Lakeview Lounge — Restaurant in Alberta

Embarrassing service. I visited the restaurant on January 1st with a party of 9(7 adults&2 children).We were all looking forward to spending the first day of 2022 by the lake. Before I get into my complaint, I’d like to pay a special thanks to Theresa(welcoming host). She was extremely polite and very accommodating to our needs to seat us at our preferred table. I must say, we felt that we are very special guests of Lakeview Lounge. THANK YOU THERESA. But, the experience goes downhill from there on. Unfortunately, our server Bhavneesh did not extend this courtesy. His behaviour since we took our seats was appalling, particularly for a restaurant with such high standards. We asked for extra forks and he rudely told us that they were already on the table. We repeated that we knew there are forks on the table, but we wanted extra forks (a very simple request). He finally did give us ONE extra fork.To avoid asking him again, we actually asked another server walking by for extra forks, and she happily gave us a few.

Next, when our food came, the person who ordered the steak noticed that it was cooked closer to a well done than the requested medium. We brought this to Bhavneesh’s attention and he began arguing that it was a medium and insisted it was done perfectly. We had a couple of avid steak eaters on the table, so I like to think we were right, but regardless, the way Bhavneesh reacted was totally out of line. I’ve been to much more “casual” restaurants who have had no problem replacing a steak if the cook is not up to satisfaction. For him to spark up an argument left me dumbfounded. I’ve never seen this type of playground behaviour from a waiter, let alone one at such a highly reputed restaurant.

Lastly, the most disgusting behaviour is what he did with the bill. As we were a party of 9, gratuities were already added to our bill. I paid with both cash and a pre-paid credit card. When I was paying the difference with cash, I asked for change for my $20 bill, Bhavneesh strangely became infuriated, even though he knew that the tip had already been covered. He then tried to mock me by returning the $20 bill pretending to give me a tip, saying “keep the change, we don’t need it”. Is this how the Fairmount Hotel’s restaurant management teaches waiters to serve customers? To humiliate them? By the way, we had kids on the table, which makes his behaviour even more disgusting. Despite Bhaneesh’s behaviour, we were never rude in return. We kept our voices down and carried on showing our kids how to react when someone is being a bully. However, I did think it was important to bring this to your management’s attention, so future guests are not faced with the same mistreatment and...

My husband and I drove to Lake Louise for my birthday, I’ve always wanted to go inside the hotel so we decided to make a special trip of it and go in for lunch. The views and atmosphere were stunning. We ordered our meals, I asked for some bread to start. It was great, I asked for some salt for the butter and they brought me an empty salt shaker. Funny but not a big deal, then we waited… and waited… and waited.

We waited over an hour for our food. We thought the kitchen must be busy. Tables that had come after us had eaten and paid and we still had no food. The manager comes out with our meals and apologizes, they didn’t put the order through, they let us know comped our meals. Ok, no big deal. We smile and dig in. I got the prawn linguine, it was swimming in oil. You can see from the picture the sauce is separated, it had no flavour and was swimming in about a full cup of oil. I wish I had taken a picture of the bottom, it was just pure oil or butter. I’ve seen pictures of the prawn linguine here, none of them look like that. The only way that happens is when you take pasta and reheat it, all the oil comes out of it. It was terrible, and disappointing, and flavourless. By far the worst pasta I’ve ever had.

I didn’t have the heart to complain because the meal was free. Our waitress, perhaps out of embarrassment was hiding. She stopped by our table maybe once every half hour. We walked in around 12:30 and left the restaurant at 2:30. Over two hours for a basic lunch.

Overall not the standard of food or service I expected from the fairmont. But I would come back here if anything for the...

UPDATE: Menu has changed, and most menu items come in at a higher price. On a good note, the food remains amazing.

Almost every family visit to Lake Louise includes a meal at Fairmon Chateau Lake Louise and usually at the Lakeview Lounge. This is the restaurant with the best view, though the outdoor patios below can offer some decent views as well.

Every single meal that we have had here has always exceeded our expectations. It's the one consistent meal we can count on in the Canadian Rockies.

For this particular visit, we came for dinner. The menu is a 3-course meal. There is a kids' menu that always included Chicken Fingers and Fries. My kids have always gotten that and enjoyed their meal every time. Their Chicken Fingers and Fries were as good as ever.

We chose the Brant Lake Wagyu Beef Tartar to start. It was delicious. The sauce was soy sauce, which worked well with the beef. The bits of toast complimented the tartar well. We both found it delicious.

For our main course, we both chose the 10 oz AAA Alberta Beef Striploin. It was cooked to medium rare per our request. The butter melted onto the striploin and gave it a nice smooth flavor. I detected some masala in the butter as I noticed the undertone flavor it gave to the beef. The whipped potato was oh-so-smooth. Great dish!

Finally, for our final course, we got the Strawberry and Basil Sorbet and the Dark Chocolate Cake. The sorbet was smooth in texture and just a nice finish to the meal. The cake was sweet but not too sweet with a good balance. Our kids finished both desserts with joy.

You will not be disappointed with...