The Tavern on the Square — Restaurant in New Wilmington

We were so excited to finally eat at the Tavern—As self-declared foodies, we eagerly anticipated this opening. We made reservations 10 days in advance. Guests who arrived without reservations were directed to the upstairs lounge to enjoy drinks and wood-fired pizza, as the dining room was already booked solid for the night.

The building is beautiful, retaining just enough of the old dining room to feel familiar but done with such taste that the entry way feels like an upscale private club. The ‘front of house’ maître ‘d and hostess were dressed very handsome, just short of black tie, so although many guests were wearing jeans and t-shirts, if you there for a special occasion meal, it would feel appropriate. This is a restaurant where you won’t find rolls on the table or name tags.

Service was on-point and big-city professional. We had Laz for our server. He was great and timed our meal perfectly. We never felt like we were waiting.

We each ordered a specialty drink to start and were not disappointed. Clever, delicious and very effective, we didn’t resent the $14 price tag. The Rosemary Grapefruit Fizz was perfectly sweet. The Cucumber St. Germain Spritz was lovely and a little lime-forward.

For our starters, we ordered the Korean Sticky Ribs and Amish popcorn. The Korean Sticky Ribs were perfect. The sesame in the sauce was delicious and the meat was incredible, cooked to perfection and tender. The popcorn tastes like it was cooked on a griddle, in meat renderings and seasoned with nutritional yeast. It was ok, but we won’t order it again.

Wayne got the Live Fire Grilled Tomahawk Pork Chop and I got the Steak of the day. The Pork Chop was incredible. Cooked perfectly, tender, well-seasoned. The beautiful chop was nicely complimented by the warm red cabbage slaw—my German grandmother would’ve approved.

My steak was the Hanger cut which I got cooked medium. It was delicious, flavorful and incredibly seasoned—I tasted a slight hint of soy sauce. It was tender and cooked so that the ends were well done, but only the very middle slice was a little too rare for me.

The disappointment of both entrees was the potatoes. The pork chop came with the “smashed crispy yukons”. Yes, the Yukon potatoes were smashed (not to be confused with mashed), BUT, they were neither crispy nor seasoned. Restaurants that don’t have baskets of bread or nametags also don’t have salt and pepper shakers on the table. That was a letdown.

I underestimated the portion of fries in the “Pasture Steak N’ Fries” that I ordered. With this our first visit, I wasn’t familiar with the ‘house fries’. The House Fries were fresh cut, skin on, and had no seasoning. My steak entree, for $38, was crying for some green vegetable or something to relieve me of the fried potatoes on the plate. I would add a salad. For my next visit there—and yes, we’ll be back—I will avoid entrees with potato sides, or not be shy to ask for salt & pepper.

Finally, desert. This is the dish that sends you on your way and makes you dream about returning. We ordered the Chocolate Silk Pie and the Glazed Lemon cake. The Chocolate Silk Pie was truly amazing. The crust was indescribably perfect—and homemade, and the filling was rich and light at the same time.

The Glazed Lemon Cake was served on a smear of delicious raspberry coulis. The cake’s glaze was heavy and chewy, more like a fondant. The body of the lemon cake was so dense that it didn’t qualify as a cake—even a pound cake would be light in comparison. It was downright difficult to get a bite with a fork, and not a delight to eat as one imagines when ordering lemon cake. I’m guessing either an ingredient was omitted in the baking, or the body of the cake was designed to be dense to support the heavy ‘glaze’. After just a few bites, we politely took the Lemon Cake home but tossed the $10 dessert the next morning.

While a beautiful start, The Tavern may have some...

