Whip Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Stowe

Let me preface this review with the observation that my wife and I have been regular patrons of the Green Mountain Inn and its restaurants since our honeymoon in 1983, which makes this experience particularly heartbreaking.

Each year the Green Mountain Inn makes a special opening of its street-side main dining room for Thanksgiving and Christmas. A very nice traditional menu is offered on an all-inclusive basis--this year $55 per person. Normally this lovely space is used only for breakfasts, with other meals being served in the basement Whip bar/restaurant. My wife and I love the elegant atmosphere of this original main dining room and made it a family treat of enjoying our Christmas meal here.

The Whip is a dark, woody, recreation of a sort of English stagecoach inn--an attractive enough space for a bar/cafe, but with no views, low ceilings and as it fills up it becomes very noisy. The food service here is provided in a casual style from a good menu that ranges from burgers to steaks. For what it is it is not bad.

But if, as with my wife and I, you have reached an age where you can no longer deal with deafening ambient crowd noise this is not a romantic space. We loved the Green Mountain Inn, but not the Whip.

We had established a family tradition of patronizing the fixed price Holiday meal in the first floor main dining room, with its traditional New England decor, views of downtown Stowe, elegant table cloth place settings and fine service. This year we booked in October a table for two for 415PM for what should have been our fifth consecutive festive Christmas dinner. We paid the mandatory $75 non-refundable deposit at the October booking.

We arrived yesterday early at 400PM. The dining room hostess was temporarily unavailable while talking to the manager about "what to do with the people not on the list who need to dine downstairs". We checked in--observing that the dining room was completely empty. We were unceremoniously told there was no record of our reservation (fully deposited for over two months). Strangely they were aware of our deposit.

I pointed this out immediately and noted my complete willingness to wait until the booked time. The hostess nervously asked if we would wait until she could "check downstairs with the Whip". Note: Even if we had been willing to eat at the Whip no dinner reservation was required there and more importantly no deposit,

Two minutes later we were ushered downstairs and into a booth in the back of the bar--no table clothes--no window--and were offered the regular bar menu. Upon my protest the very kind and clearly embarassed waitress said she could go upstairs and get us the meal from the main diining room kitchen, but we would still need to dine in the bar--where already the volume was climbing. I asked to talk to the manager, who appeared after about five minutes.

I asked how it was that they could not accommodate us as booked and deposited for over two months in a still completely empty diining room and was told quietly, but firmly that this was impossible, as it would "evict" someone who had booked there (we apparently didn't count--even though the manager acknowledged the Whip required neither a reservation at that hour nor a deposit at any time).

Obviously either a mistake was made (repeatedly based on the over-heard conversation on arrival) or someone got greedy and decided to "bump" singles/couples from the main dining room to the basement Whip to free up more tables for larger groups, but in either case it was very clear no effort would be made to fix this other than to offer to carry upstairs food down to the Whip.

By now our meal was completely spoiled. We had driven 35 miles from our home to dine, had been customers since 1983, had booked the special Holiday main dining room meal since 2014 and the only acommodation offered other than a table in the dark back of the bar was a deposit refund. We accepted...

I don't normally leave reviews but I was not happy with how we were treated. I made a rsvp as needed in advance to eat on Friday at 6:30. We came here as a special treat for our honeymoon and were very excited to try the place out since the reviews seemed good, and it was apart of the place we were staying at (The Green Mountain Inn). Firstly, the older gentleman that I'm assuming was the host or manager (not sure which) was rather rude when me and my wife came to get seated. He was not welcoming and didn't greet us or look at either of us. Once we were seated we were greeted by our waitress Kathy, we ordered a local cider and beer since Vermont is known for them. She dropped off the canned beers with glasses which we poured ourselves, throughout our time there I noticed that the other waitstaff poured their beers for their customers. At this point we were ready to order appetizers (the cheese plate and a cup of corn chowder) and while I am starting to order our waitress Kathy cuts me off and states that we need to look over the menu longer since they are busy and food will take a long time to come out then walks off without taking our order for appetizers. This upset me quite a bit since again this was a special dinner for us, we are fully fine with food taking a while since we were on our honeymoon and were there to enjoy the evening with food and drinks. After several minutes the waitress came back, we then ordered our appetizers and food at the same time. At this point the waitress is not even looking me in the eye anymore and is only looking at my wife even when I ordered my food. After ordering, my wife and I agreed that we were not going to get more drinks or order dessert after the way she was treating us. Kathy brings out the soup first then a few minutes later the cheese plate, she didn't ask if we needed anything at either point. After a little while the main entrees came out and were dropped off by Kathy. I ordered the Gorgonzola Filet and my wife the Salmon, my filet was good, while my wife's salmon was overcooked and dry. Again, she never came back to check on us to see how the food was or to see if we were interested in more drinks. We ate what we wanted from the food and then waited for her to come back, I asked for the check and she still was not looking at me but at my wife instead. I paid the bill which came out to be $140 and gave her right about 15% for the tip which was more gracious than I should've been.

Over all I am very disappointed, the food was fine but the service that was given to us by Kathy was terrible and we left the...

Overall, we were not impressed by the food options in this area but Whip was a delightful exception. The Millennial Chum and I came by for an early dinner this past Saturday, getting in some much needed nourishment ahead of a big hike. The Stowe gastro situation in hindsight is pretty odd; there are definitely a lot of restaurants, but most of them have very limited/niche menus that we just weren't in the mood for. Whip had a lot going for it right from the get-go - edgy historical vibes and a wider array of entree options, spanning multiple genres. We almost missed it; I saw a subtle sign in a parking lot for it and recommended we at least walk in to check the menu. It turns out they have a much more obvious entrance further down Main Street, but no matter.

Since we went in the back way, we took a bit of a circuitous route to the entry, where we were warmly greeted by an older gentleman who took us into a back dining area past the bar. Loved the atmosphere; tons of ye olde wood all over the place, with a pretty heavy emphasis on the equestrian world - I'm pretty sure our booth had a saddle hung up on the wall next to it. The Millennial Chum also gamely took part in a photo session by the antique phone booth setup (TikTok jokes ensued).

There were a few items on the official menu that grabbed my attention but I emotionally imprinted on the specials pretty quickly. I opted for an herb-crusted halibut entree that I'm pretty sure had a citrus tinge to it. Absolutely delicious and hit the spot. The portion of halibut was generous and came with scrumptious mashed potatoes. The Millennial Chum got a Vermont cheddar chicken dish, I believe, and was also quite smitten. Unlike me, she actually knows how to exhibit portion control so part of the chicken came back to our lodgings, where it created a scrumptious smell in our fridge for a day or two.

The service was excellent as well. Our waiter had a touch of the quirk (by no means a negative - I always recognize members of my tribe) and was very "human," if that makes sense. Conversant, friendly and genuine. He was honest with respect to his assessment of the menu and its stronger items, and stopped by very regularly to check in on us. We were both drinking a lot of water and he was able to maintain the level in the glasses pretty well despite the constant guzzling.

This might literally be the only unequivocal restaurant recommend I have in the area - this is a ski town in the offseason so your options aren't the best right now. But you could do a lot...