Fresh Salt — Restaurant in Old Saybrook

Fresh Salt - Old Saybrook, CT - 6/10/2015

Great waterside / Marina view venue. Soon the one man band entertainment starts. It's a great place for an intimate romantic dinner or meeting friends. We've been there several times and it has usually been a good experience...

Fast forward to 6/10/2015... I booked reservations on OpenTable as I usually prefer to do. Something about removing the "human screw-up" factor in online booking is very appealing to me... Except tonight...

We arrive, announce to the hostess that we are here for our OpenTable booked reservation and that we would like to dine outside by the fire pit. She acknowledges verbally our reservation and points to the fire pit for us to seat ourselves...after 15 minutes of wait staff walk past us pretending to not see us I went inside to ask for service... 10 Minutes after that still no service so from my cell phone I call inside asking once again for service. 5 Minutes later the manager comes out and apologizes for the hostess who apparently was brand new. My feeling, if she's not ready, don't put her in front. Even birds don't let their young out of the nest until they're ready to fly...

Next we go from one extreme to the other hand have 2 servers and the manager helping us. Naturally even tho we told the second server that the first one already took our beverage order, we get 2 sets of beverages served...

The Shrimps appetizer was good. Great cocktail sauce with just the right amount of Horseradish...

My main was the grilled Salmon which I had served over the Pea Risotto... Honestly the Salmon was over slightly over cooked and the Risotto was just OK. Now granted I didn't specify how I wanted the Salmon cooked but I've been to plenty of good restaurants where they just know what the best way to serve it is without my input...

My wife had some vegetable dish that she really enjoyed. I went to look it up on their menu but their technology is seriously lacking. Most people look stuff up on their phones and they don't have a menu posted on OpenTable. On Yelp it links to an online menu that's not mobile friendly and I'm not going to get a magnifying glass out to look up the ingredients. It's 2015..., get with the times or don't bother... Just take my word for it that it was good whatever was in it...

For dessert we had Tiramisu... It was good but not over the top good. Some coffees and off we went.

Service started off horrendous and then the overcompensating kind of fueled the fire. I was going to round up my 3.5 star rating to 4.0 as we met some really nice people while having dinner. One of which we will further a friendship with but the insult to injury was what arrived in my email later that evening. They never acknowledged my arrival on OpenTable rather put me in as a no-show. When I called to have them correct this they suggested creating a bogus reservation and then saying I showed up. After explaining that I've never pulled a no-show and was not interested in jeopardizing my VIP status on OpenTable they complied and fixed THEIR error...

Overall we will go there again and you would like the overall experience. We'll write this bad experience off as an "everybody has a bad night" but if this happens next time, then it may be an indication of changes that have occurred that are not conducive to restaurant loyalty... With all of this they are lucky to...

Let me start this review by saying we are not people who are usually fussy about our dining experience. We also try to be kind and polite and give the restaurant the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong. My mother has been a waitress for 20+ years, so we understand how much work goes into providing a good meal and experience.

We went to Fresh Salt for our 11 year wedding anniversary. We were looking forward to the waterfront views and creative and fresh menu options. When we made our renovation we selected that it was our anniversary. No one made mention of our anniversary the entirety of the dining experience. Our waitress Darcy offered a kind smile but only spoke to us to explain new menu offers. She never once asked, how was the food or can I get you something else? Once we put our order in, she did not come back to us until it was time to bring the dessert menus. Other staff brought us our food and cleared our table during this period of time, which was a total of about 45-60 minutes. During the entire experience, she did not once ask how our food or experience was.

In terms of food, we ordered the clam chowder and, although it was great on flavor, there were about 3 clams in the soup. It was mostly filled with soft potatoes. Next, we split the ahi tuna triangles. They were easily the best thing we ate that night. Yes they were delicious but they were only 4 tiny triangles for $28 making it $7 per tiny triangle.

I got the ($45!!) Mediterranean Halibut, which was one of the recommended items. I'm sorry but this entire dish was gross. It has an overly earthy taste with little seasoning on the fish and risotto. The risotto was not creamy or cheesy as you would imagine. It is cooked in a watery tomato broth. Ironically, I needed to add a lot of salt to this dish.

My wife ordered the fettuccine lobster dish. They packed on the lobster and it was very fresh. The noodles were in a lemon cream sauce that was good but just lacked any depth in flavor or complexity. There were small mozzarella balls that I would often choke on and had no business being in this dish. Not to mention the broccoli as well. Altogether, it was a blend of textures and flavors that did not go together well.

Overall, some of the food was good, but not worth the price we paid. We were very disappointed in the whole experience. We will definitely not...

"Fabulous, all around, dining experience that's not to be missed!"

If you want to have a divine dining experience, look no further. I was not expecting to have such an enjoyable meal, and found myself blown away! My family also loved everything we ordered.

We do not live by the water, so anytime we can dine waterside, we do, and this restaurant (chef, servers, environment) met our highly-specific needs on every level.

After initially having a wonderful lunch, we literally ate there everyday of our trip to Old Saybrook!

My husband is vegetarian and absolutely loved their veggie burger. The shrimp cocktail was the best I've had in a long time, if ever!

Their (cold) lobster roll was superb and loaded with lobster! My eldest daughter had the mussels which she literally devoured in less than five minutes (to be exact, 1 minute, 5 seconds) and she is normally not a speedy eater. They also had the clam chowder (New England) and it was mind-blowing!

My other daughter and I shared the NY strip and it was fantastic. The service is excellent and even the bread was great! (They serve the butter whipped and at room temperature which is my preference.)

My daughters and I shared the traditional calamari appetizer with their dill-based aioli, for which she ordered several servings of...

I also tried their ceasar salad and it was flavorful and delicious; their croutons were "out-of-this-world."

Our servers were attentive, detail-oriented and ensured our meals were accurate and that we always had everything we needed --quickly.

To the staff: Thank you for such memorable dining experiences! We also appreciate the Chef for making my daughter her favorite crab cakes in the evening; they were the "best!"

I could not recommend this restaurant enough and can't...