Chameleon Restaurant — Restaurant in Maple Ridge

So...Chameleon...Been going here since they opened - 2014?🤔 I think. Fabulous place, quickly became our fine dining/special occasion go to, and then things started to get a little stale...it was never bad, just stuck in a rut. After closing completely for the pandemic shutdown, Chameleon reopened with a new chef,new menu, and a room makeover. They are once again, FABULOUS! Chef Lucas Gallagher (formerly of Araxis as sous chef there) is serving up west coast cuisine inspired by the freshness and local availability of ingredients. The menu changes with the season, his fall offering has 8 appetizers and 7 mains to choose from with both gluten free and vegetarian options available. It's large enough to provide good options for everyone, but not so large that it lacks focus and attention to detail (a problem for many 'wannabe fine dining' establishments). We started with 3 appetizers (shared) and a cocktail each...an amuse bouche of pureed beet, creme fraiche and toasted walnut and fresh bread with olive oil/balsamic vinegar for dipping were provided gratis while we were perusing the menu choices. My husband is not a fan of either beets or walnuts, but he enjoyed the palate starting amuse! Vancouver Island Albacore Tuna crudo was perfectly seared with a coriander crust; came with chilled cucumber, an apple vinaigrette and black olive caramel...fresh and tasting of the sea - the black olive caramel drizzle was a perfect slightly sweet and salty foil to the richness of the tuna. The Butternut Squash soup was divine! Smooth, silky, seasoned to perfection with brown butter panna cotta, spiced pumpkin seeds and fresh young herbs - a VERY generous portion that was perfect for sharing. The 'Solstadt' Farm Pear Salad was livened up with okanagan goat cheese mousse, endive, toasted hazelnuts and crispy shallots. Sweet pear, tangy goat cheese, fresh bitter endive...delightful! We accompanied the appies with glasses of Gehringer Dry Riesling from BC. It was a good choice for pairing with our first course. For mains, hubby had the Duck Breast and I chose the Fraser Valley Pork Belly + Wild Canadian Scallops. The duck was perfectly medium rare with crispy skin, juicy and so tender! Carrot cardamom puree, roasted oyster mushrooms, honey glaze and lentil 'jus' were delicious accompaniments. It was savoury and earthy but not overpowering or heavy; a beautiful dish for a fall evening. Samantha (our server), told me that the pork belly and scallops was a favorite dish of the restaurant's diners. I must agree with everyone! A unique take on 'surf and turf'. Again, a perfectly seared crust on both proteins, without a hint of dryness, displaying a serious level of skill and expertise from Chef Gallagher. Apple mostarda, parsnip textures (pureed, and shaved and fried) and tender young kale leaves were the accompaniments on the plate and played perfectly with the richness of the pork and scallops. We each had a glass of red with dinner, Chilean pinot noir for the duck and a BC red blend from Road 13 for the pork and scallops, both paired nicely😊 Desserts were a pot de creme served with whipped cream, toasted hazelnuts and salted caramel brittle and cappuccino cake with mocha mousse and toasted walnuts. Both were rich and satisfying, sweetened just enough without being too much for the end of an (arguably) epic meal! Coffee and tea was served in large french presses that provided enough for three cups in each - an innovative way to get around the issue of refills in the dining out during covid era! On that note, the social distancing/cleaning protocols/safety measures that we observed during dinner were excellent! I'm a critical care RN so my bar for that is set fairly high😉 Our server was Samantha and she was awesome! Warm, friendly, very attentive and knowledgeable, a real delight to have had her looking after us! We will be back! I highly recommend Chameleon, downtown Vancouver quality close to home in Maple Ridge 😊 2 cocktails/3 appies/2 mains/4 glasses of wine/2 desserts/coffee/tea=$238.35 after taxes,...

I don’t usually take the time to review restaurants, but in this case I felt the need to. Don’t let this Chameleon disguise itself as higher end cuisine. It started off really well, as my wife and I really enjoyed the service and setting. The appetizers that we got (crab cakes and cauliflower tempura) were really tasty and made us really look forward to the main courses. The cocktails were good, but weren’t particularly memorable. The main courses,however, were memorable, but not in a good way.

I chose the Halibut thinking that it would be a light choice after sharing two appetizers. When the entree arrived, I was instantaneously worried. The presentation looked like they just slapped things into a bowl. It consisted of a pile of rice (cold) with an overcooked halibut filet, with a heaping mound of pasta sauce (out of a can?) mixed with canned sliced olives, capers, and cherry tomatoes. The only flavours that I could taste were the capers and tomato sauce, and I don’t know about you, but rice with pasta sauce isn’t the most appealing thing. Now let’s get onto that $32 piece of halibut. At the beginning of the meal I compared it to the texture of chicken, but by the end when it was taking 30 seconds to chew a bite, it was edging onto the texture of an overcooked pork chop. I would usually mention to the server that something was overcooked, but I really didn’t think that a properly cooked piece of Halibut would have improve this dish. This was the second worst meal I’ve had in my life, only next to whatever I had at the Rainforest Cafe when I was 10 years old.

So now let’s talk about my wife’s meal. She ordered the salmon dish served with curry orzo and zucchini. The orzo had a chef boyardee consistency served in a curry sauce (soup?). We expected a small bed of orzo underneath a salmon fillet, but it ended up being a bowl of orzo with a garnish of undercooked salmon. The salmon seemed like it was cooked on a really high temperature, as it was super crusty on the outside but undercooked on the inside. The only flavours she could taste were the black pepper and the curry.

At the end, I think the waitress (who was really nice) knew we didn’t enjoy the food because neither of us finished our meals. She offered us a dessert menu, and then offered us complimentary desserts, but we didn’t want to take the risk. I’ve never felt more guilty, she was a great waitress.

In summary, I’d be willing to give them a second try if just for cocktails and appetizers at the bar. But I really hope now one goes here for a first date, unless you both have a good...

What used to be a nice little restaurant in Maple Ridge has effectively imploded on itself the last couple years. My family and I had a very lackluster experience the last couple times we visited. Both times we just sort of chalked it up to a bad day or whatever as we had been coming here for years and it has been great in the past.

Yesterday my family (as they always do) wanted to take me out for my birthday. We almost always go to The Keg or Kingfisher so my mum made a reservation at Chameleon to do something different and to give it a shot. Maybe it'll be good again right? NOPE. FULL STOP.

The place wasn't even busy, but the "server" they had "working" failed to even take a drink order within any reasonable amount of time of us being seated.

We then had to literally flag her down and make her take our food order after sitting there blankly with empty drinks for about 25 minutes. Never once asked if we'd like more drinks, never cleared the empties. Imagine a server not even bothering to take your order. Crazy right? Even a 15 year old at McDonalds gets that concept.

We waited. Waited longer. Laughed with the table beside us about how they weren't getting served either and checked our watches. 60 minutes and we all had, but one drink. Except my sister, she doesn't drink so she was treated to a glass of hopefully clean water. My mum then went up to the bar and asked what the deal was and long story short the bar manager (who I will say makes good drinks.) Informed us that our orders hadn't even been rung through properly. I'm assuming that means not at all. At that point we all left, the table beside appeared to be following. The one redeeming part of this was they comped our drinks and offered us a round, but that was redundant at that point.

We ended up going to Kingfisher where they brought us a complimentary charcuterie board right away after hearing about our experience prior and the fact that it was 9pm and we were ravenous at that point. We had great food, great service and know better now than to give Chameleon any more chances. It's all in the name, you'll never see the food here cause it's never served and the server, like the restaurants namesake, is...