Reading Room Restaurant at The Bar Harbor Inn

Food was excellent - especially the beet salad and the bouillabaisse! Desserts were average. Our server was very nice and attentive!

Beautiful!! Food was delicious.

We loved the Reading Rooms ambiance and the live piano music. The food and service were great with gorgeous views

Very friendly staff. Live music. Gorgeous view.

Husband and I ate here one night as part of our honeymoon; hostess and servers were all so sweet and took great care of us!! Our food was delicious and came promptly. There was lovely live piano music as well. When we ordered dessert, “Happy Honeymoon” was written in chocolate on the plate and our server even took a picture of us :) We look forward to coming back!!

It was fantastic!

The absolute best food we had while we visited bar harbor and we went to all recommended restaurants and highly rated restaurants while there.
The Reading Room was so much better than all of them. Highly recommend!

We go to Bar Harbor at least once every year and we always spend one evening at the Reading Room. It is very special with a wonderful view of sunset over the bay. We love the piano. The food and service is always first rate.

Everything was wonderful, except no decent decanter for our nice bottle of wine.

Wonderful Restaurant!

Excellent food and piano music

beautiful view, lovely ambiance but the duck breast was fatty and overcooked.
i was so looking forward to this dinner but overall was a bit disappointing especailly for the price. my husband had the lobster bisque which was the smallest cup of soup i have ever seen with a large crouton in the center to take up even more space from the small amount of bisque. i would give the quality of food 2 stars.

I came here with 6 members of my family and my now husband after we eloped in Acadia. What a wonderful dining experience! It was perfect for our needs, and we felt treated with such attention and excellence all evening. To cap it all off; there was even a live pianist who played the song that was supposed to be our first dance 🥰

Our first time at the Reading Room Restaurant. Overall it was a good experience, and this may be a bit picky, but you need to train your staff that at these prices, this is a dinning experience, not Applebee's. Before we were even comfortable in our seats, our wait person tried to take our drink and our entrée order together, never mind an appetizer. Then again another attempt before our pre dinner drinks arrived, it wasn't very busy, so what is the rush? Then when dinner was finished, a reminder (from us) that we might want dessert or a coffee, then a long wait for the check at the end. As I said, this may be picky, but this is a fine dinning establishment and it just didn't feel like one. It was also my wife's birthday, but no one picked up on that, or even asked why we selected the Reading Room Restaurant for dinner. This was a lost opportunity to build future return business.

The Reading Room is always wonderful. The atmosphere is elegant, the food delicious and the staff attentive. We make sure we eat here when traveling to Acadia and Bar Harbour. Wouldn’t miss it!

Excellent venue. Always enjoy the service, ambiance and food!

Everything was excellent except the hostess. We arrived early and the bar was full. She told us to wait in the lobby AND THAT SHE WOULD COME AND GET US. We waited until 15 minutes after our reservation and when I went to check there were numerous tables available. I pointed out that we had been waiting for her and she just shrugged. An apology would have been appropriate.

The food and service were great. I had the surf and turf for $42 which was the best I have ever had. Also had the lobster bisque...exceptional. The piano player added to the pleasant atmosphere. Only mild criticism I have is it is very bright in there. All white walls and white table clothes and bright chandelier and lighting. Could have toned that down a bit. Highly recommended!.

Beautiful restaurant, delicious food, attentive waitstaff. Thoroughly enjoyable experience

Great restaurant with the best view. Enjoyed our surf and turf

My husband and I celebrated with a beautiful meal at the Reading Room. We enjoyed the surf and turf which was excellent. The filet was cooked perfectly and the lobster tail was great. There was a pianist that evening with nice dinner music that lifted the spirit. I highly recommend this place.

We made reservations for a nice dinner for our family and was not disappointed. The food was great (Of course we had lobster) and generous proportions. The service was impecable and the atmosphere was very nice but not stuffy. I loved the piano! A wonderful evening.

