Chairman's Steakhouse — Restaurant in Calgary

I love a great steak and frequent the city's fine dining steak houses with a fair amount of regularity. It was exciting to finally get a reservation to Chairman's. Unfortunately, excitement didn't live up to the hype.

My wife and I spent $450 for the two of us, so I feel like we gave it a good go. First of all, the ambiance and the service we very nice. There are no complaints there. The dining room is lit at an appropriate level and the server was knowledgable about the menu. I felt well taken care of and generally the service was good, although nothing special.

The presentation on some of the dishes were head scratchers. We started with the cheese toast and prawn cocktail. While the prawn cocktail was nicely cooked, it was a bit weird that they lay them flat on a plate. The sauces we equally unconventional. The cocktail sauce had the right amount of horseradish, but the mayo and tropical mustard definitely shouldn't be there. Their flavor do nothing to accentuate the flavor of the prawn. The cheese toast was forgettable. The cheese was your standard fair and bread had very little flavor. It was ok, overall, but not anything special and better can be found at a lower quality restaurant.

We moved on to caesar salads next. Sticking with the theme of the evening, they were underwhelming. The dressing had little if any anchovy flavor and the rest of the topping made the salad feel like it again was from a less expensive restaurant. It was rather bland. Hy's, Caesar's, and even The Keg honestly have better offerings there.

That brings us to main star of the show. We opted for the 36 oz smoked ribeye. Our waiter explained that they cold smoke them for 5 hours before cooking them to order. I found that to be intriguing, so went for it. First of all, the smoke level was interesting. Personally, I think it was a bit overdone on the smoke because it covered up some of the subtle flavors that would differentiate the meat. The meat was also criminally under seasoned. At $150 a steak, I would not order this again because it reminded me more of something you would get at a BBQ restaurant. The texture of the steak also reminded me more like a prime rib. I know they are the same cut of meat, but if I wanted prime rib, I would have specifically went to a restaurant known for that.

The port jus we got for a sauce was nothing to right home about. It was too sweet for something you normally want to enhance your steak eating experience. I will say that the only redeeming quality was that BBQ sauce is sweet and the meat reminding of BBQ could be appealing for someone wanting to feel like they are at a smoke house.

For side items, we went with the lobster mac and cheese and brussels. The brussels were a bit boring. They were mixed with bacon chunks or pancetta (couldn't tell because they were super cooked) and what seemed to be a blasamic reduction sauce. The mac and cheese was also underwhelming. The cheese sauce was boring with little flavor to add and the lobster disappeared in the dish. Both side items were again under seasoned.

By the time we got to the dessert course, we decided against it. With everything else lacking, we didn't feel like it was worth any more disappointment.

If I had to sum up the food, the theme would be under seasoned and underwhelming. I wanted to enjoy Chairman's. I really did and can't say that it was bad. It just isn't a place I would recommend to others. I would much rather go to Modern Steak, Vintage, or even The Keg over Chairman's based upon my experience from last night. Although, If I want to be bored by mediocrity while spending almost $500, I will go back. Otherwise, I'll be taking my money elsewhere for my future steak...

