Jasper Stone Italian Steakhouse — Restaurant in Monroe Township

My husband and I went here last night to celebrate our anniversary. I want to preface that I’m rating this a little harshly, due to it being a very pricey restaurant - $265 with tip for 2 people - i expect the overall experience to be top notch, and it fell short in a few areas.

To start off with the pros:

The food was very good overall (not incredible, but very good). I especially loved the flavor of the spicy vodka mac - very creamy and saucy. The meatballs were also great - I would’ve devoured them, but I’m pregnant and the inside of them was a little pink for me to be comfortable with eating much of them (not a bad thing, they were very tender and flavorful, and I wouldn’t expect the chef to change how 3 meatballs are cooked due to my current preference), so the pink is not a negative comment.

Our waiter, John, was pretty attentive, considering I dont think we were in his section, because he had no other tables near us, so i think it was hard for him to get over to us sometimes which really isn’t his fault. But he did a good job of checking in with us, and clearing courses and wiped down the table in between courses, without disrupting our overall flow, which was nice.

Small thing, but I wanted to mention it because I did appreciate that the hostess took note of our reservation stating it was for an anniversary and wished us a happy anniversary when she took us to our table.

On to the cons:

My main complaint probably lies with our main course, which we waited a bit for it to come out, and when it was brought out (not by our waiter), the girl warned us “these plates are very very hot” which to me, means they’ve been just ready and sitting in the warmer for a bit - in this case, specifically a bit too long.. And that was confirmed by the fact that the ball of burrata on top of my spicy vodka mac was like 90% melted when it got to the table, as well as the truffle butter on my husband’s skirt steak. Seeing photos of other reviews show the burrata is normally meant to still be in giant ball form, and the butter is typically in 2 thick slabs ontop of the steaks. I will attach a photo I snapped right after the waitress put our plates down, to show exactly what they looked like right when they got to our table. I was particularly a bit disappointed immediately by my burrata being so melted - although the dish itself was quite tasty.

To save room for dessert, I didn’t eat too much of my vodka mac at the restaurant, and was looking forward to leftovers, until i realized today that i went home with what genuinely seems like a good bit less than i had left on my plate at dinner, and my husband agreed. Not a huuuge deal, and I cant prove for a fact it was less, so I won’t harp on it.

Was very loud - even at an 8:45 reservation, the place was hopping and the tables are rather close together. Not the greatest for intimate dinners and conversation, but not the worst either. The lighting at the tables adds to a nice ambiance though.

Overall, my husband and I agree - we had a decent experience, but would not go back. For one, we’re over an hour away (Sussex county). And its also just too pricey to justify again, since the food isn’t out of this world special or anything, it was just good food, nothing that I can’t live without trying again. Also want to note, I was looking forward to dessert, but wasn’t overly impressed with it - the creme brulee option was butterscotch which.. i love creme brulee and would rather just have a regular one, the butterscotch was a bit much, but thats just a personal preference. The tiramisu was pretty good.. it was very large, so we took it home for leftovers as well, and unfortunately i found a weird piece of plastic (flimsy not hard) in it, which was a bummer and i stopped eating. Probably a fluke, but i wish i had seen it at the restaurant because i would’ve said something and had it taken off the bill....

This is a very conflicting review. So we went to this restaurant for my girlfriend's birthday, with our friends and her sister. Our waiter was amazing. Very personable, very patient, very helpful. We left him a good tip he was flat out amazing and chill.

Everyone else though, holy crap man...At some point, a waiter dropped a plate, and one of the shards flew and hit my girlfriend's sister's leg. Which started bleeding out, not terribly, but noticeably to the point where a couple napkins were needed to contain the blood.

At this point you'd figure that because it was a staff member's fault (obviously by accident) that they would come and help out and get a first aid kit. Or ANYONE would help...

This is how the situation was handled: the waiters would help clean up the food that fell, come and check on her leg and say, "oh man that looks pretty bad" or make some random (friendly) comment and then walk off and do something else. At some point my girlfriend asked for an alcohol wipe a few times. And no one came back with one. Until eventually, someone with some F-in urgency got her alcohol wipes and a bandage after 15 minutes!?! Insane.

