The Wild Tart — Restaurant in Centre Wellington

I’m responding here to the reply from Geoffrey at the Wild Tart since I can’t find the “reply” button on his response to my review (at my age it’s an achievement to be able to post a review online!)

First of all, I believe that I’m quite brave to give negative feedback as most people I know never bother to complain to servers about their food. They will just eat it and complain to each other rather than “make a fuss” to let the establishment know about their feelings and opinions. While I may not have eaten at the Wild Tart, a review of a restaurant is not just about the food but about the whole dining experience including the atmosphere, cleanliness of the place and the attitude of staff and how one is treated. As your server denied us of the potential pleasure of trying the food at the Wild Tart by not coming back after more than 10 minutes(and not seconds as she claims) to take our order, I have rated the restaurant as one star based on my customer experience with such bad attitude and if I could, I would now change this rating to zero star based on your attitude.

Secondly, if you, Geoffrey is around as you claim to be to take feedback shouldn’t you have trained your staff to come to you to convey any negative feedback so you could come to the table to take care of any issues? I clearly told your server immediately at The Badley that my potatoes were not cooked. He apologised and came back to say they will cook me another portion which they did but the second portion was equally undercooked. When he saw that I did not eat it, he did not ask me if the potatoes were all right probably for fear of not knowing what he ought to do. No one else came to ask if everything was ok which would be the normal thing to do if you already had the feedback on the food not being acceptable. As for the feedback we gave to your server at the Wild Tart, she just left us in a huff. What she could have done is say “I’m sorry to hear about your experience next door. Let me talk to my manager and get back to you”. How are we supposed to know that she had gone to fetch someone and when she disappeared for several minutes we were saying to each other if we should wait or go and we felt after a long wait that clearly she wasn’t coming back. Some communications would have helped.

Thirdly, with regard to my eating Perch at The Bradley’s, you are right. My bad. It was actually Pickerel I ordered. But my comments about the portion as well as the undercooked potatoes still stand and I reiterate that the sauce of that dish was good.

As to my “vendetta hurting a small business” I think you give me far too much credit. I love to eat good food and I write my comments based on my experience so others can have a balanced view of both good and bad feedback. I doubt anyone is going to stop going to your restaurants or not try it based on my comments. I am not a well known critic nor an influencer (and I don’t aspire to be one). I trust people who google reviews of restaurants will look at both good and bad reviews and make up their own minds. Perhaps you have so many good reviews you find it very hard to accept that someone had a bad experience at both your restaurants.

Perhaps should see this as an opportunity to think how you could improve the service and/or food quality

Having had a terrible meal at The Badley in Elora, Ontario which is next door to the Wild Tart, we decided to try the Wild Tart for lunch the next day. We sat down and then realised it was connected when we looked at the menu as it looked similar . We asked the server if the Wild Tart was sharing a kitchen with The Badley and she said yes. We told her that we had a terrible meal at The Badley the day before. The server did not look happy and gave us the evil eye. She walked away and never came back to take our order. We left after a few minutes waiting and realised she would not be coming to serve us.

So much for being able to take feedback from a customer when the server ought to be curious to ask why we had a bad meal and maybe try to get the cook to...

As a place to have hightea/ afternoon tea, I could not and would not recommend to anyone.

I ESPECIALLY WOULD NOT recommend this place to people with allergies or dietary restrictions. (explanation below) We reserved a table in advance, which I would recommend. The poor server clearly has not been properly trained by management, she was very obviously overwhelmed, as she was the only front of house staff, and she had only been working there for one week. It took over 35 minutes for our order to be sent to the kitchen, due to her being unable to answer our questions, find a fellow staff member, any information left accessable by management, or management itself. We only got all of our questions answered when the owner entered the building to speak with us. I am unsure where he was before, but I was informed that he also owned the place beside the Wild Tart, so I assume he was there. He answer all of our questions in a very smooth and timely manner, which was great.