We went to this location for the first time. Together, we werereally looking forward to trying some of their great looking drinks and food, but boy, were we surprised when we sat at the bar to only receive terrible service and atrocious drinks from the male bartender Augustine. Instead of focusing on his customers like greeting us, placing napkins down for our drinks, giving us menus, and working the drinks and bar properly, he was instead berating and demeaning the female bartender next to him and the waitstaff. The girl was clearly experienced and making what looked to be great drinks. She was properly slapping her mint, rosemary, and other herbs as well as muddling them when needed. Every ounce was accounted for as she used the jigger and counted out her pours neatly and precisely. This unskilled and clearly amateur man poured our drinks as well as others we watched with no regard to the measures, just eyeballing it and without activating the herbs for our drinks and countless others. When I say NO REGARD, I mean exactly that! We watched dumb founded as he made three old fashioneds two of which he put in the proper glasses and one which he poured into a much larger almost serving glass as he had to wait for another to be cleaned. This for an experienced and well trained bartender wouldn't be an issue, but all three drinks were not the same, nor did they have equal levels served in the glasses clearly NOT trained well and should have been taking his time to get the orders done quickly but also accurately. As far as the food goes, I would love to say it was delicious, but sadly, we never even got the chance to order instead of asking if we needed anything else or how the drinks were he continued to hound and hover over the female bartender and trying to tell her that her drinks were wrong and done incorrectly. We were set to order our food and waited roughly forty-five minutes to an hour, and he never asked or checked in with us to see if we needed anything else or were ready to order and we had to pursue him just to get our bill. The entire experience and vibe of this lovely charming place was completely killed by this man and his terrible attitude, like it was taxing for him to do his job and wait on us almost from the instant we sat down to the moment we left it was as though we were a bother to him. I would love to give this seemingly great venue a 5-star review one day, but it will be a long time before I return. This has left a repugnant taste in my mouth both from the treatment of customers, the other staff, and the bitter awful taste of the poorly made drinks we had. I know this establishment is relatively new but if they want to succeed and do as well as they possibly can and become a pillar in their community, they need to get rid of such narrow-minded, demeaning, and rude staff. Hire more people like the very friendly and bubble female bartender with the short hair and the taller blonde waitress that was picking up drinks at the end shrugging off his rudeness and trying to encourage the other bartender and telling her to just ignore him. Those are the kind of people a place like this really deserves, not a trudging, ill spirited, drinkmonger who will chase off their business or not even offer service to...

We made reservations and went for our anniversary. When I made the reservation they asked if we were celebrating anything. I told them it was our 20th anniversary. They made a huge deal about it and told me that they wanted to make it very memorable and make sure we had a great table so they would make a note of it. We get there about 10 min before our reservation. The owner comes out as the hostess is ready to seat us and tells the hostess “ my friends have been waiting I am seating them!” The hostess seemed flustered. She was very nice to us and said. We do have a table and can seat you now. The friends got a beautiful table at in the bar. We were shoved in a corner so close to another table I could hear their entire conversation. Not even an arms length away. Not a great start. We ordered scotch egg and Korean ribs for appetizers. Egg was amazing the ribs were a little tough and overpowering fish sauce taste. Ordered 2 drinks from the bar and they were pretty good. Sangria was just basic but not bad. Husband got steak and fries. The steak looked like deer backstrap and was kinda burnt in places. I tried it and the bite I had was a charcoal taste. The fries looked to have been cooked and reheated but they were salted. I had the tomahawk pork chop that was supposed to be 14 oz. Looked to be less than 1/4 inch thick and nowhere near 14oz. I would guess it was about 8oz. The smashed potatoes had zero seasoning not even salt and pepper! The cabbage seemed to just be boiled and put on the plate. For a $48 meal I expected more. We were hungry and I forgot to take a picture of the meals. We also got dessert. Had the stickies and berry cobbler. Stickies ARE NOT THE TAVERN STICKIES!!! Not even close. They were over cooked and dry. The cobbler was very good but very small portion. We left with 5 of the ribs and we were not even full. Our bill was $173.00 without the tip ! After spending almost $200 ( over $200 with tip. Server was very good!) we didn’t even get a happy anniversary thanks for coming !! When I just stopped in to make the reservation I didn’t ask for anything special but when somebody makes a major deal out of it and then doesn’t even say “ happy anniversary “ kinda just upsets me. I gladly pay for good food but this was just subpar. Maybe it was just a bad night but I just expected for the price point that the food would be better than it was. I have been to Ruth Criss and spent the same amount and the food was a lot better. I have no issues with meals for $100 a person but make sure that the person isn’t eating the meal thinking “ I bet I could makes these better at home” I will not go back to the tavern ever again. Just not worth...