Buvette Restaurant and Wine Bar — Restaurant in Burlington

After spending a fantastic afternoon sampling local wines in the Niagara region my wife and I were excited to sit down to a high end meal at Buvette that evening. Unfortunately we wasted an hour at this snobby joke of a restaurant, before making the correct decision to leave and eat elsewhere.

First strike: a holier-than-thou attitude right from the start. My wife wanted a tea for a little caffeine pick me up, "Sorry, we don't have tea - we can offer hot water with lemon". (so she has coffee) I almost ordered a beer to start (only 2 options to choose from), but changed my mind to have a Caesar, mentioning that maybe I'll save the beer for dinner, etc. Direct quote from the server: "Beer with dinner? Who does that???". Ouch. I get that they are a wine bar, but 'excuse me' for thinking that sometimes a good beer is nice with a steak or burger. (even though we'd get wine with dinner anyway, I was just changing my mind on the cocktail selection)

Second strike: Lack of Canadian? My wife loves oysters, but they only offer those sourced in Maine. (no PEI or BC options) So ok, we should order wine then. ZERO Canadian wines - the wine list was 50% Californian wines, then some Italian and French options that were almost all high priced wines. We're not anti-USA, but after just spending the day in Niagara it was super confusing to not see anything locally-sourced at all. Not to mention the current trade-war issues and wanting to support Canadian companies.

Third strike: My wife is Celiac, so we need gluten-free (GF) options. Yes, they had a GF risotto, but for a special occasion she wanted a nicer dish. We were told that 75% of the dishes could be GF if she had them "without any of the sauces", even though the sauces are "made to order" in house. The $75 lamb only had a port-wine reduction, so we said as long as it isn't thickened with flour or has any normal soy in it the sauce should be fine. We could even review the ingredients to be sure. After twisting her arm the server checked with Chef, but no luck, he's worried about cross-contamination, etc, etc. My wife's like, "We should be fine, we'll risk it", but essentially they didn't want to serve her. She's been dealing with Celiac disease for 20+ years, and we've NEVER had this much fuss at any mid to high end restaurant. I mean, Jack Astor's and Kelsey's has kids heating up frozen food, but they do a WAY better job of accommodating allergies then Buvette! We're no strangers to fine dining. This was just laziness or lack of willingness to accommodate an allergy.

So we luckily found a open table 3 doors down and left.

Consolation prize: Buvette covered our coffee and cocktail on the house, and the manager apologized as we left... but fail: the manager apologized to me (the male) about the GF issues, but didn't even look at my wife or speak with her directly, like as if she was invisible.

In the end we had an amazing meal elsewhere with super-friendly staff, local wines, fantastic food and no problems with allergy modifications. Thank you to "Downtown Bistro & Grill" for saving our night!

Take your...

Our server tried selling us different years for vintage bottles of wine we ordered that were cheaper. Tried hiding the label until one of our party members (who happens to run a wine club) could taste it. Asked to see the bottle and when called out on it, only then were we told they were out of the specific bottle we ordered. Yes, the bottle we ordered was more expensive, yes buddy tried to get us to pay more for less.

Birthday cake was brought out not lit despite me showing up earlier and indicating specific details about the cake only to be told "we've done this before." Well, when the cake was brought out, not only was it not lit, it was plopped down on the table before being abruptly asked "whose birthday is it" in front of the birthday person. When I then asked where the special candles were that we brought earlier, he responded with "what you don't like my candles?!" We realized something was very off as another birthday was happening at a nearby table and it was painfully obvious how different our process was. It was sad.

A friend didn't like an element in a drink ordered because a specific ingredient used (which isn't traditionally in this drink which is why she ordered it) makes them ill. When politely asking to change the drink to something else, the server corrected them as to why they didn't like it and basically told them they didn't understand and reordered the drink with a dismissive attitude.

We cut our own cake at the table to which the server whispered "the cutting fee's on us" as if he was giving some special treat. Truly, as if we didn't just cut our own cake. It was awkward for everyone.

After dinner and apps, we were still drinking and in active obvious conversation amongst ourselves, when the server told us he'll bring the bill, without being promoted, and rushed us out despite us still wanting to stay and order more.

To say the service was trash would be an understatement. The server's attitude was remarkably weird. It was a table of former servers, we get it, but this guy could care less about us nor did he want us to stay.

The sad part is, everyone at our table hadn't gone out in a while together and the event had been planned weeks in advance.

Later, after calling with the goal to express some concerns, we learned that our server that evening was in fact...

IF I COULD GIVE THIS RESTAURANT ONE STAR I WOULD. SAVE YOUR MONEY AND GET BETTER SERVICE AT THE KEG! I am absolutely repulsed by our server, we had a table for 12 and his rudeness was insane, for a high end restaurant you would think they would cater to their clients more. First he was rude, second he was walking away as I am asking him questions about the menu acting like he is too good for this table because he had other tables but we are a table for 12... so obviously it will take more work.

When it was time to order I was very clear on what my boyfriend and I will order. we ordered a total of 3 things.

The food starts coming out and I realize that my boyfriend received a steak frites instead of filet mignon, we said we did not order that and he said are you sure you do not want it because the filet mignon will take a long time to make now.... excuse me? It is not our fault you got the order wrong... our friend beside us ordered the steak frites so im sure he got confused and just wrote down 2 instead of 1 filet mignon and 1 steak frites HOWEVER he was very passive when taking back the plate that HE messed up on. My order came fine but I told him I was missing my side which i paid EXTRA for and wanted to eat with my main entree... he was WALKING AWAY WHILE I AM TELLING HIM I AM MISSING FOOD and he said ok ok ... it ended up coming with my boyfriends steak. which came 30 minutes late. No compensation, did not offer us a drink or a salad in the mean time while 10 of our friendd were eating at the table and we did not have our food plates in front of us... we literally had nothing in front of us for most of the dinner and out food came nearly as dessert was being served. No proper manners from the waiter, I still have his name and would love to talk to management but of course nobody answered their email and wanted to talk about it so I resorted to this google review instead.

In comparison. - At the keg when they miss something in your order, they compensate you or they offer you a complimentary appetizer or SOMETHING. This waiter was beyond rude and did not care that he messed up our entire order and experience. Not even a penny off on our bill either.

HORRIBLE - WILL NOT BE RETURNING BASED ON THE SERVICE ALONE. Extremely disappointed...