The Diplomat — Restaurant in Hamilton

There’s a lot to unpack here, so I’ll begin with the environment itself. The restaurant is beautiful, decor is very chic and the energy was loud and fun. We were here Saturday night for a Winter Eats dinner. Our server, an older gentleman came over promptly to introduce himself and take our drink order, that’s the last we ever saw of him again. After that, Lexxus, according to the receipt, who I presume was supposed to be our server, came to take our order. I ordered the Fish tacos , the short ribs for the main and the chocolate cake for dessert. My partner ordered the duck wings, the Lamb curry and the short bread cookies. We ordered the feature cocktail too. She didn’t write anything down, and had returned 5 minutes later because she forgot what our app orders were. Usually I don’t care about a little slip up like this, but in the grand scheme of our experience, it matters. We get the apps, so far, so good. The tacos are decent, and my partner enjoyed the duck wings. Lexxus came to check how the first bite was. Next, the mains arrived. These were a HUGE let down. My short rib, which was sitting in a pile of congee aka rice porridge, was blander than I ever possibly imagined a meal could be. I love congee, but mine was luke warm and flavourless. The congee was in this dark sauce that I imagine was the Orange and Soy part of the short rib. I scooped the congee up in all the sauce I could muster, absolutely no flavour. I had to refer back to the menu on my phone because I forgot what the glaze was supposed to be. The beef had no hint of Orange Soy glaze and was just tender short rib meat on a bed of bland luke warm rice porridge. Was the bok Choy salted? Was there any garlic? Ginger? Who knows!! Tasted like the rice porridge it was in, bland, except for the occasional bite of pistachio. My partners lamb curry was slightly better because it was obvious that there were spices used in that meal, but he too was disappointed with his order. We realized that maybe we just weren’t into Equal Parts Hospitality restaurants, and that’s okay. While eating our mains, Lexxus came rather rushed and looked like she was going to scoop up our plates as if we were finished, saw that we were still working on it, then did a quick shrug and turnaround without acknowledging that we just witnessed this. My partner and I looked at each other like What was that? and continued on, with the experience becoming more unprofessional and harder to excuse. Neither one of us finished our meal and I regret not speaking up about mine in the first place. At this point I wasn’t compelled to write a review, but things got worse. We got our also disappointing dessert around 920, had about 3 bites, and were ready to go. We spent the next 30 to 40minutes trying to track down Lexxus so I could get the bill and get out. Was she on a break? Was she coming back? We were getting slowly irate and had made eye contact with several employees, including the older gentleman who took our drink order, and yet nobody sent someone over. We were being ignored. It wasn’t until we were able to flag a young man cleaning tables that our server returned to our table. It was 10pm. We were very visibly annoyed, and my partner verbally let the server know that we were waiting a long time. She didn’t apologize,acknowledge that we were upset, or that she was afk for 30 minutes. She brought me the machine, I tipped 15 percent, she thanked us and we were on our way. I’m okay if the food isn’t up my alley, and I’m okay if the service isn’t up to par, but you can’t have both in the same night. The food can’t be bad and the service be worse, and that’s what made this experience so abysmal that I had to write about it. It was honestly a damper on our date night, and an expensive way to find out that this restaurant doesn’t value its customers. I just want to warn others that in our experience, Winter Eats means sacrificing both flavour and service in exchange for a dreadful time

Edit: they’ve sent be a $50 gift card to supplement the $80 I spent having my...

I hosted a 60-person event at The Diplomat in early February.

Pros: Gorgeous place! Lots of natural lighting.

Cons:

Extremely understaffed with only two waitresses for a 60-person event. I was told many tables had no drinks service the entire event Some guests were told that non-alcoholic was cash bar which was a miscommunication and others made comments that they were very rude. Tables had mountains of dirty plates the whole time I was told some tables ordered drinks and then the waitresses' never came back There was an 18% gratuity on the event but I talked the owner down to 10% as he agreed with the issues.

Event Coordinator didn’t exceed any expectations and just ‘did her job’. Kyla works 2-3 days a week, sometimes it was frustrating to get a hold of her when I needed answers asap Overpromising of items, but would get them the following week Lots of misses in explaining important details of the event, like how brunch style goes, poor communication in the Events Order on what staff are to expect that day No post-event communication asking how the event went that day given the circumstances that were communicated to the owner. It felt like after we paid that’s it! Her job was done kind of feeling. Overall, she gave the impression that she isn’t too experienced in Events Coordinating and lacks the professionalism you need in this type of competitive industry

Lots of miscommunication I felt so bad for the Events person that day as she was really thrown off. It wasn’t explained to her on the Events Order that cake was supposed to be cut and served by their staff, and it wasn’t. I served some of the tables myself. It was really bad. Large format brunch was explained to me as everything comes out at the same time, but on the day of it was just a total mess... The food came out with salad and home fries first – an interesting combination to get guests full on potatoes and salad first. Bacon and eggs came out very last. It was just a really weird way of serving the dishes in that order. Very slow service in between each serving.

Credit Card machine stopped working I don’t think they could have done anything at all to fix this, so no big deal there. My only concern is that some guests who did cashbar for their drinks provided their credit card to them and they would later get charged when the credit machine was up and running again. Unfortunately, after the event, I was told some guests were overcharged when it came to billing.

Overall, just lots of miscommunication, poor events coordination, understaffed and very slow service. The bartender was great though! I love this place for dine-in but would never host an event here ever again....

Second time at the Diplomat to celebrate my birthday. Was torn between the French or the Diplomat as the birthday girl I picked the Diplomat as I was craving for their sticky toffee pudding.

Great atmosphere and place friendly server. Slow food coming out and server failed to check and refill our water. We had to ask a few time for water.

For starters we ordered smoked pork belly skewer and korean lettuce wrap with pulled pork both were so so. I could get the smoked pork belly from Starsky's and put sweet sauce on top because that's exactly how it taste. The lettuce wraps was bland. The menu said there were kimchi in there but I don't taste any. Both starters weren't bad just meh and boring.

Main course for my husband he ordered spicy tuna bowl he said it was okay could be more generous with the tuna after all it was a bit pricey. I watched how they prepared them from where we sit. They prepared the tuna bowl early because it sit at the counter for at least 15 mins before it came to our table while they were preparing for my main course the red thai curry mussels. We know how poke bowl should taste we ate them every day while we were vacationing in hawaii. Warm rice cold fish not luke warm or room temperature.

My main course was WOW not in a good way. The curry was way too spicy they should mention that in the menu. I'm asian I can take hot and spicy food no problem, but this curry was way too spicy I can't take it After a few spoons I had to pass it to my husband, what a waste on my part good for my husband though. He can take spicy food more than I do but even so he couldn't finish them as it was too spicy. he was sweating and crying from the spicy curry. Not only spicy, it lacks of balance, just spicy and sour need to add palm sugar to balance it. They serve it with crispy jade rice underneath the mussels soaked in curry sauce more like dumplings and come with the fries on the side. Total asian fusion confusion. The curry won't be too bad if they serve it with cilantro rice or even steam rice. Because the rice will balance the punchy taste of the curry. I know they tried to create fusion food but it just doesn't flow nicely the curry from the east and the fries from the west they don't compliment each other they fight with each other.

Was so excited for the sticky toffee pudding. But it was meh. It wasn't as good as the first time we tried. The caramel sauce was delicious the sticky pudding was okay.

Overall it was meh experience should have gone to the French instead. I don't think...