Now here's the part of the experience I have the most gripe with. As someone who has family knowledge of the restaurant industry, I believe that this tactic comes off as very tacky, money pinching and in a way very off putting;

If you have any allergies, you must pay a $5 fee to swap, substitute or replace an item for one that you are not allergic to.

This is in very small font at the bottom of the afternoon tea menu. Allergies are counted as special requests to alter the food order and you must pay a $5 fee PER item you require to swap/ substitute/ replace. This especially annoyed me when the chef came out and informed us that one of the dessert options listed on the afternoon tea we had selected, was infact different and that is was that substitution or doubling one already listed on the menu. So I have to pay $5 to do that, but you can just do that yourself at whim? It felt very hypocritical. Normally in restaurants I would have no problem with the chef running out of certain menu items and offering a substitution as a replacement, I completely understand. But it was something about how I had to pay a $5 fee that really rubbed me the wrong way.

This really was something that fully put me off from ever going to this establishment again, for hightea/ afternoon tea or going back for any a la carte menu options.

As for the food itself, I was informed that a large portion of the items for the afternoon tea were purchased elsewhere and brought into the cafe, they were not made in-house or by the secondary establishment the owners had next door. So another reason why they cannot guarantee food safety for sever allergies, due to possible.cross contamination. Now the desserts were nice (nothing to write home about, but good), the savory bites were what I assume was made in-house and were very delicious (but very tiny, single bite portions), and the scones were disappointing (they were dry and crumbly) As a side note, I had ordered two sweet scones but recieved one sweet and one savory, I am unsure if I was charged the $5 fee and did not receive what I had ordered, because a friend surprise paid for my meal).

For the afternoon tea "set" I have ordered, it cost $70 flat before tax and before any additional $5 substitution fee(s). Overall the price did not justify the quality, overall quantity (due to the very tiny portions of the mains/ savory bites), or customer service. I have no doubt that if we had chosen the a la carte menu items instead of their afternoon tea "sets" that it would have been a different and possibly much better experience, but due to this terrible first impression, I will not return or recommend this place to anyone.

Now I must end this review with my last thoughts on our server. Because despite her inability to properly perform her job, it was due to management and she should not be blamed for their shortcomings. She was friendly, personable and tried her utmost best at serving us. With the proper guidance and training from management, I do not doubt she would be a great asset to the...

Unfortunately, an unforgettably awful experience. For context, we were a group of 10 on a busy Saturday brunch period (11:00AM). Given I work in the hospitality industry, I am completely understanding of staffing and the circumstances of busier time periods. However, it is inexcusable how management, specifically, handled my personal guest experience. Our food runners and support staff were friendly and helpful. I coursed out my meal (app/entrée) as the only person in the party to do so. Everyone got their food at the exact same time. You would’ve expected that Appetizers would come out first? Fine, not a big deal. But the entire party was 3/4 finished their meal without any of the staff coming to quality check our meal. It was only until I flagged a food runner that I would like the rest of my meal to be started. A manager arrived to our table and told me that the food was “on the way” clearing my plate and no one else’s. She also cleared my cutlery. My food arrived 20 minutes later. Everyone was completely finished their meals, leaving me quite embarrassed that I had ordered more food. The food runner dropped my food and walked away because another table flagged her down because they needed something. I had no cutlery for 10 minutes. I politely asked the manager what happened exactly for this situation to happen and her response was “it’s busy, Chef had other tables before yours” with a condescending smirk. I ordered a Salmon Gravlax. There are no hot components on this dish besides toasted bread/sourdough, this should not have taken 20 minutes. How disrespectful. There was no apologizing on their behalf. Being the only group of persons of colour in the restaurant, I couldn’t believe how distant the attention was to our table. I was completely written off as a guest and as a human being. We politely asked for the bills and it took 18 minutes to print, reconfigure, re-print and present us with our bills. The rest of the party enjoyed their experience. However, I am appalled by how I was treated. I will say that the food was good. But my rating and review of this business is solely based on how tarnished my guest experience was from a poor lack...