurant thinking it would be a safe choice for an enjoyable evening. I gave a two star rating because of previous experiences and because of how well the young server tried to handle the situation. Based on the atmosphere in the dining room and the several conversations with the tables around us. I expect there might be other poor reviews. It’s a shame that there was such a mishap because the restaurant was very crowded and I assume the other guests have also had good experiences and that’s why the choose to celebrate the...