The Palate — Restaurant in Fredericton

Simply, an average restaurant trying to be a fine dining restaurant. Driving past this place and reading a few reviews I decided to try this restaurant. Well it was average at best. We ordered the special of the evening, a steak and a salmon dish. The steak dish was an average cut of beef with some fresh vegetables, mashed potatoes and a jus to add flavour and mask the dry meat. Beef tasted great as well as the veggies. Now the salmon dish. Order it, because it the salmon is great tasting, a bit over cooked and dry, but still decent enough to enjoy. Tell the chef to not put the taters (which I hated and was very disappointed in for mashed potatoes). The price point is definitely higher than the food quality. Now, last thing. I was craving for some Creme Brûlée and I should not have done it here. Quebec is where it's at. The chef made a serious mistake of making the creme like a lemon meringue and it was way too sharp for a traditional creme brûlée. I get what the chef was doing but don't try to fix something that ain't broken. Above all that I have said, the staff were excellent! Thank you David for your service, advice, and hearty attitude in helping us...

The atmosphere of the restaurant is nice, but I wouldn't want to be seated at one of the 2 or 4 tops that is just sitting in the middle of the room. Would be nice if they had some kind of privacy dividers to make it feel more intimate. I see other reviews mention how smokey the dining room was and I agree, I think they need their HVAC serviced. Our waiter was pleasant but not much of a people person. As for the food, the bam bam shrimp were tasty, but they had a little handful of mixed greens with red onion and baby tomatoes on the side that had no dressing of any kind, didn't seem to do much for the dish. The dessert, sticky toffee pudding, was really solid. As for the main entrees, the lemon meringue salmon was decent, the Korean fried chicken had good flavors, but they used a 9oz butterflied chicken breast which seemed like overkill and didn't present well, two chicken thighs would've been more tender and plated nicer. Both plates had a side of roasted potatoes which had clearly been sitting in a warming oven for too long, over seasoned with chili powder and dried rosemary and were room temp. Overall, disappointed with the main...

We visit Fredericton every year or two and have been coming to the Palate for decades as it's a family favorite. Unfortunately this visit I was less than impressed by the food. The maple ginger salmon was like having a piece of salmon instead of a pancake. The chocolate mousse was waaaaay too sweet. A lot of overly sweet items (sugar is not a great flavour or healthy). The seafood chowder didn't have enough fish/seafood in it and was mostly broth. The potato bun they used to serve with it was far better than a crostini. I do like the lemon meringue salmon, their Cesar salad and some of their open face sandwich blue plate lunch specials. Sometimes the front of house is adequately staffed and when it is you have awesome costumer service. Honestly I've had some really above and beyond servers here! I do think they need to get noise dampening panels installed as it can be quite hard to hear friends when the place is packed due to talking not overly loud music. A think a few tweaks and the Palate would regain their place as number one resto in...