Stirling Dining Room and Lounge — Restaurant in Alberta

Bizarre. Unexpected. Off putting. For my 60th birthday, we decided to try the Stirling located in the Malcolm hotel in Canmore. We had looked up the menu online and decided it seemed fantastic.

We approached the hostess who seemed confused that we were there at all when we said "4 for dinner". She asked if we were there for the prime rib buffet and we said we didn't know yet. She suggested we go look at it and we asked to rather be seated and then go over to see it at our leisure. Then she asked "for 3?" and we said "4 for dinner" again. Weirdly, she then took us to the bar to seat us. I asked if this was the only table available and would the menu be the same. (the entire place was maybe 1/4 full...if that) I looked out at the patio and wondered if we should sit there. She assured us the menu was the same everywhere. I asked if there were any tables available in the dining room and she said "yes, we have fine dining here". Weird. So yes, we followed her to a really nice table by the window and passed the buffet on the way. Lots of empty tables in the dining room too.

But then the experience just went totally off the rails. A waiter approached us half singing and yelling loudly in a very bizarre way. And yes, he continued to yell/sing at us the entire evening. It was very off putting. We asked if we could see a cocktail list and wine list. He yelled/sang that he would go get it. He returned quite a while later, with one. Yes, just one for all 4 of us and just the cocktail list to boot. We asked if we could have more lists so we didn't have to share one with all 4 of us. He yelled/sang and returned with one more. Yes, you read that correctly. We ordered our cocktails eventually and asked if the restaurant only did wine by the glass since that was all that was listed on the cocktail menu. He yelled/sang again and returned with one wine list.

And now, things became even more nuts. First of all, he always yelled/sang "YAY" every time any of us ordered anything. Very off putting in what we thought was a fine dining establishment. Then, he brought the wrong wine and kept pointing to the label while yell/singing in our faces that it was the one we wanted. We finally convinced him to go get the right one. When he returned, he didn't notice that we had never received our cocktails and was about to open the wine and pour when we suggested that it might be nice if we could start with our cocktails. He left the unopened bottle on the table and went off yell/singing something. He came back about 15 minutes later with our cocktails and yell/sang/blamed the gal at the bar for the "mix up". Unbelievable. We asked if he could perhaps open the bottle of wine and let it breathe while we had our cocktails. He yelled/sang something and came back about 5 minutes later to do so. We poured our own wine the entire evening and were happy to do so in order to avoid interacting with him. Unfortunately, he came back to our table many many times throughout the course of the evening.

That brings me to the food which was actually very nice. Tasty salmon and chicken, delicious vegetarian moussaka, yummy mashed potatoes, crispy little gnocchi pillows and really nice roasted vegetables. My husband asked the chef at the prime rib carving station if he could have an end piece that was a little more done. Then, he went off to get a few more veg for his plate and when he turned around, the chef was gone. The chef re-emerged triumphantly from the kitchen with a plate of 2 pieces of prime rib which were clearly microwaved. Unexpected and yet one of the pieces (that looked less grey) actually tasted great. We didn't try the really grey piece.

Finally, since we didn't finish our wine, the waiter had to come over and (finally) in a normal voice and volume told us he needed to put the cork in it for us and push it down as far as possible because of AGLC regulations. And his accent seemed to slip too. Anyhoo, it was the most decent and genuine interaction we had with him all evening. Not...

Staying at the hotel and saw they had a steak and lobster special on Thursdays. Made dinner reservations for 7pm. Place was pretty empty on the left side that we were seated in. Service was fast and food actually came out pretty fast too. He was kind in listening to my feedback and really wanted to make up for my disappointment.

For food we ordered semolina fries which my husband thought were regular French fries that had a truffle aioli sauce but it's not. It's a thick piece of potato or cheese deep fried and plated in a small fry basket. So definitely not what we were expecting but it was good. The outside was crunchy from being fried perfectly and the inside was super smooth and creamy. We both ordered the special. I had mine medium rare and his was rare. And a kids mac and cheese which was supposed to come with vanilla ice cream but I think he just forgot about it because of my complaints. I tried the kids mac and cheese and it was too cheesy but not the good cheesy. The cheese was dry and gritty tasting even though it came out with the appetizer. My daughter only took a few bites and didn't eat anymore because she didn't like it. And she was excited for Mac and cheese.

Steak was a definite miss. Do not get it. It's a 12 ounce loin strip and it was sooooo chewy and hard to cut. You know the steak isn't going to be good when you need to take a chain saw to it to cut it. I was extremely disappointed with the first bite. But I was hungry so I kept exercising my wrist and hacking away. There were soo many fat tendon pieces that I could not cut through and even if I did get it cut I couldn't chew through it. Lobster was good.

I gave my complaints to the server and he was so kind and apologetic about it. He tried to get me a different steak cause he didn't want me to be hungry but I wasn't in the mood. (As I write this before bed I am starving lol). But then the manager came over and asked about our evening and I gave him the same complaints but his face was so rude. Like I was just another complaining customer trying to win a free meal. Which I didn't get. He gave a 25% discount but was not kind about it.

Overall service was good aside from the manager's face/demeanor. Food not so great. Would...

We checked into the Malcolm hotel and inquired about the restaurant called Stirling located on site, the front staff advised we should make reservations for large group bookings so we reserved a table of 12 the night before. They confirm our breakfast reservation, however, when we showed up for breakfast they split up our group and sat us at three different tables. I went to speak to the manager about why we were not all placed together at one large table as per our reservation and he said the tables were all different shapes, sizes and height so would be uncomfortable for us to all be together. He also made a point to tell me that even if we were seated together, the person at one end of the table wouldn't be able to speak to the person at the other end, pretty sure he missed the point here...when you dine-out and reserve ahead of time for a large table and you received confirmation for this request, you would think they would be mindful of putting everyone at the same table or have the courtesy of saying - no this is not possible so it sets our expectations. Even so, when entering the dining space, we saw tables of the same height & size that could've been easily and comfortably pushed together, this was simply a failed attempt by the staff to preplan our reservation.

In addition to this, when you charge more for a buffet style breakfast than the Fairmont hotel in the next town over, you would hope staff would overlook the quality and temperature of the food in the trays. Our eggs, bacon, sausage...everything was cold, not an enjoyable breakfast at all. Two stars was given for the nice waitress that served us but overall disappointed in the food and mostly the managers' response in how he made us feel it was a nuisance to have our party eat and conversate together - at one table...which is the only reason why you would want to go eat...