Smoke’s Poutinerie Hamilton — Restaurant in Hamilton

Tldr: Meh? Nothing special, nothing fresh. Still the same portions and long hours, but has had price increases just like everywhere else, so the 8 unbelievably freezer burnt chicken nuggies in the wow size reaaaaaally detracted from the experience.

Proper review:

To start off, I was really put off by the owners response to a 1 star review on here. It is never a good sign when the owner loses it on a critique, and I think the reviewer responded well and accurately.

Walking onto hess, it was shocking. The place is abandoned. I'm used to it bussling, and maybe it was due to being a Wednesday, but holy moly, the abandonment! Garbage strewn about, evident squatting in stores/houses, lots of shuttered businesses, and barely any patrons at the open ones. Very sad, and I do hope there is a revival here. Gave me a very very bad feeling.

I went in anyway. The store was notably damp when I walked in, I know that it's been really rainy recently but not reassuring when you walk into a small space that prepares food. Their chalkboard is stIll there, which is fun. I was hungry, though, and remembered it was good, so I forged on prayed I would get a good person on shift because it seems like that matters at this location. The guy working was awesome! He gets most of these stars. Very nice, very quick, and food was ready within 5 minutes (before I managed to finish paying, which he was understanding about but took closer to 10). That brings us, however, to the fact that the debit machine wouldnt take my phone for tap (came to more than 22$ in store, more than 27 without discounts on the uber eats pickup that I had to use- no idea whether it would've taken my physical card as I happened to not have it on me, but my phone worked for payment at other stores minutes before and minutes after this visit. I wonder whether his understanding was because this is a common issue).

All of the stuff is undoubtedly from frozen. This wouldn't super matter except the freezer burn taste really was overpowering, almost making me glad that there were barely any nuggets on it despite my initial disappointment. The fries weren't all that crispy, but they use real cheese curds and don't skimp on that! So that is something.

All in all, I dont think this place is all that special anymore other than their hours and their use of curds. The base of the poutine isn't terrible, but that's a pretty low bar for standards. Maybe the pulled pork would be better? Though now I'm worried about that being freezer burnt too so I don't know if I'll buy from this location again. I'd maybe say buy at your own risk (and/or head to the westdale location) and hope that you end up with...

While their traditional poutine is great, I’ve had nothing but disappointment in their specialty poutines.

We ordered from them tonight and we spent a good chunk of money on two Buffalo chicken poutines, one chicken bacon ranch, pierogies and deep fried cheese curds. Their cheese curds are good, but not worth $13. We paid $10 for a large pierogies, and it came with 6… They don’t even taste like fresh pierogies. The poutines were the most expensive, seeing as we added extras into the Buffalo chicken ones. We spent $30 a piece on them, but did not get any of the additions we asked for? I asked for extra chicken and was given pre-made chicken cubes. Asked for bacon in one, didn’t get bacon. That’s just a couple examples. The add-ons cost approximately $5 each, and to not get them when we paid for them leaves a bad taste.

I have ordered many times in the past and have only had a good experience when I went with a classic poutine so, that’s what I...

At first I was very uneasy spending over $70 on poutines and some deep fried cheese curds but my boyfriend has a huge appetite and even wow sizing his poutine he couldn't even eat half of it. It had a great amount of meat and cheese and gravy, I got extra gravy and didn't need it! I got the small and couldn't even finish it! It was so hot when it got here too I couldn't eat it right away. They gave us stickers and a super cute hand written note with the order. Honestly I spent way more than I wanted to for ordering out tonight but it was so worth it to finally try smoke's! I ordered the double pork poutine which comes with pulled pork and bacon and it was so good, my boyfriend got the triple pork which has pulled pork, bacon and ground chorizo sausage, then we both got a side order of deep fried cheese curds and they are good aswell even on their own without a sauce. Definitely going to be one of our favourite places to order from when we...