Meridian Restaurant — Restaurant in Winston-Salem

In a word... underwhelming. When we see a fine dining restaurant with prices like Meridian, the bar of expectations are high. Including 20% gratuity, we spent $52/person. DRINKS: My parents and wife all got tap water... and evidently after you order your meal, you're not allowed anymore. Refills were never offered again. I got the spring water, and had to give myself a refill most of the time from the bottle. There were a couple of waiters serving about four or five tables, so I'm not sure how service could have been much easier. My dad and I got some beers, both of us asking questions about the craft beer list, but the waiter couldn't tell us and didn't offer any draft samples, so we made educated guesses. But, we were never offered more beer once we finished the first round early on. Eventually I ordered a Diet Dr Pepper (which the waiter didn't know they didn't have). A couple minutes later he showed back up to tell me the bad news. So I opted for a regular Dr Pepper (which he didn't know they didn't have, even after the first trip). A couple minutes later he recommended a Diet Coke. So I complied. This was during the meal, and once again like the waters, either the waiter didn't give a dang or refills aren't allowed. I went thirsty the last half hour. FOOD: Mom's snapper was the best plate on the table and was honestly really good. Dad got the yellowfin tuna, and it fell short. The man loves tuna and loves food, and this is the first time in my life I've seen him push his plate away about halfway through. I asked him, and he politely said, "It was ok." That means it sucked. My wife got the antelope, and admittedly it was our first time trying that meat. She asked the waiter if he would recommend it, and he informed us he'd never tried it. What? TGIFridays makes their wait staff sample every dish. How is it the Meridian has wait staff that doesn't know what the dishes taste like? In short, the third most expensive plate on the menu had good taste and was chewy. She even had me try to cut it with a steak knife, which proved somewhat difficult, rubbery. I opted for the Duck 3-Ways, which was actually 2 ways. I ordered it rare, but it came out well done. So I spent 10 minutes trying to flag down my waiter to request a redo. He finally came over, and I showed him the error. He repeated back to me, apologizing that it was undercooked. I corrected him. No, it was overcooked (as he can see and remember from my rare order). I suggested I try a different dish, since the duck was botched. The waiter insisted I try the duck again, twice. So I eventually complied. So he took my plate, had the kitchen cooked it again, and got it medium rare. I'll take it. The second time, it was actually pretty good. The down side was I got to eat my $37 bird alone, since my family had already stopped eating. No discount for the blunder was offered. Beware Winston-Salem. Happy 45th Anniversary to my parents. It was our first and last time...

Where do I begin with this review. I'll start with walking through the front door. We were met at the host stand and asked if we had a reservation (we did, although there were only 3 tables with customers at 6:30). We were treated like we were late. When we were seated, I checked the time and we were 5 minutes early. We were asked if we would like a cocktail. I ordered one and it came out incorrect. I had to ask for olives twice. We also ordered a bottle of wine. When we ordered an appetizer, we were immediately asked to order our dinner. Was our waitress expecting a rush on customers?! The restaurant was almost empty! We told her we were in no hurry at all. My wife and I were celebrating our anniversary and just wanted a relaxing dinner. About 5 minutes after our drinks came, we were asked again if we had decided on our dinner order. Can we just enjoy a drink? Our appetizer hadn't even come out yet. We again declined on ordering an entree in fear it would arrive at the same time as our appetizer! As soon as our appetizer came out, we were asked to place our entree order. We begudgingly did and asked our waitress for her recommendation because we hadn't been there in 12 years. Big mistake! "Order the steak", she said, "it will melt in your mouth". We said we would take her recommendation and split the entree after checking the menu to see if there was a charge to split an entree. There wasn't a splitting cost stated on the menu or by our waitress. Now to be fair, the steak was cooked to order. Medium rare, but it didn't come close to melting in our mouths. No favor even with the mound of butter they put on top and the fat - every other bite was fat and gristle. Not good especially in an "upscale" restaurant with very high prices. Also, please clear the table of a finished cocktail glass and appetizer plates instead of having your customers stack them up to get them out of their way. I'll spare you from everything else and get to the check. When the check came, I looked at it and to my shock there was an upcharge for splitting the entree! Is this even legal when not stated on the menu (it seems they print their menu daily as there was a date printed at the top of the menu) or when the server doesn't mention it? Seriously, is it legal to charge more than the listed price without any notice??? My cocktail mentioned above was a vodka martini and cost me $15. How much were the olives?? That drink is typically between $7-9 at every nice restaurant in town!!! The one star is for the appetizer. The mussels were very good, but not worth another visit given everything else that was wrong. The highlight of the evening was my beautiful wife forgiving me for taking her to this restaurant for our special evening. In hindsight, we should have left before getting to the host stand when we noticed there were only 3 tables with diners on a Saturday night at 6:30. I won't make this...

DO NOT GO HERE. We had perhaps the worst experience here that we have ever had at a restaurant. We made a reservation for my son’s college graduation dinner, thinking that this was an upscale establishment. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The waiter could not speak English very well and had incredible difficulty taking our drink order; he did not know what a vodka soda was, and he returned to the table twice to ask us to repeat our straightforward cocktail orders (everything we said was listed on the menu, and even then he was confused). The cocktails never arrived, and after twenty minutes we politely inquired after them; in a remarkably rude tone, he told us that they were understaffed and it wasn’t his problem, despite the fact that at least half of the restaurant was empty. When we went to the bar to ask about the drinks, since after ten more minutes the drinks still hadn’t arrived, and the bartender looked surprised and said the order had never been placed.

The appetizers we ordered came out in under five minutes, however, which makes me think that they were premade and sitting under a heat lamp. The calamari was genuinely inedible; it was slimy, undercooked, and I spit it out because I wasn’t sure it was safe to consume. I cannot emphasize enough how disgusting this dish was. The beef tartar was gross and gloppy . The French onion soup, which is hard to mess up, was bland and tasteless: it was topped with a slice of half-melted, presliced cheese. And finally, the appetizer salad was truly two leafs of lettuce doused with oil.

We left after that; we had to chase down the waiter because he wouldn’t bring the bill. It was an incredible disappointment for what was supposed to be a celebratory night.

TLDR: So terrible it’s...