The Deauville Inn — Restaurant in Upper Township

My wife and I visited The Deauville Inn last night. Our family has a house in Ocean City but it was my first time at The Deauville and my wife's second visit.

We arrived around 7:30pm for our 7:45pm reservation and as I expected, it was a busy Saturday night. We were seated promptly at 7:45pm and and greeted by our server. I wish I could remember her name (short brunette) because she was a wonderful server the entire night.

After reviewing the menu, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to try one of each because everything sounded so good.

For appetizers, we chose two. We started off with the Deauville Platter which consisted of 4 collosal cocktail shrimp (the were huge and meaty. I joked to my wife that it felt like I was eating small lobster tails), 4 raw clams (very fresh, probably the best raw clams I've ever had), 4 raw oysters (delicious) and 4 or 6 (can't remember exactly) marinated mussels which were also very good. I love seafood and I've eaten seafood in Boston, Maine, Baltimore and all throughout New Jersey but this was by far the best combination of a seafood appetizer that I've ever had in my life.

The second appetizer that we chose were the lobster hush puppies. When they arrived, we were shocked with how big they were. I'm not a fan of hush puppies or biscuits in general but wow, these hush puppies had a great flavor and were prepared perfectly. I only had one because I was getting full after the seafood platter but I did enjoy them.

Next, I had heard about/read reviews of the She Crab soup so I had to try it. My wife and I shared a bowl of it. I love all types of chowder and while I still think Boston has the best "chowdas" in the country, the She Crab soup at The Deauville Inn was tasty. My wife thought it was a little too sweet (yes, sweet....not salty.) It was a peculiar taste but not in a bad way. Despite its appearance, you can't compare this soup to a chowder which sometimes tends to have bacon and a slight salty flavor. The She Crab is sweet which I enjoyed but it didn't blow my socks off. If I were to rate some of the best New England chowders a 9.5 or 10, I'd have to give the She Crab a solid 8.0 or 8.5.

For our meals, I ordered the broiled scallops with french fries and my wife ordered the Deauville tavern burger with potatoes. I love scallops and these were prepared perfectly and there were about 7 or 8 decent sized scallops. The scallops were plated with a large serving of delicious thin french fries. I still can't figure out whether the fries were cooked in beef tallow and/or what they were seasoned with, but wow they were great. Now, to the biggest shock of the night, my wife's burger. Neither of us aren't really fans of thick hamburgers but the tavern burger at The Deauville is the perfect thickness. It was served on a buttery brioche bun and topped with aged cheddar cheese and caramelized or fried onions.I ended up eating half of it because my wife was full and holy mackerel, this was the greatest cheeseburger I've ever sunk my teeth into! Everything about this burger was perfect, the quality of the beef, the bun, the cheese, onions. Who would have thought, a shore town restaurant with a large seafood selection would serve such an incredible cheese burger?!

As we finished up our meal, I said to my wife "it's about time we finally had such a great meal from start to finish". After all of that food, I was hurtin' (in a good way) and just could not fit dessert but we did ask the waitress to take a look at the dessert menu for next time. We already know that we want to try to bread pudding!

I can see why this restaurant is so popular. The chef and the chef's team has done an amazing job. The servers at this place are good at what they do and the all provide prompt, thorough service. Lastly, the management is top notch and I highly commend you for running a well oiled machine.

If anyone is looking for a new restaurant to try as I was, I can't recommend The Deauville Inn enough. My wife and I will definitely be back......

I’m giving a very thorough review and 4 stars instead of 5 because I really liked this place but noticed some things that could be improved to make it even better.

The atmosphere is great!! It was exactly the vibe we were looking for outside! I love that they have a waiting area on the beach and corn hole games. There are tv screens on the sunset deck and a Phillies game was playing. It wasn’t overly rowdy but the entire place would shout occasionally. We don’t watch sports but it wasn’t disruptive - just people enjoying the shore. It’s a place with an overall fun atmosphere. I think on certain nights it would be too much fun for us, personally, but that’s why we went on a Monday.

The sandbar is not in the sand. It’s overlooking the picnic table area (which is in the sand). Next to the bar is an area for events with cabanas, picnic tables with umbrellas, corn hole, a couple of small bars which weren’t open I assume because they’re only used during events. The floor in this area was artificial turf which was gives it a lawn game kind of feel but it’s not really installed correctly so there are really obvious seams in the turf. 🤷🏻‍♀️

It’s on the bay so arriving at 7:30pm was perfect timing to see the sunset before being seated and still have enough light to eat once dinner got to the table. Service was friendly and knew answers to any questions we had. Prices are VERY high - seemingly overpriced yet I don’t know their food costs so who can really say. If they use a lot of local ingredients, that could be why. Compared to other seafood places they seem inflated.

