Liverpool House — Restaurant in Montreal

Started strong but ended with a whimper. The appetizers, sides and wine were excellent and thoughtful but the mains were cold, bland and lacked the care and attention that was paid to the former. At the ~$400 price point we expected much better. Perhaps the popularity and notoriety of this establishment has "gotten to the heads" of several members of the staff which has resulted in a dip in quality, service and attention to detail.

My girlfriend and I arrived at Liverpool House with lots of excitement and high expectations. A 9:15pm reservation, 10 days in advance was the best we could do at this extremely popular restaurant. We were greeted by a friendly manager and seated in a cold spot next to the front door but were quickly moved into the much warmer main dining room after we asked if there were other seats. They gave us a moment to enjoy the ambience before our friendly server took our cocktail orders and answered any questions we had about the menu.

We started with a dozen oysters at market price (~$40) which were extremely fresh, well shucked (clean presentation, easy to separate from the shell with lots of ocean water) and delicious. We asked the server to recommend a bottle of white wine to pair with our seafood mains. The wine, a 2018 unfiltered white from France called Los Annegeles ($84), was fresh, zesty and ended with an almost nutty finish; a great wine. Our next dish was the tartare ($22) which was for us the clear standout. The beef was perfectly seasoned and fresh. The red endives added a welcome freshness and the shaved parmesan gave it an extra, balanced bite. Needless to say, after such a strong start we were very excited for the mains.

I ordered the signature lobster spaghetti ($49) and my partner chose the halibut ($38). The halibut was cold. When we told the server, she offered to "warm it up" which is completely unacceptable considering the price of the dish and the risk of overcooking the fish by putting in the microwave (which is what I assumed she meant). My girlfriend had to smother the cold fish in the lukewarm broth to make it edible. It was a difficult position to be in because we were out on a nice evening and didn't want to make a scene. In this case, I would expect the server to see our displeasure (which was clear) and do everything she could to improve our experience. My pasta was shockingly overcooked and bland. The lobster was great. A $49 pasta dish should be flawless - al dente noodles and flavourful sauce. I didn't mention it to the server for fear of what she might say. We also ordered a tomato salad ($15) which was amazing and almost salvaged the poor mains. Perhaps the chefs on the main courses had an off night but it just felt lazy and pretty much ruined the evening and I doubt they tasted the food before sending it out.

What was most surprising was the stark contrast in quality between the appetizers and the mains. I can only assume that there were different chefs preparing them and the team on the mains had a terrible performance, perhaps in dire need of a refresher. In sum, the strong start couldn't make up for the regrettable finish. 2...

I used to be the biggest fan of this place. My husband and I have been coming every year to celebrate our anniversary before wedding and post-wedding. We have raved about and recommended this restaurant to anyone looking for a nice place. The service used to be surprisingly casual for an expensive spot and unpretentious. The food was always incredibly inventive, well portioned and well flavoured. The daily menu used to have a wide array of interesting dishes that were a healthy mix between seafood and game meat.

Now? We recently went and were just shocked. The atmosphere is so different - the decor has shifted, the patrons are mostly all English tourists, the service has become incredibly pretentious and poor: when our server realized we weren’t ordering wine, we hardly saw him as he fawned over other tables. The food, while still delicious, has lost all of its nice touches - the fries that come with the steak frites used to come seasoned with tallow and Parmesan, and are now just plain, the tartare used to be accompanied by (laughably) one piece of crisped bread and now comes entirely solo. Even the bread and pickle side has been downsized and includes (quite literally) half a pickle. We were incredibly disappointed this July and will certainly not be going back. There are many other restaurants in the city at a similar price point that are doing more for your money and not making you feel like you don’t belong to eat there. It’s a shame as for a lot of people, expensive restaurants are for special occasions where people make a conscious decision to allocate their disposable income to celebrate something special. These are not normal evenings for normal folks. And it’s reasonable to expect a certain level of service (and by that I mean not being grossly neglected by your server and watching him be omnipresent to many other tables in your sections, or at least having him come by at least once before you finish two courses). Even after emailing the restaurant, it took them several days to respond with a chat gpt response asking about the name on the reservation. They thanked us for “giving them the chance to make it right” and then never heard anything back.

I used to be the biggest fan of this place but truly, spend your money elsewhere.

Pictured: the same dish year over year...

We had a very disappointing dinner at Liverpool House. The previous evening we had gone to Joe Beef, Liverpool’s sister restaurant, and had a wonderful dinner with great service. So we were shocked to experience such atrocious service at Liverpool House. The night started out with cold steak. We politely returned our steak and asked it be brought back warmer. We then had to ask for the bread we ordered 3 times before we actually received it. When our steak came back, it was with the wrong jus/sauce, and considerably smaller than the first order of steak we received. There were also long gaps when no one came to check on us and there was a huge gap between when we finished our entrees and we were offered dessert. When we finally gave up on ordering dessert and just wanted to pay and leave, that also took a long time. My husband finally just went up to pay.

I am somewhat at a loss to explain why the night before had great, seamless service, where the staff worked as a team on tables, and this place’s service was so disjointed and subpar. There were a lot of staff working but many of them were limited in their tasks to setting or clearing tables, bringing food and filling glasses but not taking orders or addressing concerns. When you would flag one of them down, they’d say I will get your server who was inevitably tied up with multiple tables.

We don’t drink and I wonder if in a place like this that can work against you. Our waiter was the server and sommelier to his other tables and spent loads of time at his other tables compared to ours. We didn’t mind he didn’t chat us up but we were completely neglected and when they got something wrong, instead of trying to be more attentive to us, they essentially gave up on us. We are very polite and not difficult at all so we are very confused as to what happened.

While the food was good (though not as good as Joe Beef), the service ruined the entire experience. Save yourself some time and book Joe Beef if you want to visit this ownership group; otherwise don’t bother with this place. It very much felt like the overflow restaurant for people who can’t get into Joe Beef, with similar but not as good food, and materially...