Hiatus Restaurant et Bar — Restaurant in Montreal

Went as a splurge meal on our last night visiting Montréal. The buzz was all good about this newly opened restaurant and we wanted to experience a luxury dinner served with gorgeous views over the city.

The vibe of the place was very mid20s clubbing, lots of loud, shrieking with laughter people dashing around and taking selfies. Not elegant at all.

Waitress immediately tried to upsell us on a mystery tasting menu so we “wouldn’t have to think at all” (except about the bill at the end…) - we stuck with a la carte.

We tried to just order appetizers and wait for our starters since we were in no rush and wanted to enjoy sipping drinks with the view for awhile but the waitress informed us we had to order everything at once because their proteins take a long time to cook? Smart on their part because honestly we might have quit after the appetizers and moved on to another restaurant.

We ordered the oysters and the bluefin tuna to start, and were also surprised with the tacoyaki as a bonus.

The Tacoyaki was disgusting, it was like fishy waffle batter that hadn’t been cooked all the way. We both felt we needed to wash our mouths after those bites.

The oysters were phenomenal. The shiitake sabayon was so scrumptious I wanted to like each shell.

The Bluefin tuna tartar itself was bright and delicious, but the pickled radishes on top tasted really foul. We picked them off and cleaned the plate otherwise.

I had the PEI filet Mignon which came out beautiful, but was basically 2 one ounce pieces prettily arranged on a plate which seemed very skimpy for $70. The two pieces of meat were topped with a heap of crushed peppercorn which was very gritty and took away from the tenderness of the filet. I ended up scraping as much as I could off. The plate was also decorated with dollops of celery root purée, which on the plate tasted completely plain and un-seasoned, but they also provided a bowl on the side with some caramelized onions and very tasty celery root purée - smooth and delicious until I bit into a nickel size piece of bone. In the otherwise smooth puréed celery root. The server tried to explain that it was probably a piece of bone or cartilage and tried to imply it was because I had steak. My two one ounce pieces of filet that I am pretty sure were prepared sous vide. What do I know?

My husband had the “smoked” pork cheek which tasted like plain ham steak. It wasn’t slow cooked, the fat wasn’t rendered at all. Just not good.

We had three rounds of drinks, the same drinks (Negronis) and each round came out progressively smaller. The last one was just insulting, the glasses were maybe 1/3 full and at this point we were just done with this place.

The views are great, the vibe was awful, service was only ok, food was just embarrassingly bad for those kind of prices. If you want a fine dining experience there are much better restaurants that...

The place is very nice, the food delicious, but my rating was for the waitress who served me. I don't know if they train them when they hire people. I've always been kind to the staff and polite because that's who I am. However, I've heard that there are people who, because they work for certain brands or places, treat you as if they were the owners. And if they were the real owners, I'm sure they wouldn't treat me like that. The girl who served my table seemed quite arrogant. Sorry, I know the customer isn't always right, but when you work in customer service, and especially in restaurants, you expect to be treated like what you are: a customer who is going to consume, to take away the full experience of the place. Anyway, I repeat, the place and food were 10 to 10, but this girl even told me, when she saw me at the table, "Why don't you have a menu?" Did you sit here without being referred by the hostess? Because if that were the case, you can't be here! Which I understand, but why not ask first?Hey, excuse me, did someone assign you a table? And then she could have saved her comments. After that she continued treating me as if she was doing me a favor. Btw of course they did give me a table. But the girl at the door said, "I'll be right back with the menu." Excuse me. and me...of course, don't worry.Anyway, I'm not generalizing, but I think they should teach their servers how to properly serve tables. I continued enjoying my night, while she stayed working there. This last bit isn't meant to sound classist, but she truly served me as if she was paying for the food I ordered. I hope you understand my comment. And it's a shame I don't know her name. Anyway, I went on Friday at 8:45 with Daniel's...

I had a reservation tonight at your restaurant for 7:00 PM to celebrate my sister’s birthday. Unfortunately, because the entrance downstairs was closed, we arrived slightly late and got there around 7:15 PM.

To my shock, our reserved table had already been given away without any prior notice or even a simple apology. Instead, the staff told us to sit at the bar for at least an hour and a half until another table became available. When I politely asked to speak with the manager, the response I received was extremely rude and unprofessional. I was even threatened that if I continued talking about the situation, we would have to leave the restaurant immediately.

This is completely unacceptable for any establishment — especially one that claims to provide good service. Not only did you ruin my sister’s birthday celebration, but your lack of professionalism, disrespectful attitude, and terrible service made the entire evening an awful experience.

As a blogger, I will make sure to share my experience on my platforms so that others are aware of the extremely poor service and management at your restaurant. People deserve to know the truth before choosing to spend their time and money here.

I hope you take this seriously and reconsider your customer service standards. No one should have to experience such disrespect after making a reservation and trusting your...