Aberdeen Barn Steakhouse — Restaurant in Virginia Beach

New favorite steakhouse/chophouse

The quick and general: -Fantastic all the way around, food and service. -Great atmosphere -A bit pricey, but your getting quality ingredients and knowledgeable service.

The long winded details:

This review may be all over the place as I am still overexcited about the meal I had about an hour ago. Let me start by first and foremost mentioning Greta, Max and Jeff. Without the front of the house (wait staff), there would be no personal touches to such an experience! We had reservations for the night through "Opentable" to celebrate our one year anniversary. We had gotten bored with the normal restaurants that we frequent and wanted to try something new. Whenever we go to a new restaurant I always ask the server for their recommendations as they should know what is hit and miss as far as menu items. Greta was our server and Max was her trainee, (don't let that throw you off). As we were going through the menu, Greta asked us for drink selections as well as told us it was Happy Hour. I ordered an Old Fashioned (Rye) and my wife had a sweet table wine. The mixologist made a great Old Fashioned, the wife prefers her sweet wine chilled to which Max was at the ready and immediately took it to the bartender who chilled it with some ice in a shaker and promptly returned the wine which made her happy, (see how the personal service is coming to play here). Greta told us the specials of the night and her recommendations of the Boom Boom shrimp and She Crab soup. I warned her I had went to college in Charleston, SC and would be judgmental on the soup; she welcomed the challenge. I hate, but Love that she was right, now I can have the most amazing she crab soup here in VB! The shrimp have a nice spice to them which we will certainly have again. Our main course was the Filet. Both of our steaks were cooked to perfection, hers a Medium and mine a mid-rare. To top this off was a table side melting of the compound butter on top of the steak with a torch! It's the simple things like this that will keep your clientele coming back for more! Our steaks were served with salads and truffle shrimp and cheese mac. We also had onions and mushrooms as a side dish...to say our stomachs were bigger than our eyes would be an understatement. I can't stress how much I enjoyed that steak. The perfect amount of seasoning, tableside searing with butter tableside and to my surprise was the last little detail...the onions and mushrooms. If you get nothing else from this restaurant, get your favorite cut of beef with the onions and mushrooms! Those onions are like the cherry on top!!! The flavor from the onions being soaked in au jus with the earthiness of the mushroom is just so perfect. I can't recall the last time I had such a wonderful meal. From the service to the food to the atmosphere (rustic). The whole dining experience was spot on. Talking about the atmosphere, they have dry aging systems located at various places within the restaurant. This will definitely be our go to spot for a night out. Jeff, I may be wrong on this, the assistant manager or floor manager was helpful with the staff. You could see him assisting them as well as checking on customers to ensure everyone was happy. He also saw us taking pictures and was quick to offer a photo shot for us. He also made sure the meal was to our expectations to which we said with a resounding "Exceeded our expectations"!

I apologize for the long review, but it was certainly warranted for such an experience! *I would have attached photos, but we dug in so quickly and was having such a wonderful time; the opportunity was missed. But it won't...

Overall: 2 stars – Service was great, but the food fell short.

My husband and I chose this restaurant to celebrate our wedding anniversary, largely due to the glowing reviews we saw on Google. Unfortunately, while the service was lovely, the food did not meet my expectations given the price point of the establishment. Here’s a breakdown of our experience:

Appetizers: Raw Oysters: We took a chance and ordered half a dozen raw oysters. Upon inspection, we discovered a small, live orange parasitic worm wiggling on one of the shells. We brought this to our waitress’s attention, and she promptly replaced the batch with a new one. Thankfully, the replacement was free of issues (we double-checked).

Oysters Rockefeller: These were overwhelmingly salty—so much so that neither of us could eat more than one. It was as though we were eating a clump of pure salt. I wish I was exaggerating. Once again, we mentioned this to our waitress, who kindly replaced the dish with a much-improved batch.

Crispy Calamari: No complaints here. It was cooked well and tasted like your standard plate of calamari.

She Crab Soup: Absolutely delicious

Main Entrées: I ordered the cowboy cut Delmonico steak—a bone-in, 20oz steak aged for 40 days—with sides of mashed potatoes and a Caesar salad. The steak was thick and massive, but when I cut into the center, it was clear it was severely undercooked. I had ordered it medium-rare, but the interior was so rare that my husband described it as “black and blue.” Worse, the center wasn’t even warm. I flagged this issue to our waitress, who sent it back to the kitchen to be cooked more. When it returned, the steak was slightly better but still not up to my standard. On a brighter note, the mashed potatoes and Caesar salad were both excellent.

Overall Thoughts: The biggest disappointment was the lack of care in food preparation, particularly for a restaurant at this price point. For a steakhouse, the execution of the steak—a signature item—should be precise, but it wasn’t. The experience gave off a “quantity over quality” vibe.

Service: The silver lining of the evening was the service, which was exceptional. Our waitress was kind, and empathetic to the issues we encountered. She graciously removed the Rockefeller oysters from our bill and even gave us an additional $20 off, unprompted. At the end of our meal, she asked if we were celebrating anything. While we were hesitant to mention our anniversary (given the evening’s disappointments), we eventually did. To our surprise, she brought us complimentary glasses of champagne and a slice of cheesecake with whipped cream, which was a sweet touch.

The Next Day: We had plenty of leftovers—enough for a second dinner for the both of us—and my husband reheated the steak and mashed potatoes at home the next evening. Surprisingly, the steak tasted better after being baked in the oven than it did in the restaurant. Lol!

Thanks...

I enjoyed this place when we visited for the first time during the week so I recommended this place for our father's retirement celebration. I have said so many good things about this place to my family so we were pretty excited. I called to make a reservation for the weekend dinner and on the day, we arrived about 15 to 10 minutes early. When we arrived, the server asked our name couple of times and went in to check on the seat. We thought we would be seated soon so we waited but it took some time.

When he returned, he said there were two tables available but it would be separated. I was little upset because I called in to make the reservation before and I emphasized that it was quite important date for us. I told him that I was confused because I have already made a reservation and that I wanted all of us to be seated together. He shrugged and said, "it's only like three feet away. What's the problem?"

I told him once again that I wanted all of us to be seated together. He went back inside and we waited. It was a while and people were coming in and he appeared again and told us to move aside because we were blocking the traffic. He told us to either stand on the side or move out the way. Ummmm yeah. Now I was upset.

I couldn't believe they were treating us like this and this was unacceptable. I was frustrated and someone who saw us approached us and asked us what was wrong. I explained my situation and told him that I was uncomfortable because I have a reservation for :30 and today was very important for us and we were expecting some decent service.

He checked the clock, it was 25-27 and he was repeating the time as if us coming early was our fault for not being given a table. He was loudly talking about us like "these 'good/wonderful' people had reservation for :30 and it's :25 and they are not given a seat yet. They are here early and yet they are not seated. They feel uncomfortable because they are not serviced."

Everyone was watching us and I felt terrible because it made me feel like it was my fault for coming early (like 10-15 minutes) and was asking for a table that could accommodate all my family members, which I requested when I made the reservation the day before. We were finally seated and was served with our food.

My family enjoyed the meal but today's experience really made me question my future choice to come back here again or to recommend this place to someone else.

I checked via online to see if arriving 15 to 10 minutes early is considered rude or unacceptable in America and I see that it isn't so I am just curious as to think why this had to happen to us on such an...