Bluebird Woodfired Steakhouse — Restaurant in Banff

I had very high hopes for this place after seeing the menu and their instagram ads. Whoever they have doing their advertising really knows how to plate food, sadly their kitchen staff cannot follow suit.

After reading other reviews about it being extremely busy and being understaffed, I think the night we attended was not overly busy but steady.

We were drawn in by the Sunday Prime Rib special based on their Instagram post. Our serve stated “It’s the same as our classic cut but with no Yorkshire pudding.” We asked what else it was served with and he said “Carrots and some other stuff”. He had no idea how to even present the special to us. He didn’t explain that that steak section was a la carte and we had never visited before so we were unsure on how to order. We ended up asking the hostess as she walked by to assist us as our server was terrible. She was much more helpful.

After our painful ordering process, our food finally arrived at the table and we were extremely disappointed. The one half of my partners prime rib was blue rare and the other half was medium. Which would make sense considering they don’t even ask how you would like your beef cooked. It was just laid on top of the potatoes and carrots and plated like you’d expect from a hole in the wall pub.

I opted to order the prime rib from their a la carte menu as I wanted better fixings with my meal. The 16 oz prime rib is 80 dollars. That comes with the meat and a Yorkshire pudding. No veggies, no potatoes. Veggies are extra, potatoes are extra. So I was in a worse starting point than the special at that point so I ordered the mashed potatoes with it anyways hoping that the food would make up for the poor service and I’d at least enjoy my food. Unfortunately that didn’t happen.

The crust on the prime rib couldn’t even be cut with a steak knife it was so tough. The flavour itself was good, but I couldn’t enjoy the spices and flavours of the crust. The potatoes came in a separate bowl, which had a layer of butter caking the top of them. The Yorkshire pudding was over cooked and tasted like charred wood.

The server didn’t really care that things didn’t taste good. He asked how everything was, and we expressed our disappointment and his response was “Would you like me to bring you some salt and pepper ?” After that we just wrote dealing with him off completely. I think of the hostesses must have seen our disappointment and asked how our dinner was and we expressed our feelings yet again. And she must’ve brought it to the attention to the manager. Which came and visited our table. Her offer was a free desert on a $200.00 meal. Which I mean is better than nothing but it doesn’t make things right.

Every time our server cleared plates he would take our cutlery, and every time they brought food we had to ask for cutlery with each new course.

TLDR; very poor service, very mediocre food, and very overpriced for what you are actually getting. See the photos of the Prime rib special and a $100...

I was dissapointed to write this review, looking on Google and a few local recommendations we thought we would give bluebird a go whilst in Banff, probably the most expensive meal out on our trip but it was my birthday so thought we would just enjoy it, the service was perfect, a slight wait on our table about 10mins even though we had booked but nothing to cry home about, the steak menus are priced just for the meat with no sides, these are extra, i get that this offers you choice but feel at the price of some of the cuts of meat that 2x sides atleast should be included in the price and options would then be available if you wanted, I went for the 14oz Ranchers Ribeye steak with sides of Rosemary fries and Grilled Asparagus and a Beef Jus, the problem with selling the sides separately is that we had booked a table for 2 and when the food came out around 6 plates had to try and fit on the table ultimately with us ending up just putting all of the sides onto our steak plates leaving a pile of crockery on the side of the table to enable us to have enough room and when paying strong prices for a meal it's not really what you want, they were cleared relatively quickly and the waiter was attentive and polite, I asked for the steak Med/Rare and when it arrived was more Med/Well, there were a couple of bits towards the end that were cooked to my asking but the majority wasnt, the steak had ok flavour, was a little tough but was not what I was expecting from the reviews I had seen, I'm not sure if we caught you on a bad night, it wasn't very busy, probably 50% capacity but I was expecting more from a $113 plate of food. The venue is very dark, I get creating an ambiance and setting a mood, but was it not for us sitting next to a window i would have found it difficult to see what I was eating. All in all it was ok which I was disappointed about, I went in with the image of it being marketed as a steak house and to have my socks blown off at the quality of the mealbut alas they stayed firmly on, unfortunately for me it is what it is and I'm back in the UK but hope it was just a low night for them and that they can deliver your expectations if you decide to...

We came as a group of four without a reservation on day three of their opening, so we expected teething issues, I’m pleased to say there were none other than the wifi didn’t appear to work. The first thing we noticed was the friendliness of the staff and the sheer number of them, but numbers aren’t everything, it’s about the standard which I will address further down. All the staff are very attentive and engaging, we were given a table nice and secluded, but one of our group wanted to be by the main fire in the centre , we asked if we could be moved if possible and the staff were only too happy to accommodate. The ambiance is very well done with a good attention to detail, for example the sound system is one of the best I have seen, very well placed ceiling mounted speakers made it easy to talk but filled the place with ambient music. The unisex bathrooms were extremely well laid out and fitted with high end fittings. The menu is nicely varied across pasta , fish and meat, the specialty being prime rib , I decided to go with the 20oz (566 gram for us brits) Wagu for ~ 130 CAD the rest of the group went with with steak and cheese steak. I had a couple questions about a couple of the items on the menu of which Meghan was very knowledgeable on and ensured any questions we had were answered. Our table waiter was also very attentive, and I liked the way he cleared plates as they were finished rather than waiting for everyone to be done, small recommendations on the drinks were also appreciated such as advising we could eat the candied rhubarb that came on the cocktail we ordered. The cocktails themselves are worth mentioning, they were well put together, and it felt as though they were poured generously, we certainly got our moneys worth . It must be said Alexi the operations director was clearly running the show and with so many staff on hand I could see clearly the standard that was being set was on par if not better than any Michelin star restaurant I have been to. In short, if you are going to Banff or even live here and you want a great dining experience that is on par with some of the best restaurants in London without paying for...