Giusto — Restaurant in Newport

Large Groups be forewarned! We had very high expectations for celebrating my daughter’s 35th birthday there last evening, and I so want to be able to provide a 5-star review. Sadly, this is not possible as our dining experience last evening was underwhelming overall, bordering on bizarre, maddening, sometimes hostile, and downright illogical throughout the entire experience :((

Details: We were a party of 11, our reservation time was 5pm, and we were seated in the “alcove” area to the left of the entrance. Both our daughters had eaten here last July with a small party of close friends (5 people), including one friend who is the owner of a Michelin Star Italian restaurant in NYC. They all apparently enjoyed very much the Chef’s Tasting Menu during that July visit.

But for this special event, my daughter only agreed to the very early 5pm time slot because she specifically DID NOT WANT the Chef’s Tasting Menu—especially since there were so many dietary restrictions with this large group of attendees. She preferred a 7pm reservation, but was told parties of 8+ would only be served from the Chef’s Tasting Menu at that time. She only agreed to taking the 5pm time slot after being assured (by the Hostess) that attendees would be allowed to order off the full menu. Several of our guests had Gluten allergies, one had a serious shellfish allergy, another with a dairy allergy, and one Pescatarian among our guests. The wait staff had to ask “special permission” of the Chef to allow our party to make our OWN food selections from the menu presented and in quantities that made sense for our group. The Chef initially refused to allow our group to make their own menu selections.

Upon learning of this Chef’s Tasting Menu requirement, my daughter explained to the wait staff this was clearly NOT what she had agreed to when she booked the reservation ~6 weeks ago. My daughter then approached the wait staff privately to explain if they did not make this accommodation then our group would have no choice but to leave and go next door to another restaurant where she was confident our large party could be seated AND order off the full menu. The Chef then agreed to allowing us to order what we wanted with the caveat that we would “not be allowed to order more than 3 protein plates for the entire table”—meaning 11 people would have to share 3 main protein entrees for our entire group. It was made abundantly clear that the Chef was unwilling to allow our guests to order 11 separate entrees, even though we assured them we didn't care how long it would take to prepare & serve us those individual entrees. In the end, we were allowed to order 2 pork tenderloins meals to share + 1 Striped Bass meal for our lone Pescatarian to share with other hungry guests. When we asked to add 1 additional Pork meal + 1 additional Striped Bass meal we were emphatically told “No. The Chef will not allow you to do that.” We got the same response when we asked for an additional (small/tapas-sized) Plate of Pasta.

Despite the aforementioned hassles and aggravation, we still ordered 7 or 8 desserts—which were heavenly. In retrospect though, I'm shocked they didn't also place unreasonable restrictions with regard to our dessert selections. The maddening and illogical part of this whole experience was that we could easily have spent another $300-$400+ in food items had we been allowed to do so. In the end, we all spent $100 each and left still hungry and extremely annoyed. Nearly everything about this dining experience was a complete and total HASSLE when it should've been a joyous celebration of my daughter’s birthday. Not one of us ever intend to dine here again. Note: That same daughter who booked this reservation for her younger sister’s birthday had also considered booking another event there to coincide with the mid-June Season 2 Premier of one of her tv shows. Safe to say Giusto just missed out on that one.

I'm awarding 2 stars for location/ambiance and food/beverages—which were equally delicious and...

Fried calamri in squid ink was very good but the cod wasn’t for me. Despite everything I’m giving a low rating primarily due to the service, more specifically the odd brown haired bearded gentleman who served us that day. He had messed up our water right off the bat when we asked for one sparkling and one still but that’s not a big deal. He then asked if we wanted a shared menu or a la carte to which we specified we wanted to order individually twice to make sure there wasn’t a mixup. Then we had to wait 15 minutes for our appetizers then another 10 minutes for our first main dish which was the fried calamari then another 15 before I asked what the status of my fish was as my mother was eating her entire calamari by herself while I’m sitting there twiddling my thumbs. Not once did the waiter check in on us to see how everything was going keep in mind, even till the end.

The waiter then retorted that we had actually ordered a shared menu (we specified twice we wanted to order individually to make sure this wouldn’t happen) to which he immediately stated “there’s nothing I can do” not in response to anything particular, just him exclaiming nothing he could do as his defense. He asked if that’s all I wanted to which I calmly stated it’s fine I just wanted to know the status since what’s done is done and he said they should be firing it up now. Even if it was a shared menu, why would the customers have to wait 15-20 minutes between each dish, as even after the correction we waited another whole 15 minutes anyways. It was obviously an excuse to cover up his mistake. The waiter came back trying to damage control because I’m assuming his manager had corrected him so he offered the initial calamari complimentary and they were making us another one so it can be shared. Keep in mind not once did the waiter apologize throughout all of this. Instead he came back and exclaimed enthusiastically “there now you have the dish at the same time!” condescendingly. Congrats you fixed your mistake. He then finally started actually tending to us as customers refilling our water and telling us that the initial calamari was complimentary as his show of service, thanks man what amazing service. Why would we be charged twice for your mistake in the first place. Overall incredibly unpleasant service from that one waiter, the other girls were nice and professional and what I assume was the manager offered better service than our actual waiter. He needs to be retrained if that’s how he’s serving customers, absolutely...

I’d like to update this review to let everyone know that I received a prompt, kind reply from the owner, and Giusto invited my husband and I back for dinner in an effort to make things right (see below). I emailed Lauren as suggested, and she replied right away to make us a new reservation. We are very appreciative, and this is honestly more than we expected or anticipated. Bravo to Giusto and Lauren for top notch customer service! We look forward to returning! Thank you!

TLDR: Nice venue, eclectic menu, but poor attention to guests. Would not recommend for a special occasion or large party. I’m leaving this review, because my husband isn’t the type to raise a concern or make a complaint. He made reservations for a party of 13 for my 40th birthday this past Friday, 9/16. I’ll start with the positive— this was our first time at Giusto, and the venue itself is lovely. We arrived promptly at 7:00PM and were seated right away. We sat outside, and the views were beautiful. Due to the size of our party, they told him we were limited to the freestyle tasting menu. The tastings, overall, were delicious and beautifully plated. Now for the constructive feedback and disappointments— dinner took 3.5 hours from start to finish. It took nearly 45 minutes for each person in our party to receive their first drink. That’s far too long when you’re waiting for everyone to get a drink so that you can toast to the night. Then, we didn’t receive our first course until nearly 8:00pm. Each course was served “family style,” but staff never brought serving utensils (we literally had to ask every single time); this is a small detail, but it became increasingly frustrating when we were already waiting at length for drinks and subsequent courses to come out. Our waiter, Steven, was polite, but he did not check in on us enough. Someone from the group would flag him down for another drink, and instead of asking the table if he could get anyone else anything, he’d rush off, and we kept having to call him back over. Dessert was underwhelming, but maybe that’s because it took 35 minutes for it to arrive after our last course. The final disappointment, however, was that there was absolutely no acknowledgement of my birthday by any of the staff, even though my husband had made it clear this dinner was for a 40th birthday. When you’re dropping approximately $1,300 on dinner, all of the aforementioned details...