Salt Air — Restaurant in Rehoboth Beach

We live in NYC and it was our first visit to Rehoboth beach. We were able to drive from NYC and walk right in to get seated because they had 3 cancelations. We were told by locals that never happens! It was meant to be lol! The food was amazing! I read in one review the decor is Country farmhouse interiors with coastal flair. That is about right. That is from Echelon custom homes. Though I only just started reviewing here recently we have had seafood all over the world. The seafood we had here was top notch and competes with Cape May NJ. The town of Rehoboth has less than 2000 people. We have 2000 people living in our apartment complex in NYC. So I was surprised to find out how sophisticated it was. Also we drove directly from NYC and I was dressed for the beach but they still let me in. It is better than what we had in Mystic Ct, better than Montauk NY and the Hamptons and better than most outside of Hawaii. By better I mean better tasting, quality Gluten free delicious seafood and sides! It was the best risotto I have had at a seafood restaurant. It was truly Gluten free. Some restaurants have Gluten free food that they mix with Gluten when cooking so my hubby gets very sick. He had a full head of black hair and just lost it over night. He went to many doctors and was just told it might be eczema. He does have eczema but was only recently found out it is from a Gluten sensitivity. So the fact they they were careful with the food is very meaningful because even a little bit of Gluten can wreck him for weeks. I am also Gluten free but not because of celiac but because it eats the bones and I have a bone disease. So it is important to both of us. It's not like being a vegan which is by choice it's because of serious health problems. It was all truly Gluten free. So anyway enough about that. They cooked me habut without the shellfish sauce that it comes with because I am deathly allergic to shellfish and it was super delicious!

The server was a little snarky. He rolled his eyes when we said we are Gluten free and got an attitude when I told him I am allergic to shell fish. We gave him a good tip anyway in spite of his bad attitude. We have been through so much we have to pick our battles and realize some people are just miserable! There were 2 lady hostesses. They were very pleasant. One a younger girl ,and one an older lady maybe my age. (I am 55) They were considerate of the fact that I am recovering from an accident and have a bone disease and can barley walk. A lot of people say it is noisy we are from NYC but it was pretty quiet to us. Maybe it was a quiet night. If we do a road trip of some kind we would go there just to eat! The town itself is okay. Very small but the restaurant was amazing! I am not giving it 5 stars because for a small town to charge such high prices for such small portions it misses it a bit. The food is 5 stars but we have had seafood all over the world and it was slightly over priced. I normally never talk about prices in my reviews even expensive places but for the price the portions should be larger. But...

Nice place. Good service. Food? Not so good. My friends picked this place based on a previous experience. They had been here once in the past and thought food was very good. Unfortunately, this time was not the case. We all ordered different dishes, and all 4 of them were overcooked. As a new customer, it was a very bad first impression.

I ordered the pork chop because one of my friends said to me that "it was the best pork chop he ever had". I ordered and so did he. Unfortunately, the 2 pork chops were overcooked. They were dry and chewy. Not as good as I thought. My friend thought it was supposed to be served with mashed potatoes but, it came with edamame instead. Needless to say, he was very disappointed.

Another dish was, Salt Air's famous shrimp. Dish came with an exaggerated amount of french fries overflowing the plate. Such plate looked more like an appetizer for 6 people. It had very few shrimp that were also overcooked. The breaded was burnt and made the shrimp rubbery. I couldn't believe the amount of french fries the dish came with. Maybe the cook was trying to conceal the skimpy amount of shrimp?. Who knows.

Another dish was the grilled rib eye. It was ordered medium rare and was served well done. Again, they managed to overcooked the dish.

Now, on the other hand, the staff DID EVERYTHING to fulfill our needs. They were very helpful and courteous. They replaced the rib eye, offered to replace the shrimp, and pork chops. They were genuinely concerned about the way their food wasn't cooked correctly. They brought an extra basket of shrimp to our table and mentioned that they don't usually serve overcooked food. I guess, somebody was having a really bad time in the kitchen. Or the main cook wasn't in the house perhaps? By the way, I want to give a big shout-out to the to the lady who checked on our table and noticed that we were not pleased with what we ordered. She went far and beyond to make sure that we all were pleased with our dishes. Thanks for your attentions!

Well, we may come back to this place some other time. Maybe next time food is not as bad as it was that night.

I apologize for not uploading pictures of our dishes but my phone doesn't seem to be working correctly these days. I doesn't want to save pictures anymore. Time...

I was so excited to try this restaurant. I made a reservation weeks ago to celebrate my sister's birthday. I am extremely disappointed and will not be returning.

First, we waited 10-15 minutes past our reservation time to be seated. Once seated and after placing our orders, we noticed the ceiling was leaking a nasty brown liquid that was dripping onto the curtain that our table was set against. The leak was active but brown stains all the way down the curtain indicated a recurring problem. We could see the pipes the liquid was coming from and it was clearly coming from a drain pipe. We are confident based on the size of the pipe it was coming from a bathroom in the rentals above the restaurant. So we were likely sat by leaking sewage. There had been an attempt to fix/patch the leak unsuccessfully from what we could see. We brought this to the attention of the GM who claimed to be unaware of the leak until that point. We probably should have left after this but opted to move our table instead since we had already placed our orders quite a bit before we noticed this issue. They quickly seated another party at the table by the leak.

About 40 minutes after ordering, we finally received our drinks. Our server told us there was only 1 bartender working. We only had our drinks for 2 minutes before receiving our entrees. 2 members of our party ordered the same dish. 1 dish was hot and the other was cold. Some enjoyed their dishes others thought they were okay. All agreed portions were on the small side.

The restaurant is also extremely cluttered. The back room we were originally seated in not only served as a busy dining space but also storage area for many extra boxes of wine, chairs, etc.. This is not the atmosphere of a restaurant with a $30+ average entree price.

I'm astonished by how highly rated this restaurant is. Again, we will not be returning and I seriously regret picking this restaurant to celebrate my sister's birthday...