The Prow at Buffalo Mountain Lodge — Restaurant in Banff

The vibe is of a gastro-pub with an interesting menu, although we were not tempted by the desserts.

Our helpful server was not fazed by my request of ‘no garlic, no onion, no chilli’ and the kitchen was able to adapt my first choice entrée of the Belly Pork and Scallops accordingly. They also provided a pleasant, crisp, mixed salad with vinaigrette for a starter, instead of the Caesar salad on the menu.

The pork arrived looking like a large fish finger. It was interesting and quite tasty, but I would not order this again as there was too much breadcrumb coating and too little pork. The 3 accompanying Scallops were delicious, but I was still hungry after eating everything on the plate, despite having only a modest appetite.

My partner, by contrast, was unable to finish her large bowl of home-made lemon conchigliette pasta with seafood and one or two small pieces of bison chorizo, but she enjoyed what she ate. I was pleased to find that they stocked a decent non-alcoholic pale ale from Calgary’s Tuesday Brewing, which wasn’t shown on the drinks menu.

My partner’s cocktail suffered from an excess of ice, but she thought the white wine from Ontario was delicious. The bill came to about CAD132 which, while not cheap, seems reasonable for the quality of food and comparable to other establishments.

I’d like to give 4.5 stars, as I hate to leave a fairly pricey restaurant still feeling hungry, but as I have to choose 4 or 5, I’ll give 5 stars overall for the attention to my food intolerances, but 4 for the food.

Footnote: we were staying across the road at the Tunnel Mountain Resort which has no restaurant facilities at all. We only found out there was the Prow restaurant nearby 2 days before we left. We would have certainly tried the breakfasts if we had...

Our evening at the Prow was so disappointing; to summarize:

1. The chicken breast was cold and undercooked, and was returned to the kitchen. The returned dish had the chicken fully dried up, and the potatoes and other veggies were mushed and inedible, with the plate looking as if the food was slapped on it instead of re-plated. We were so unhappy with it that the manager ended up removing this dish.
2. The elk steak was ordered as medium-rare, it arrived as medium-well! The waiter, Christine, said it was up to us to decide, and we returned it. It arrived half-an-hour later, and was very good, but everyone else finished eating.
3. The vegetarian dish claimed to have arugula on it, and the person who ordered it didn't see arugula, and asked about it. The waiter returned the dish, with more unknown green leaves. Arugula it was not!
4. Beware - a "large party" for this restaurant, is 6 people, 2 of which are small kids! We had to refuse to pay the automatic 18% gratuity, and had to call the manager.
5. The waiter, Christine, was condescending, told me that "6 is a large party in Banff, my love" and that "you're already making a scene, my love". Not OK.
6. Minor - but still - the coloured pencils for the kids all came so un-sharpened, that they couldn't use more than half of them.

I guess this place thrives on single visit tourists. So disappointing,...

We came in on a busy weekend morning knowing we were short on time, so we ordered four smoothies to go instead of meals. When browsing the food menu, we were warned that the kitchen was slammed and meals would take a while — which we appreciated — but no one mentioned that smoothies would also have a long delay.

We ended up waiting 30 minutes for four smoothies. The explanation was that their one chef (on a peak travel weekend) was responsible for both meals and smoothies. For a place that gets high breakfast traffic, it was surprising that there wasn’t a separate process or staff member for beverages.

What really soured the experience wasn’t just the wait, but the service. After 20 minutes, we politely asked about our order and were met with a dismissive tone, as if we were being pushy. The response implied we had already been warned about delays — which was true for food, but not smoothies. We were then told “just 2 more minutes,” yet it still took another 8–10 before they came out.

The smoothies themselves were fine, but the lack of transparency up front, long wait, and curt service left a...