O.Noir — Restaurant in Montreal

Underwhelming experience! Overall, this was a waste of an evening not worth the novelty of dining in the dark.

We arrived at ONoir at 8:15pm for our reservation for 6 guests at 8:30pm. We were directed to hang up our coats and offered a seat in the bar area. We waited half an hour and were not offered menus or beverages. After that half hour the manager came over with menus, asked for the name on the reservation and explained how the experience was to work. A nice waiter came over again soon after to ask for our name on the reservation. Another half hour later the manager returns with an excuse that guests were showing up early and late for their reservations, asks for our name on the reservation (again) and offers to take our beverage order and our meal order( 4 2-course and 2 3-course meals). It is now 9:45pm and most if the other customers in the restaurant who arrived after us have already been seated. We are finally led into the dining room, which is pitch black. This visual deprivation and hot room was overwhelming to one in our group (Note: Claustrophobic or individuals with anxiety may have adverse reactions to this experience). As a result, our party left the dark immediately.

Luckily, we were able to sit in the semi-private lit area on the 2nd floor for our meal which was nice and accommodating of the hostess and server. However, we did not receive our appetizer until 10:15pm and main course until 11:00pm. We had ordered the 3 course meal which included dessert but at 11:30pm we had not yet received it. At this point it has been 3 hours since we arrived and even some of the staff were leaving their shift! We went downstairs to cancel our dessert and were offered a half-hearted apology and an excuse that things had been going wrong all night.

It is not my role as a customer to have to point out issues with the service. The manager should have been aware of these severe delays to our experience and should have taken the initiative to apologize and worked to remedy the situation. Instead, this manager had to be called out of his office to address us. He offered to adjust our bill to 4 2-course meals (which is essentially what we received). We all felt this to be very poor handling of the situation and management. Overall, this was a waste of an evening not worth the novelty of dining in the dark.

Pros: The food was well-executed and plated beautifully. The servers were nice, polite and hard working. It is impressive that they can accomplish the already difficult task of serving tables with their visual impairment!

Cons: Long wait times, lack of accountability, poor management. There also could have been more safeguards in place for the visual deprivation experience- there was little explanation other than the dining room being pitch black, but no mention of what to do in an emergency nor if the situation became unsuitable for the participant (which I believe contributed to their reaction once in the dark). . I just hope that this feedback is not dismissed by the ownership (like our group was during this...

O'Noir has been on my wishlist for so long when I lived in Toronto. Yet yesterday was underwhelming.

The positive side is the unique experience. It made you feel grateful and gratitude to the servers working in a stressful environment. They do take care of the clients well. Check-in for food allergies, telling you where the dishes are positioned, etc.

The food was a huge let down.

Warm ciabatta and served with butter in the single serving.

For starters, I asked for scallops that supposed to come with sprouts and croutons. There's only 3 oily rubbery scallops in the dish along with the sauce on the side. (Their IG shows at least 5 scallops in the reel) I did not taste any Pinot noir from the sauce. The sauce tasted like premade. I made the note to the waiter, but they didn't do anything. I mentioned it again before I leave. They even question me if I really didn't have the sprouts salad with my scallops. My sauce was on the side. The whole dish just 3 scallops and nothing else.

My friend and I both ordered the sirloin steak and I asked to switch my mash potatoes to salad. I ordered medium rare and she had medium. The meat portion was huge but overcooked. Mine tasted like medium well and hers was well-done. She said her mash potatoes was really sweet and heavy. The side salad for me was just two bites of greens. The foie gras sauce again tasted like from a jar with no foie gras flavor.

Food was definitely on the heavily oily side, but there's no depth in the dishes. Really lack of flavor and layers.

The service was slow but I understand they are a bit crowded and understaffed. It actually made me more appreciate with my life.

Another note was the tableware and furniture in the dinning room felt very cheap. It gets crowded and squishy in the dinning room. Everyone is sitting very close to each other. When you are already in a heightened awareness mode with your surroundings, those tiny details really just grinds the gear and made the whole experience unsatisfactory.

I think one experience is enough for me. I'd like to look on the bright side and be more...

Some pros, but mostly cons.

After such a great experience at the Toronto location, I was a bit let down to be honest.

The menu didn't have much variety. I'm someone with a very diverse and flexible pallet that will try anything and nothing really jumped off the menu at me as being spectacular. Even worse, the dish I did want that is listed on the website, lobster pasta, was taken off the menu when I arrived.

During our meal the server sprayed chemical Febreeze in the room to "make it smell better" but it was honestly unhygienic and the chemical smell was overbearing. She was nice enough to move us to another room, but it was an interruption to the experience. We also got a few elbows to the head from our own server but I couldn't fault her. She was very kind and attentive considering.

As for the food we had, the pork croquettes and the beef shoulder blade, it was well cooked and edible to satisfy my hunger, but really lacked flavour and imagination. For what I paid, the value wasn't there. But a bonus point for their awesome cocktails which they froth, I have the raspberry dream. It didn't disappoint.

This would have gotten a 3 from me if it was for the final incident. We had purchased a Groupon that brought our meal to $85. The bartender drew this out on a receipt but told me our meal would normally cost $123, she said it was "recommended" that I tip based on that amount and that I tip at 15%. She then passed me the machine and said, enter in the tip amount. Are you for real? Now, having worked in the restaurant, I always tip 15-25%, even with bad service. But that is the choice and private discretion of the customer. How dare they put someone on the spot and make them feel obligated. I was shocked but this apparent tip shake down.

I tipped the 15% and left with a bad taste in my mouth, in more...