Ok...very weird. The waiters would just come by, look, and not help?!? So then our waiter comes by, apologizes because he was busy with serving other tables, but was checking in on my girlfriend's sister throughout the rest of the night, which was more thoughtful than the rest of the damn staff.

Then our food comes out... My GF and I had tuna tartare tacos, meatballs, bolognese, and mashed potatoes. The tacos were out of this world. Meatballs were good, but had better ones at home. Bolognese wasn't stellar. And holy crap the mashed potatoes had NO seasoning AT ALL - it was like drinking water, that's how little flavor it had. I was just dumbfounded on how you can mess up mashed potatoes!?!

Then dessert comes around. We all just wanted leave at this point, but our wonderful waiter says that my GF's sister's dessert will be comped. Which was thoughtful. But at that point, because her leg was bleeding due to someone from the staff dropping a plate, I figured it'd be appropriate to comp her whole meal. But I guess just a comped dessert is fine

And then of course dessert was ok, it was a strawberry shortcake thing. Wasn't anything stellar. Small as hell too. Our waiter also gave us free gelato, which I don't even remember how it tasted because I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

And they also ran out of toilet paper in one of the bathrooms.

All in all, if this were a chili's (or had chili's prices/serving size/atmosphere) I would be some what forgiving. But the fact that everything on the menu was pricey, somewhat small to average in serving size, and MOST of everything we ate (except for those amazing tuna tartare tacos) was either tasting OK or flavorless ($15 worth of flavorless mashed potatoes man!!) a two star review is deserved.

With the only saving grace being our amazing waiter...but the fact that the REST of the staff stood by, did nothing, and even LOOKED at my GF's sister leg bleeding out. Wow. That's messed up. Even after my GF told someone to get alcohol wipes and it took 15 minutes man.

Not coming back. Wish I had a better experience. If the whole bleeding out thing didn't happen, I may tell others about coming here only for the tuna tartare tacos and our lovely waiter. But given how things went down, I would tell anyone whose physical safety I cared about to avoid this...

I will start that the ambiance is gorgeous. Very romantic with their flourishing yellow roses, industrial chic chandeliers and matching rosettes napkins. We found out they're BYOB --I had high hopes...

My family and I dined here for the first (and probably last time) to celebrate my husband's birthday. We are from out of town and heard great things. We had a lovely host who happily accommodated our 2 year old.

For the actual food-- we got to have our appetizers which was a zesty steak tartare and fresh plump shrimp cocktail. Bread with Black Sea salt was chefs kiss-- our kid ate 1/2 the basket.

We were excited for our mains but then our luck ran out... and so did the power. The power was out in the whole grid. Streets were dark. It transformed us to that dark candlelit spot. But instead of closing down our server, Adam assured us that food was nearly finished and to wait. We calmly waited and entertained our child. We watched them slowly bring out plates which gave us hope. 30 -40 minutes passed and slowly the restaurants started to heat up as there was no AC or fans. And then the fire alarm went off. The blaring noise was too much for our little one. I took him out to protect his ears and of course our food finally arrives. At this point other patrons were abandoning their checks and making a run from the smoke. I don't blame them. I kind of wanted to do the same. Instead I calmly waited for them to pack up our food as it was close to 9pm. The manager offered us a modest 10% discount for the inconvenience plus an extra percent off for paying cash. $328+ tip for a meal I had to take home. But here's the kicker and the reason for the 3 stars-- THEY DIDNT EVEN PACK UP ALL OUR FOOD!! We got home to find the most expensive item, a $70 ribeye, MISSING. So my poor dad didn't get to eat anything. And sadly he was the one most excited to try out Jasper Stone.

Now, I understand stuff happens but as a business you need to make the best decisions for the safety of your patrons and employees. The staff was miserable and begging customers to give their credit card info and/or phone numbers to called back and pay. I tipped modestly bc I didn't carry a ton of cash and understood this was out of their control. But I am disappointed with how things were handled and more importantly that we didn't even get the food...