Saint Bibiana — Restaurant in Savannah

My visit to Saint Bibiana, which is situated in the Hotel Bardo, located on Drayton Street in downtown Savannah, Georgia, occurred on a Wednesday morning in late May under reservations. I chose this restaurant based on an episode of “Kelly and Mark”, during which Kelly Ripa touted the merits of the establishment, going on and on about the pastries. She stated that these pastries were brought out on a display tray, unsolicited, and were irresistible. The croissants, she said, were “a taste of Paris”. Well, I wanted to experience this taste of Paris since I was going to be in Savannah for a day and a half trip. No doubt my visit was vastly different from the one experienced by Ms. Ripa and her companion, (which my spouse thinks was endorsed). Upon further reflection, I tend to think that he may be correct—yet again. We were greeted at the beautifully etched, wooden door by a young Caucasian man with a nicely groomed beard and mustache, who would serve us throughout our stay. The interior of the restaurant is enchanting, as depicted by my many photos, and we were shown to a window table facing the courtyard and street, before the young man disappeared. The server returned to the table and gave us two lovely, small printed menus with the name of the restaurant etched in gold at the top. The selections were very limited, which I found surprising, but I quickly chose the French Toast, with sausage on the side, intending to order the pastries to go. My husband picked the egg white omelette with fresh fruit. The server completed our order with an exuberantly inappropriate, “Yo, I got you!” Surprisingly, the food took an unexpectedly long time to arrive, especially since we were the only patrons in the establishment for quite a while until we were joined by a young, blonde female and her companion. The server spent quite a bit of time in her company. She was wearing scrubs, and I can’t begin to imagine their conversation… However, my French toast was barely warm, and hard, as if it had been kept warm under a heat lamp for some time, and my husband said that his omelette wasn’t hot either. I can’t complain that I wasn’t offered a refill of water because the server left the refill carafe on the table; but, I had to ask him for the coffee in the carafe that he was carrying with him at his side when he was at our table for something or other. Over all, the experience of the Saint Bibiana left something of a bad taste in my mouth. And, I was never offered pastries on a tray… By the time I had finished my cold French toast and sausage that required a knife to cut, I was ready to go. We left the server an overly generous tip of 15%, which I don’t think he earned. I served tables in my youth, and if I had neglected my patrons in such a manner, or spoke to them in a way that could be taken offensively (which was by my husband) I would not expect to be rewarded for such behavior. I apologize for being so wordy in my review; however, for those of use with more melanin in their skin, it is sometimes helpful to have a little bit of a heads up before spending our money in an establishment that may or may not appreciate our patronage. All in all, it felt good to eat at a restaurant that our parents would have been barred from when they...

I will start off by saying that on the night of our dinner, there was basically a monsoon outside. So...I have a feeling they had staffing issues. So, keep that in mind, but in any case, our dinner really could have been improved and we were disappointed as we were really looking forward to dining here based on all the rave reviews.

Firstly, it is an exceptionally beautiful place - they've renovated a huge historic mansion into Hotel Bardo, and they did an amazing job. It's laid out very well and has a romantic cozy vibe. Just lovely.

As for everything else, at least for us on this night, it was hit or miss. The oddness began when the person who seated us told us our server would be right with us, but when he returned to check on us rather than said "server," I asked if he'd be taking care of us. He replied with a hesitant "yes," and it made us wonder if he went from food runner/host to server for the first time in that moment. My brother ordered a gimlet which was perfect, but my martini was really odd. It was sweeter than I like, and also comes with a side dish of accoutrement - salt in the bottom of the dish with a lemon peel, pickled pepper, olive and dill. Like...what am I supposed to do with that? Just choose one of those and put it in the drink. It was weird. Next, we ordered the $22 mushroom toast, which is a nice portion and tasted delicious, however, we ended up with a small pile of thyme twigs on our plate after having to pick them out. My brother learned the hard way as he bit into the toast only to be chomping down on little sticks. Not great. We were nice about it, but did point it out to our server because it just seemed like whomever took over cooking that night didn't know to take those out - thyme sticks are super woody and inedible. Again, this made us feel like something was amiss in staffing. During this course, they also sent over their burrata appetizer, which we didn't order and the food runner had to go back and check to make sure it was a "gift" from the kitchen. Ok...we'll definitely take the gift, thank you, but it was a bit of an odd dish. It's a large portion of burrata with herb oil and cucumbers, but no toast points or anything. They do come around and give diners their fresh baked bread, but we had already eaten that as we didn't know we should "save" it to go with the burrata we didn't know was coming. A bit of an awkward service all together. We then ordered one of the pasta dishes as this is an Italian restaurant, and while it sounded really good - pipe rigate verde with broccoli rabe pesto - the pasta was woefully undercooked and the sauce was super salty. Like, stick in your teeth undercooked. We honestly should have sent it back, but we don't do that, so we just didn't finish this small portion of pasta. Sad. Lastly, we had the branzino which was $50, came by itself on the plate, and was overcooked. Not too badly, but overcooked nonetheless. My brother enjoyed his fairly well, but I was disappointed.

I wish I lived in the city so I could maybe give them another shot, but alas, we were only there for the weekend, and I'm not sure I'd want to return for full dinner service again. Maybe drinks and snacks or dessert because it's so beautiful here. I do hope it was just...

It’s a beautiful space. Service- we got our food before our drinks and the drinks did not come out together. My wine came out after my husband’s mixed drink. At one point we asked for clean plates and then waited for 5 minutes for them while staring at our food. Food- 1. The Foccacia- well, it’s not focaccia. It had the consistency of white bread and no crusty top. There was no structure to the bread… it was just squishy. Please don’t call this foccacia. Scallop crudo was great. Octopus starter was the best thing we ate all night, but could have used some restraint. There was a lot going on. The burrata was flavorful, but looked like a child plated it if you were to tell them to “make it look fancy.” Five pieces of cucumber centered on top with 4 pieces of dill each “in a corner.” We had the mixed green salad. The quality of the greens was amazing, but the overall flavor of the dish was underwhelming. It just tasted like plain lettuce with salt. The first pasta we had was the pipe regati -verde pesto. The temperature was way too hot and the texture of the pasta was not great. It was more gummy than al dente. Is it possible there was too much pesto? It was drowning in flavorless green goo that hits you with unadvertised spice that then overwhelms the palate. One bite I had was just green sauce and cheese without pasta. It was the last bite I took. We had the cavatappi next. Honestly, it tasted like pasta from a can. I’m not really even sure how you can do that. An homage to tomatoes it was not. The pipe regati could be good with some tweaks. This one need to be off the menu.

We sent both pastas back.

The server was surprised that we were not happy with our meal. He tried to have us order something else, but our trust was broken. Mediocre bread, flavorless salad, and two pasta dishes that were off on both their flavor profiles and textures… We decided to end the meal.

We are from out of town and eat in DC, NYC and Philly a lot.

I heard this restaurant might be a rival to the Common Thread. I don’t think so. We loved everything we ate there last night. Even with the waitress sticking her finger inside our bottle of wine, I...