High Hope Tavern — Restaurant in Westerly

Starting with the good: It’s a beautiful location and the menu and cocktail/ wine selection is exceptional. The food was absolutely delicious. We started with Anchovies, i had the clams and my husband had fish and chips. If I were leaving this review strictly based on the food, it would easily be five stars.

My complaints are more with the positioning and hospitality of the restaurants staff. upon being seated the server went through the menu with us and let us know that the secondi section of the menu was great for sharing. Maybe shareable by New York City portion standards but by Rhode Island portion size standards, you would be disappointed if you only ordered one entrée to share. especially if you didn’t get a couple of appetizers first.

Now for the experience. We went in the Saturday evening before Mother’s Day for a little early Mother’s Day celebration. We had a 5pm reservation and had our 12 month son with us. From the moment I walked in the door with him we were looked at by the wait staff as if we had brought a rabid dog into the restaurant. we weren’t offered a highchair, we weren’t offered anything at all for him. When I requested a highchair, I was told that they would “try and find one”.

I am all for elevated dining, but you’re in a very vacation and family friendly area so you need to be prepared for the fact that you’re going to have young children in the restaurant. And you’re not a fine dining establishment, the name of your restaurant is literally tavern. If you didn’t want to attract families, this name and location might not have been the right choice. As a Mom (and server in a past life) I am fully aware of the challenges of young children in restaurants, but families of young children shouldn’t...

Wow, we were really blown away by High Hope Tavern. Places in Westerly can be good, but not quite there, High Hope has a NYC connection and it really shows.

First, the food is inventive and top tier. Fresh Oysters, of course, but inventive dishes like the local fluke crudo with sea chives (I think) and Harissa Mussels. The linguini and clams was even perfectly al dente (often a reach here) with a touch of lemon zest etc.

But most importantly I was kind of blown away by crew, from the receptionist working to find us a table for an expanded group, to our fabulous waitresses, to Pete recommending and pouring us some fabulous wines. Everyone was incredibly friendly, not always the case, especially with a place that is in so high demand with its fabulous local cuisine.

As to vibe, I was wondering if we were still in Westerly. Don’t get me wrong, people here are great, but this was a crowd more like you’d find on LES than up here. And the decor etc was great.

It was my first time. Boy,...

I went here for my birthday, the place was busy but not full. My 8.5 mos pregnant friend arrived ten minutes early was told she couldn't sit down until the entire party arrived which I found to be rude because the table was ready.

The restaurant was EXTREMELY loud, to the point where five people could not all participate in one conversation so we had to carry on two different convos. The music was far too loud for the terrible acoustics.

The lighting was also horrible. The decor and design was nice from what I could see; the seating spaces were very tight.

I think if you're paying really good money to eat somewhere, they should give you new cutlery after appetizers. And not leave dirty cutlery on the table as you're waiting for entrees.

The overall feeling is that place caters to their bar patrons over their dinner guests. The atmosphere was very...