The Pilot House

Beautiful view but mediocre food; everything, no matter the dish was overly thyme infused. Service slow and inattentive.

This restaurant is good. Not great or excellent, but still good. We started with the scallop appetizer, and it was quite delicious. I got the evening special which was halibut with a pesto sauce. Pesto is a favorite of mine, and this one did not disappoint. However, the halibut was a bit overcooked which prevented the dish from being great in my opinion. The wait staff was also somewhat slow even though it wasn’t too busy. Although I’d attribute it more to understaffing than inattentiveness. The one part of this experience that I would give five stars to is the view. Request a widow seat if you can because it is stunning — especially at sunset.

Mixed berry gazpacho is unique in the world. Orange sesame salmon truly amazing. Never had lobster carbonara before, unbelievable. We plan on coming back here again and again.

Yikes! It’s not often that we experience something this bad, and maybe it was just a perfect storm of unusual bad for this place — you decide…
The Pilot House is part of an upscale resort complex and we were thrilled to have a «fancy» night out for our family’s last night (7÷5÷2013) in this clam shack town. I was so excited as they even had two vegetarian options on their menu. I called to see if we needed to make reservations or if we could just arrive. I was told that they were very busy from 6:30 on and we might not get a table if we don’t have a reservation. The woman on the phone also told me their dress code was resort casual which means no jeans, tank tops or flip flops. So I made our reservation for 6:15.
The dining room is large and airy and quite pretty. There were two other tables seated when we arrived and probably 20 – 30 empty tables. We were directed to a table next to the windows and right across from the hostess stand and immediately we noticed the shredded caning on all the chairs at our table. And after a quick look around, it looked like the restaurant needed to replace most of their chairs. I should have known from that first impression what we were in for, but we were so looking forward to a nice meal out together so we kept our optimism up…
Our waitress was all smiles and very pleasant. My husband and I both ordered a caesar salad to start and it was yummy even if the romaine had been cut hours earlier (from the tell-​tale rusty edges of the cut). I was also glad that it wasn’t served with croutons and the dressing wasn’t too heavy.
After asking the waitress which entrée she would suggest of the two vegetarian options, she suggested the Warm Summer Quinoa Salad $ 22 (Marinated tofu, Maine vegetables, avocado cilantro dressing). My husband ordered the Banana Leaf Haddock $ 25 (Coastal Maine haddock, crab stuffed, Meuniere sauce). And our son ordered a children’s cheeseburger with fries ($ 7.95) which looked like a slightly enlarged slider. He thought it was great!
My meal came in an oversized bowl/​dish with a huge heaping glob of quinoa with cubed zucchini and red bell peppers trapped within the sticky grain and topped with a large fanned quarter of avocado and three very yellowed celery leaves as garnish. The quinoa was overcooked and clumpy. The flavor was slightly sour, kind of bitter and the veggies were overcooked and mushy. I took three tries at tastes from different areas of the dish and all were frankly gross. Obviously the «chef» didn’t taste this dish before serving it. I mean how can someone make this yummy grain and local vegetable turn out so bad!!! So I waited to inform our waitress when she returned to ask how everything was…
My husband’s meal was delivered and as it was placed on the table by the runner, a piece of porcelain from the corner of his square dish fell onto the table. He noticed that the corner of his plate had been hit and slightly shattered. He didn’t see any evidence that the shards of glass had gone into his plate and his fish was completely encased in a sealed banana leaf. After waiting for 10 minutes for our waitress, he finally decided to unwrap the fish and give it a try. The fish looked perfectly cooked but there was no sauce and the crabmeat stuffing turned out to be a slight dusting of crabmeat ever so sparingly sprinkled on top of the fish before it was wrapped up. He said it had very little flavor whatsoever and he thought they might have forgotten to add the sauce.
After ½ an hour sitting and waiting for our waitress to return, I observed the other patrons in the restaurant. It was now 7:20 and the place was less than half full. Many patrons were dressed extremely casually and one woman was even in a jersey sundresses with flip flops and wet marks, having obviously just finished swimming. Having been passed by our waitress maybe a dozen times without acknowledging us, we flagged down another waitress desperate to order more drinks. When she noticed I was sitting in front of an untouched entrée, she asked if everything was okay. I asked her to take it away saying that it was not very good. She apologized and said that the manager would be over to speak with us.
At 7:30 our waitress arrived, all smiles asking if we were ready to order dessert. We updated her about our unfortunate meal and she also apologized. She rattled off all the dessert options and the children ordered the chocolate cake. Fifteen minutes later she returned with a slice of chocolate cake, and a slice of cheesecake. She said that they only had one slice left and she wouldn’t charge us for the cheesecake. We were the third table that night — how can they be out of chocolate cake?!! We asked for the bill so we could leave as quickly as possible. The manager never did pay us a visit, but the waitress removed the quinoa from our bill. We rushed out of there as I was hoping to hit a clam shack on the way back to our cabin as I was still mostly hungry!

We had a very nice meal here. We were camping at nearby Hermit Island and needed a night of civilization and dinner without a picnic table. The cocktails beforehand at their sister restaurant The Ledges were good but were short pours. The nicest part of The Ledges was their outdoor patio which made to a gorgeous start of our evening. At the Pilot House our salads were fresh and well portioned. We had four kids with us and they all enjoyed their selections from the kids menu. In addition, we found the wait staff and kitchen very amenable to substitutions, which we almost always have wherever we go! :-) Our main dishes were all very well prepared and the presentation was fantastic too. All in all, the Pilot House is worth checking out for a nice meal in the Bath, ME area.

Food was good, service excellent. Nice location and atmosphere.

My family and I stayed at Sebasco Harbor Resort during Labor Day weekend and we got a package deal called «Lobster and Lighthouses» which included dinner at The Pilot House (app, entrée, and dessert for each of us).
Dinner here was really amazing. First, the views are spectacular. We ate dinner while the sun was setting and the entire length of the restaurant has expansive windows that looks out onto the bay. The staff pulled the shades down in the late afternoon so that the light streaming in wouldn’t get in our eyes. They raised them later so that everyone could view the beautiful colors on the water.
I was describe the menu as creative twists on standard new American cuisine. Most memorable was the «lobster cappuccino» that I had as an appetizer – lobster bisque with some kind of foam on top. It was creamy, thick, and not too salty as I’ve found many a lobster bisque to be. My dad’s caprese salad was also revamped with pesto and sunflower seeds. The surf and turf special that night was filet mignon and 3 colossal shrimp – and they were truly massive. The filet mignon was so so soft and melted in my mouth. The duck breast had some sort of blueberry reduction– a nod to Maine’s abundant summer produce. And the lobster pot pie was also an upscale twist on an old standard.
We barely had room for dessert having completely devoured every bit of our entrees. (We also filled up on the complementary rolls and sweet butter, which was also so so good. The rolls were warm and chewy. I always appreciate when restaurants pay attention to the complementary bread.) But anyway, back to the dessert. We barely had room but we made some. We wish we could have been able to eat more than half of the Bailey’s cheesecake, because it blew away our palates. The taste of Bailey’s in the large slice was very strong– definitely didn’t skimp. The ice cream sundae and crème brûlée were also delicious.
Our server was so smiley and enthusiastic. I think her name was Karen. Not entirely sure, it was a while ago but she was so nice and gracious even though she knew we didn’t have to pay a dime extra with our deal. We tipped her well anyway :)