Unfortunately Chairman’s was quite a miss for us. There were 3 of us celebrating and we needed somewhere nice to go, last minute. There were no resos available online, so I called Chairman’s when they opened to ask if it were possible to get a reservation for 3 people around 9 pm. The hostess said that unfortunately they were booked up but if we walked in we were pretty much guaranteed a table right away. so we all drive the half hour from downtown. when we arrived they said only bar seating at the lounge was available. I mean….. we are wanting a nice dinner. I thought we weren’t going to have a problem getting a table? but we understand things happen, maybe they were busier than expected, and we’re already there. so, no problem, we have a seat at the bar and make the best of it. literally a minute after sitting down, two tables open up. i’m not sure why they didn’t just check and see if there were any tables finishing up, and offer for us to wait for one of those but, oh well. we move. we sit for quite a while when our server comes to us and is very short, and we order drinks. one of us needed a few extra minutes to look at the menu but the server didn’t come back for like 20 minutes. (the other drinks were dropped off by someone else). our friend finally orders a drink, it takes a while, then comes (again dropped by someone else). then we wait. and wait. and wait. we finally are able to order food after sitting down nearly an hour ago. we ordered the seafood tower, scallops, and wagyu flight to start. appetizers took quite a while to come out. seafood tower was pretty good. wagyu flight was fantastic. scallops were quite good. our friend ordered a drink and it tasted like soap, maybe an ingredient, maybe some soap left in the glass, not sure. we all took a tiny sip and all tasted it. so she asked for something else and our waitress obliged (looking pissed off as she had for our entire service lol). side note, there was maybe one collective sip missing from the drink, we asked for a replacement right away, and they did not take it off the bill. Our bill at the end was $786.30 and with tip $943.56 and you can’t take a $21 drink off? oki doki. anyways our entrees come. 2 of us had the lamb which was very tough and overdone and went relatively untouched. our friend had the lobster thermadore which absolutely reeked lol but she enjoyed the taste. I never really send back food but honestly would have sent back the lamb but our server seemed to be progressively getting annoyed at our presence despite us being polite and friendly in response to her just seeming to not like us. we’ve all been servers before so we get it and we genuinely are good customers in restaurants. so we aren’t sure what the issue was, maybe she was cut and wanting to go home but had to stay till the end of our service, i don’t know. but honestly not our fault every single step seemed to take forever. we didn’t leave until like midnight. anyways, we ordered dessert. crème brûlée, key lime pie, toffee pudding, carrot cake, chocolate torte. (ok we are total gluttons maybe that’s why she hated us). desserts were good. sticky toffee pudding was to die for. overall, i don’t think i would go back. IF i did it would be earlier in the evening and maybe that’s on us. but when we asked if it was ok, front of house acted like it was no problem. and they still had a whole xmas party on the restaurant side going when we left sooo. i dunno! just didn’t feel welcoming. for the money spent, i feel like you can get better service and food for less. was really looking forward to trying Chairman’s but i just dont think its all it’s...

My husband and I came in around 830pm tonight September 11, 2024 hoping to get a good dinner at the end of a long busy day..the front greeters were very pleasant as we said we don't have a reservation but they said its fine. We chose to be seated at the far left of the lounge. The waitress came in who is not as pleasant as the girls up front. She did not even tell us her name. To start, we ordered a drink for me a tequila caesar. I got the drink but it still was vodka not tequila, but I did not complain. She took the menu and made the table lamp fall on the table and landed on the glass of water and broke it. My husband got drenched by the water. She picked up the broken glass and I even told her to be careful not to hurt herself. She asked if we want to move to a different table but we said we didn't have to, my husband just told her to pick up the shard of glass left under table. We proceeded with going through the menu and ordered the Wagyu flight which is $155+ and the date night set menu which is $135.. The wagyu came in a chopping board that has all the flags from where each wagyu taster comes from, Canada, US, Australia and Japan.. so we consumed our meal. I had to stop eating as I didn't realize how big of the meals they were...We were done eating and was waiting for the waitress to come..But we waited and waited and finally after a good half an hour she came in. Realizing that the set meal includes a cheesecake as dessert. I asked the waitress for the dessert. I dont know why she said to my surprise, "No you cant take the plate!" I was dumbfounded to her even thinking I wanted the plate!!!! Why would she think that I would want to take a property of the restaurant and used at that!!!! I got so offended that at first I said we'll just take the dessert to go because I lost my appetite for one! I was so upset that I ask for the manager... So I learned the manager's name is Afis..I recounted the incident but he said just to pacify me, that they had experienced in the past that customers there want to take home restaurant plates charcuterie boards as souvenir ??? Really? I dont think so...from the google description of the place, it says an "UPSCALE" restaurant...so I don't think anybody who comes here would want to take home a USED CHARCUTERIE BOARD! So you diners of Chairman's steakhouse, would you take a restaurant plate as a souvenir???? How dare he even say that... He tried to take the $155 from my bill but I said put it back... So I paid for the whole thing and gave $50plus tip even if I was not satisfied with the service...Anyway.. I dont know if I would want to go back to this place...The whole experience first with the waitress then with Afis left a bad taste in my mouth...even with the taste of the expensive wagyu flight lingering in my mouth that bad taste...