Press Room — Restaurant in Shepherdstown

About your kitchen:

1st - if your kitchen knew what they were doing they would know that the most important ingredient in your kitchen is SALT. Yes, SALT! You should know what it is and master how to use it, or you should call whatever except chef, sous chef or any command in a kitchen

2nd - by leaving olive oil, pepper and salt on all table for customers to use them to taste just proves that you know nothing about seasoning and/or using any of these ingredients. If you believe enough in your food to call yourself fine dining you would just know that your dish is seasoned perfectly according to how you want it to taste.

About your service:

1st - your waiters need to be able to give proper attention to customers, otherwise you are either bad a recruiting and training, or you could be short staffed. If you ask somebody if “everything is OK”, you wait for the answer and listen to it instead of walking away, otherwise do not even bother asking.

2nd - if your customer asks for water with NO ICE, given them water with NO ICE. Also try to deliver your orders to the correct customers. If you are unable to do this it means that your organization is lacking.

Finally, for the reader:

-the appetizer was supposed to be sweet peaches with goat cheese, balsamic reduction, capers, arugula and prosciutto. The result was sweet peaches, 2 tiny capers, tiny pieces of goat cheese that was gone at the first bite, a tiny piece of burnt (not smoked) prosciutto that was also gone at the first bite sand plenty of old arugula served raw, about the balsamic, what balsamic?

-the entree was duck, but unfortunately that duck died for no reason. It was served medium rare as I ordered, but 0 flavor… not even SALT! The sauce was enough for just 2 slices of duck, and of course, not cooked with fresh berries. Green beans was just boiled in water, no salt, no pepper, no butter… literally green beans and water. Then pickled onions, with the duck red sauce?! And then some muchy raw arugula that I refused to eat along with the onions.

-I asked for water with NO ICE, it came with ice. According to the waiter our appetizer was stolen. Then to pay the bill she said that my credit card was declined which I was surprised as there was no reason why that would happen, while I did not receive any alert from the bank which I ALWAYS get right away, no questions or commends I just gave another credit card issued by the same bank and after a long wait she came back and it went through, however she had to key it manually… she could have at least apologized since the issue was with their system.

THE WORST DUCK I EVER HAD!...

As someone who has been brought up in the restaurant industry it's a rarity that I will actually write a negative review even when it's warranted. Particularly when I live in the area. But my disgust with some of the customer service here numerous times is enough.

This place hates having kids - I have called for reservations and if I disclose I have kids with me I am consistently told they have no availability (this happened a few times already) so - just to see our friends from out of town called 5 minutes later for the same time & guest count and low and behold they had availability . Because of this we often call to order out from there now because this town has very limited options. Every time the same guy picks up I am told no we are too busy EVEN when I call two minutes after the restaurant opens. This is the same guy who lied about availability. He is always impolite when we walk in as well. As someone who worked in NYC as a waitress I 100% understand busy but rudeness is not OK.

It's also not ok for the service to be mediocre and slow when it's not busy, which has happened twice to us at the bar. If it was not for the limited options I'd say I'd never give my business here again. But sadly that's not an option so they are able to get away with this inhospitable behavior. The table service is usually good at least but at this point I'd much rather drive further out and give my business elsewhere and get fantastic food.

The guy who is the host and handles the phone calls (usually) needs to be trained in hospitable behavior. Even if you are in the weeds the customers and potential customers should never know. That is the mark of an excellent restaurant. People come back for a few reasons - excellent food, excellent service or because options are limited. The press room is option 3. As this area grows if they don't adapt and better restaurant's come in they will fail.

Also mind you - anytime I call to order out or make a reservation and its' not him there are no issues. It's...

I enjoyed this place. The dimmer lighting and smallness of the room gave it a very relaxing atmosphere. The waiter / waitresses were very professional and friendly . I could tell they were experienced by the way they didn’t keep stopping by to where it was bothersome , rather they kept an eye from across the room and came when needed . The food was delicious and well balanced. Everyone at my table enjoyed their meals . I had the duck and it was cooked beautifully , my partner had a pasta which he enjoyed as well and my kid had soup . EDIT: I came back to edit my review because i did remember something concerning . My daughter had some type of white sauce clam soup , not sure what the name of it was .She really enjoyed it and we boxed up the last of it To-GO. on the way home my daughter was saying her stomach hurt really bad and she thought it was from the soup . when we got home after about 2 hours of relaxing I decided to take her soup out of the fridge and I heated it up on the stove for a minute and I ate the remaining soup. Literally about ten minutes later my stomach was also hurting very badly so I went to check on my daughter and she said she had been in the restroom sense we got home . Unfortunately I was sick the rest of the night as well. Both me and her were absolutely fine until we had that soup. Mind you we had both eaten separate things that whole week because I work 14 hour shifts and she is elsewhere while I work . The only thing we had digested in common was the soup itself. We got sick immediately after eating it , and our bodies tried to reject it immediately.So I have pretty outstanding evidence to believe we got food poisoning...