Acquaviva Restaurant and Bar — Restaurant in Wantage

Make sure you enter Wantage in your GPS. It defaults to Hamburg and brings you 2 miles down Rt 23.

Below this is my previous review, prior to eating here. As of 7/27 I am updating my review after visiting twice.

My wife and I had a few meatballs as a little appetizer. They were obviously not some frozen lumps of meat and bread that came from a distributor. These were, I was informed by the friendly waitress, award winning meatballs! Not sure the details on the award, but I understand! They were absolutely delicious and melted in your mouth. Tender and tasty. The cheese in it and/or on it was premium as well. The sauce on it (I grew up calling it gravy) was very good, and I am critical on this.

For the main course I had the recommended black label pork chop. My wife ordered the Dijon Salmon. The Black Label Pork Chop was excellent. Honestly I am not normally one to order a pork chop at a restaurant, but my son said I had to try it. Glad I did! I included some pictures of it. It was firm but juicy. The gravy on it was to die for. If I had a complaint it would be that it didn’t have enough of the gravy! :-P My plate was cleaned dry of any remains with bread after I finished the meal.

My wife, who always says she could eat salmon every day loved the dijon salmon, especially the dijon sauce over it. We each tried each others food, so I must say that salmon was delicious as well.

My only regret was not ordering some Italian food, especially since the sauce tasted so good on the meatballs. I will next time though.

I can’t say enough about this place. It is beautiful inside. The staff were very accommodating and friendly. I included lots of pictures and a couple quick videos. There is also a good sized banquet facility downstairs but as of today, it is undergoing construction. I believe it will be ready before the end of the Summer.

PRIOR REVIEW:

I was just reading a post about this in Nextdoor. I would not normally give a review when I haven't personally been there but in this case, I will make an exception. My son runs an Italian Restaurant in Myrtle Beach. He has been in the food industry, mostly Italian, for the last 13 years or so. Not to mention 31 years of Italian Heritage!

His best friend is the sous chef here, so of course he went there on a recent visit back to NJ. He said the food is phenomenal! He knows I will not normally even eat pasta at most Italian restaurants because my pallet demands perfection in the sauce! He told me not to worry and order away. He had pork chops and loved them, along with a few samples of other items his friend brought him from the kitchen. I am hoping to get there this week and will follow up and edit this with my own personal experience, along with some pics. Please review yourself after a visit! We need to support our local restaurants! It's been tough on the industry the last year or so. All of them are struggling to get employees now as well. So any restaurant you visit right now, try and keep that in mind if things take a little longer...

Expensive for mediocre food....sussex county still reigns as the worst county in NJ for food.! Acquaviva....let's start at the beginning, 7 pm reservations....seated us at 7:30. Had an Eye opening experiance while waiting in the reception area, I over heard the waitress tell the hostess they were out of pork chops and only had 1 strip steak left. At 7pm on a saturday night! Ok, we get seated. We ordered meatballs and calamari for appy. No more calamari. The meatballs were mushy not soft, mushy and were burned on the bottom. They were horrible....so in place of the calamari we get a shrimp appy. Takes a special chef to make bland shrimp in a spicey sauce. So now we are onto entree....1 order of panko chicken parm, 1 order of chicken V that was stuffed with spinach, gorgonzola and prosciutto, and the last strip steak in a red tomato sauce. The chicken parm over spaghetti....the breading was mush, the gravy was seeping water and was just ok. The next chicken dish was dry as a bone in a brown wine sauce with mushrooms. It had a strange taste, cant quite place the herb, but whatever it was, it did not work. The dish came with a small amount of mashed potatoes and 10 string beans. The prosciutto was non existent. Also, ordered the side of spinach and a side of mushrooms. The spinach was drenched in oil with some burned garlic chunks and some raw garlic chunks. The mushrooms were grossly under cooked. The steak came out with 4 lemon slices on top of it, no red tomato sauce as was ordered, the steak was good. Let's also note we ordered a blue moon beer and got a Sam Adam's on draft. The waitress knew she gave us the wrong beer, but that was quickly rectified. In short, at 7 pm on a saturday night no pork chops, one strip steak, no calamari. These are the menu staples, not specials. Sorry Acquaviva our food was mediocre at best, and for $210.00 we should have gotten something much, much better. And.....the place was packed....I dont get it...

I was so excited to try this restaurant! We are from out of town and my family ravs about it. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a disappointment. Overall the staff is extremely welcoming and friendly HOWEVER the service was tedious. We waited over 30 mins for someone to come and welcome us at the table, and ultimately ask for our drink order. 15 mins later, still no drinks, no bread (although other tables had theirs, that arrived after us), we got up asked for menus, bread, and our drinks. Almost an hour into our reservation time,our drinks finally arrived, one, by one. Finally our orders were taken. Refills on drinks were never offered. We had to get up yet again to find someone to replenish the bread, we were starving at that point, and to refill our drinks. The bread baskets (we were a table of 13), came out one by one, as did drinks. No one ever checked on us. The salads were okay. The Caesar salad was heavily dressed with little to no taste other than VERY fishy. The bread was delicious, as was the red sauce. Everyone was happy with their dishes (we were surprised at the price of each dish, it was somewhat expensive). The food is good. Some dishes better than other, but overall it was a very tasty meal. The chef definitely knows what he is doing. Again, the staff is very pleasant BUT the service was so slow, it ruined the meal/experience. The space itself where we were seated was very, very, very tight. They packed everyone at the back of the restaurant, one table right on top of the other, so there was little to no privacy or space to move. It was very odd. I wish the restaurant well because the food is good, expensive, but tasty. The service has to...