Bouchons Bistro — Restaurant in Kelowna

Overpriced, disappointing food, great service and ambiance. First time reviewer here, had to express my disappointment with Bouchons. It all started with our 25th anniversary reservations, I requested a specific quiet table 2 weeks in advance, to the right of their wine room, but when we arrived this hadn’t been noted, so the table was already occupied. Seems that the owner who took the reservation, disregarded my request believing it to be a slow night, even though I was incredibly specific, so we stood looking stupid, while we discussed table alternatives. Once we were seated, the Maitre'D brought glasses of sparkling wine, in an attempt to quell my initial frustration. Our waiter was great, the service was top notch, and the ambiance returned memories of France, but we were disappointed with the quality of the food. The menu was not the one posted on their website, so our planned meal would have to be changed. Since they still haven’t updated their website’s menu, I cannot name the dishes we had, so will only describe them. The smoked duck salad was under seasoned with an unbalanced vinaigrette, the scallop appy was served with a pumpkin mush, a tasteless white smear and edamame, which not only added nothing to the dish but is something I abhor, the dish was also under seasoned. For our mains, my wife chose scallops in pastry with sweet vermouth, which was closer to dessert sweet and was served in an inedible pastry basket. She declined to accept the dish and instead chose the bouillabaisse, which was also under seasoned with a heavy handed use of saffron, the unrecognizable whitefish was tough, but it was filled with a goodly quantity of shrimp and scallops. My cassoulet continued the under seasoned tradition, and could have been improved with more depth of flavour with either butter or rendered fat, the duck confit in the dish was excellent, but they filled the meat gap with two pieces of tough pork loin instead of more pork belly. Our bright note of the meal was the waiter recommended, Chateaux Ami De Musset an $80 grand cru from Pomerol, which was exquisite and highly recommended for our meal choices. To finish the meal, I ordered cappuccinos and a brulee’ to share. The $14 brulee’ was only 3/8” deep and unexpectedly was coffee flavoured, which though a surprise was quite tasty. Our bill was $250 including the wine but excluding tip. This would have been acceptable, if the meal met our expectations,...

I came here with my date looking for an exceptional fine dining experience. Unfortunately our server was very slow and took at-least 20 mins to take our initial drink order. About 25 minutes later we finally had an opportunity to put in our food order. We had the seared foie gras and this was very delicious and I would recommend this dish. We asked for some bread to dip in the foie gras sauce and were given a very cold loaf of bread and no butter.

For our mains we ordered Salmon Blanquette and the Filet Mignon.

As described on the menu… “A Classic from Normandy Atlantic Salmon Blanquette, served with Basmati rice, carrots, leeks, mushrooms and peas.”

We received a dish that had pasta noodles and salmon with no vegetables. While the salmon was good itself the waiter made no effort to inform us the kitchen ran out of rice and delivered a dish that was absolutely nothing like the description which was a disappointment for my date as she was looking forward to the dish she had actually ordered. When asked if this was the correct dish they let us know they would bring a seperate dish of vegetables. They never asked us if we would like a different dish.

Filet Mignon was good and would recommend.

Cocktails we had were The French Blonde and a manhattan. The French Blonde was good, the manhattan was mediocre and I have a feeling it was made with white vermouth instead of red vermouth as the colour and taste was not what I’d expect from a classic such as a manhattan cocktail.

Overall service was very poor and not what you would expect for an expensive fine dining experience. We received a measly $20 discount and a glass of champagne. For a $200 dinner for two (after the discount,) the service was awful and they should have completely removed the salmon dish...

This restaurant has an impressive reputation for high quality French cuisine and service, but I was honestly extremely disappointed in both the food and service, particularly for the price point. We arrived for the first seating at 5 p.m. and found ourselves to the be the only patrons in the restaurant. The waitress was slow and inattentive - seemingly hired for her French accent rather than skill as a server in a fine dinning restaurant. We started with a $25 Charcuterie Board, which was okay but only came with four pieces of crostinis and did not include cheese - only meat and pickles. For the entrée, my wife ordered the House Specialty, Le Lapin a la Moutarde and I has the House Specialty, Le Cassoulet. Both were very bland in taste and we only ate about half of each dish - we are foodies and it is very rare for us not to finish. The rabbit tasted like it had been frozen prior to cooking and the creamy tarragon sauce lacked any depth or defined flavour. The Le Cassoulet was equally disappointing with a duck leg and single sausage on a bed of navy beans - essentially a fatty duck leg and sausage served over baked beans. It had more flavor than the rabbit, but that isn't saying much. Each entrée was $40. We skipped desert and called it a night. When we advised the waitress that the food was just okay, her response was "it was good?" to which we advised that we would not consider it "good" at all, but there was nothing offered of suggested to make up for the lackluster meal. For a three course meal, with one glass of wine and tip, you are looking at $150, but you don't get anywhere near this kind of value. We would have been better off at the Keg, Earls or really anywhere else for better service, a better quality and flavorful meal. Not...