Inside seemed like a totally different atmosphere - I went in to find the restroom and noticed it was very dark. Dark wood-look tile floors, wood walls, wood bar, brown tin ceiling. If I didn’t know that they renovated recently I would say it looked a little dated. No big deal - just not design choices I would have made for this place. Still nice just didn’t have continuity with the outside spaces.

Ok now into the menu. This is really my only complaint.

We both had piña coladas that didn’t taste right. My first thought was lime juice or something was in it? They were garnished with an orange instead of pineapple. Basically, it wasn’t delicious. We only had one each. The Bavarian pretzel was served on a hanger, which was fun. My husband had calamari and I noticed he was not eating parts of it because of a sauce drizzle that he didn’t like. My scallops were delicious. I didn’t eat my mashed potatoes or zucchini, normally two of my favorite foods. The potatoes tasted “farmy” which I am guessing means they made them with farm fresh milk or cheese. I like that idea, in theory, but I don’t want to be transported to the farm and reminded of the smell of manure. The zucchini tasted extremely fishy. My husband had a burger and mashed potatoes and ate it so that must have been good although he also commented on the farmy taste in the mashed potatoes.

My big comment on the menu is that they need a vegetarian entree at all three of the dining locations on property. I am a vegetarian that eats scallops but none of my other vegetarian friends would find anything to eat here besides a salad. I understand that it’s mostly a seafood place but when people go out it’s usually a mixed crowd and that factors into restaurant choices.

Final comment - the website and social media do not provide enough information about the menus, the different spaces, what it’s like to go there, etc. I saw mostly the special events featured on social and a history timeline on the website. The identity of the place is a little confusing. I have some ideas regarding that but my review is long enough already.

For those who made it this far - I hope this review was helpful. It’s just dinner, it’s not that serious. Go and decide...

We had our wedding her this summer. The good part is that we loved our wedding and our guests did too! The professionalism of the wait and banquet staff was remarkable and commented on by several of our guests. The venue is quite beautiful for a bayside wedding in the sand and the reception area was wonderful too, although on a hot sunny day like we had, the overhead tent clear top made it a little hot for our guests. Maybe a few white panels overhead would have cooled things down a bit. Overall the food was top notch.

We reserved our wedding at The Deauville Inn a year in advance, to be "grandfathered in" at June 2023 prices since they would be increasing for June 2024. One week before we needed to pay the balance off, we were given our final contract to review. Up until this time, the Catering & Special Events Director was very nice, accessible, and responded promptly to any of our concerns. We reviewed the updated contract and found that instead of being charged last year's prices of $100 pp, we were being charged a flat rate of $5000. Going by our original contract, we had 34 guests at $100 pp so a total of $3400 for that portion of the bill. Our guests' seating arrangements were changed as well without our input. We emailed our concerns and heard nothing back. We then showed up in person the day before our bill was due to speak to the event director, she came down to greet us and said she was in a meeting and would come down to talk to us when it was over. We said ok since we were in town and staying there for dinner anyway. She never came back down. This was on a Friday and our bill was due the next day. Once Saturday came and we didn't hear back, we thought our wedding might be cancelled. This was very stressful. Once Tuesday came, I called and texted her and she finally got back to us that there was no problem altering the guest seating arrangements to what we wanted, but the $5000 fee was "the best they could do" given the rising costs to them. We ended up rushing a bank check to them for the full amount since we did not want to argue so close to our wedding. Isn't the point of being "grandfathered in" that you pay the prices at the previous agreed amounts? As far as we are concerned, they overcharged us $1600 and broke our contract.

We had a friend do our floral arrangements, someone with decades of event design experience. She also experienced a total lack of communication with the event director which left her unimpressed.

We paid a $500 fee for security since we had a potential very serious issue with an uninvited guest showing up. On the day of our wedding the event director did not introduce us to the security team to show them a picture of who to be on the lookout for. After our wedding we contacted the event director about this, telling her we saw no security present and we would like to be refunded the $500. She got back to us and said that they had four security personnel stationed around the venue and that is "not possible that we didn't see them". We thought this was very rude and unprofessional. She immediately refunded the $500 fee and wished us well. We took this as she had no desire to interact with us again.

We never thought this would turn out as it did, since working with the event director for the many months leading up to our wedding, she was the model of professionalism and support. We know all the reviews are glowing for The Deauville Inn, but we just want future brides and grooms to be aware of what our...