Had wonderful live piano and striking views of the bay that just accentuated the great food and service

Wonderful experience. Food was fabulous but overpriced but worth it.

Not worth it. So many better spots in BH.

Outstanding service, food and atmosphere. Only regret is that we did not have a window seat with a view. Highly recommend!

My wife and I were staying at The Bar Harbor Inn and had dinner at the Reading Room to celebrate our 30th Anniversary. The staff were exceptionally kind and courteous, the ambiance was spectacular and the diner was exquisite! We had a fantastic dinner and after dinner experience. We were exceptionally happy with our servers at the bar, Sarah and Lee. They are both fantastic staff members!

The restaurant was beautiful but when we arrived, the server for our section never came over to us and we were assigned a different server who came from the other side of the restaurant! It was very strange and took a while to order and get our food. The food and drinks were great, a bit pricey but that is to be expected at a high end restaurant.

We felt like we were in a stuffy old hotel dining room from the 70's. The tables by the windows were in a pleasant lower light as opposed to those in the middle of the room which were positioned under an overly bright chandelier. When we asked the gentleman host if there was a table available by the window he immediately said it would be a 45 minute wait and offered no suggestion like checking on the status of the tables while we perhaps had a drink on the terrace. We ended up in the middle of the room and noticed a window table for two open up 15 minutes later....a very rude and arrogant welcome. The food overall was good, but nothing special. My husband took one spoonful of the lobster bisque and couldn't eat it. It tasted like a mouthful of cornstarch. It wasn't removed from the bill. Perhaps it has a lovely view before sunset, but there are better restaurant experiences in Bar Harbor and we would not recommend this one. We now understand why our B&B did not recommend it.

Wonderful food, historic atmosphere, and an awesome view.

We ordered a surf and turf and a ribeye. Both ordered as medium. Ribeye was rare, steak for surf and turf was well done. We did get the steak refired which came out better. We didn’t get an apology, a manager didn’t come over. Additionally, our waitress seemed overly stressed and didn’t pay us much attention. This is a very pricy meal and we expected the best service and experience, but didn’t receive this. The venue itself is gorgeous.

Food was delicious, don’t skip the bourbon pecan pie. Our server was friendly and attentive.

We are on vacation in Bar Harbor celebrating our 49 th wedding anniversary. We were excited to have a reservation at the Reading Room. We arrived on time and were promptly seated. We were seated near the piano player. We enjoyed his great music throughout the evening. When we returned to Cleftstone Manor, we told the owner hostess of our experience at The Reading Room and how great the meal was and the piano music all night. She revealed to us that the piano player was her husband! We were at the restaurant to see some of the sunset over the harbor. Our waiter was a real professional. No rush during the meal. The food was outstanding. My mushroom risotto appetizer was great, the bouillabaisse excellent and my bourbon pecan pie just perfect! The wine list was complete with plenty of reasonable priced wines. I would definitely put this restaurant on my list of high end restaurants that far exceeded my expectations. Jay K

The restaurant offers nice view of harbor. Tables are placed in safe distance, staff wearing masks following COVID-19 safety guidelines. Food quality is top notch. Seafood Bouillabaisse is perfectly cooked, render and juicy. Good selection of GF dishes.

Food was what you would consider "hotel grade". Quite disappointing considering the price. We had booked it for two nights, but after first night, we canceled the reservation and ate elsewhere.

Well socially spaced tables. Excellent service and delicious food.

Tremendous meal. Food was delicious and filling, ambiance with live pianist was great, and service was excellent. Pricey but well worth it.

We were celebrating our 30th anniversary. The restaurant was delightful with a soft piano player which played during dinner. The view was beautiful at 6:15 and caught the sunset. The food was excellent and the filet mignon cit like butter and was cooked to perfection. Highly recommend this restaurant.

Great dinner in a upscale setting. Only minor letdown was the vegetarian entree-barely cooked vegetables and a few ounces of quinoa.

beautiful restaurant! great meal! great service! loved the piano music