Brio Italian Grille — Restaurant in Newport

Congratulations Brio for not only being the worst meal, but also being the absolute worst service I've ever had! Today a friend who had a $100 gift card for Brio invited me to lunch. We were seated in the bar and the bartender, his name was Jackson, had one other customer other than us. He looked annoyed that we were seated there but I didn't judge him because we all have bad days. I ordered The spaghetti bolognese and my friend got the chicken Alfredo. She got a funny look on her face when she was eating her chicken and I asked her what was wrong. She said the chicken was very tough and chewy and asked me to try it. I tried it and it definitely had the consistency of chicken that was frozen and thawed out in a microwave. I didn't care for it but what I liked even less was my spaghetti bolognese. It had such a strong taste of fennel that it was not edible. My friend however loves fennel so I asked her to try it and said maybe we could trade, but even she thought the fennel was overwhelming and didn't want it. When the waiter saw that we had barely touched our food he asked us if we would like take out containers and we said no thank you. We started to tell him that we were paying with a gift card and he ignored us and turned and walked away. Then when he came back, he started to take our plates and I began to tell him what was wrong with the food and he just grabbed our plates and walked away from me when I was in the middle of telling him. When he was still in earshot I said "dude really?" However, he continued to ignore me. He came back and we gave him the $100 gift card, our meal totaled $77.36. He came back to the table and said that'll be all ladies thank you. And we said what about the change from our gift card? Again, he walked away and ignored us. We called him back over and asked again, this time he said, "there isn't any change and you can't tip on a gift card". First of all, let me stress that we are very good tippers. I never leave less than a 30% tip for anyone. I just wanted to know how much was left on the gift card so I knew how much extra to add. I also told him that was ridiculous that you CAN tip on gift cards I do it all the time. I asked him where our receipt was, giving us the remainder of what was left and he said there wasn't one. I asked him to go back and get us a receipt that told us the remainder. He came back with a receipt but still didn't tell us the remainder, it just told us our total was $77.36 and that we had zero balance due. What made me really angry was that every time we were trying to talk to him he would turn around and walk away from us and completely ignore us. I've never had such rude service. Finally, I told my friend let's just get out of here, suck up what was left on the gift card and I'm not leaving him a tip. Never, EVER, in my life, have I stiffed a server. Today was an exception.

About that time a gentleman named Will, who was stocking the bar, I believe he was the next shift bartender saw us leaving and asked if everything was ok. We told him what had happened and he immediately went and pulled us up a receipt that told us how much was left from our gift card. We then asked Will if we were allowed to tip off of that gift card and he said, of course. We already knew that answer but it was so nice to be treated with respect. We asked him to keep the remainder of the gift card. He was so sweet and he said he would rather us use it to come back and give the restaurant another chance. He said he didn't really even do anything other than pull up a receipt and didn't feel like he deserved anything. We insisted that he take it just for being so kind. It's unfortunate for Jackson, I'm sorry he was having a bad day but he lost a very nice tip which probably would have been 30+ dollars. Unfortunately, Brio lost a couple of customers. The best part about our meal was the bread and butter, and Will. Will was kind and amazing. I wish we had visited...

The summary is that the food is mediocre, service was friendly but odd, and prices are completely ridiculous considering the quality of raw ingredients and how they are subsequently prepared.

Food: Calamari appetizer was soggy and slightly tough (reflecting poor breading technique and cheap calamari) with a huge heaping of mayonnaise on one side and huge heaping of cocktail sauce on the other, spooned straight into the calamari sauce. Lasagna entree was formless, flat, oozing onto the plate. The marinara tasted like cheap, sugary, bulk canned sauce. The shrimp/olive/feta spaghetti wasn’t bad but also wasn’t good. There was no dimension to the flavor and the main taste was both bland and sour. The shrimp was perfect and cooked perfectly. They offered dessert which we often consider at restaurants but we didn’t even look at the menu- we had no faith it would be worth it. My champagne was good, my husband’s wine glass came out with smudges all over it and - not kidding - small food chunks inside. We never send food back but he has to ask for a replacement and the waitress even made a grossed out face when he pointed it out.

Our waitress was definitely nice but from the first moment it was a bit odd. She never greeted us or welcomed us to the restaurant which is totally fine and not something we really cared about, but it is just the first time we’ve been to a seemingly nice restaurant and realized the person we thought was bussing the table was actually the server (food smears and water stains all over her shirt - part of the reason I thought a busy table busser). She brought to-go boxes mid-meal and placed them individually next to our plates. We were still mid-meal so we discreetly stacked them at the far end of the table after she left. 5 minutes later she came back, gestured to the boxes and asked if we wanted her help packing them. We declined because we were still eating (I was chewing when she came over) so it just seemed kind of weird.

I’m sorry to leave so much less-than-ideal material, but it just is not a nice restaurant even though it wants to be. It has an open kitchen and I don’t know if they were having an off night, but there were repeated moments in the kitchen (which everyone sees and smells) when pans were left burning and then plunged into water. Extreme smoke and burning smells filled the restaurant in a way that was almost comical.

To top it off, the table next to us had two adults rapidly scrolling through videos on their phones with full sound. The whole time.

At the end of the night, our meal was $90 before 20% tip, and it just wasn’t worth...

The free bread was the best part…

We walk past this restaurant all the time and decided to give it a try. We thought it’d be a great experience; unfortunately, it was a huge disappointment.

The server was perfectly friendly and while not angry with her the overall service wasn’t good. We were there for about 25-30 min before placing our food order (by our own choice choosing what to eat). However, after placing we waited about 45-60 min for our food! The most frustrating part. The table next to us sat AFTER we ordered. They got their food and ate most of it before we even got ours (they ordered the same thing)!! My guess was that they maybe delivered our food to their table. Instead of letting us know, we got no update during this waiting period. Usually someone at least comes and explains what’s going on and about how long it’ll be. Nothing… and even if that wasn’t the case they could’ve let us know something. Also, it was a Saturday but not crowded at all.

Now if food is good after a long wait I try to overlook it… but it was really bad.

2/10 Ravioli I ordered this, it had a very odd flavor almost sour. Brown butter ravioli is something I’ve had at many different restaurants and this was by far the worst. Also, it was 5 Ravioli… that’s its. They spread it out on a huge plate and throw loads of mushrooms and tomatoes on to make it look like more. For $22 I expect quantity or quality and got neither.

4/10 Chicken Marsala My husband ordered this, it wasn’t horrible but definitely wasn’t good. The amount of Marsala was honestly not good especially for thickness of the chicken, I’ll attach a picture. It doesn’t need to be smothered like soup but it definitely wasn’t the ideal amount. However, the sauce wasn’t that great so not sure we missed out there. Mash was okay but probably sat on the plate for a while based on the almost crust it had (you can kind of see in picture).

Then there was the fact this place was like a literally sauna. The table next to us was fanning themselves, we kept trying to just stay hydrated. Poor servers were drenched in sweat. I genuinely don’t know if they were trying to save on A/C but yikes. This didn’t help with our long wait either.

All in all, I really hate that we spent the money we did for the food we got. It’s one of those experiences where you wished you had just cooked at home because it would’ve been better. We ate for only a third of the time we waited (from ordering to being served).

Definitely don’t recommend, there are better restaurants to choose from or just stay home. They didn’t seem to care about...