Asterisk Bar and Restaurant

 Chicken Milanse

 Belgian Drunken Beef

stick found in the Belgian Beef

We ate at Asterisk on a Sunday and had an absolutely terrible experience. We made a reservation using OpenTable for 9:15 p.m., but arrived early, at 8:45 p.m. The host informed us that no table was currently available and we'd have to wait until our reservation time, but we could wait at the bar.  We were in no rush, so this was perfectly fine.

However, there were numerous empty tables around the restaurant, some clean, some still dirty. None of the wait staff ever made any attempt to clean the dirty ones.  So we waited a half hour for a table just because no one could take the time to clean tables after other customers left.

It seemed that the busing staff wasn’t on duty Sunday night, as the wait staff was in charge of busing tables, setting tables, serving food and drinks, taking payment and more.

That said the biggest issues came after this. When we were finally seated, it was at a table adjacent to the bar. The tables on either side of us were still dirty from the previous patrons, and remained dirty during our entire meal.

Once we were seated, it took 15 minutes for a waitress to speak to us and bring menus, and this only happened after we said something to the host.

Because the table was adjacent to the bar, and after about 9:30 p.m., the restaurant becomes more of an evening stop on the Newport bar scene, it became very uncomfortable, as bar guests were bumping into the chair at our table as they moved around and bumped into each other.

I can’t even recommend the food. It was mediocre. The Belgian Drunken Beef we ordered had the wood stem left in it from one of the herbs (I hope) and the chicken was bland.