Sel Noir Steakhouse — Restaurant in Montreal

To be honest I’m not normally someone who writes a negative review but tonight’s experience at this restaurant was THAT BAD that I just had to. We started off great because the host sat us down at a bigger round table (even tho we were just 2 people) but it all went downhill from there . We ordered the tomahawk steak for 2 which is 40oz of steak. The steak came out but no one brought out steak knives . I signaled to our waiter Theo that we needed steak knives and he nodded his head yes to acknowledge what I just said , but then proceeded to take the order for a 10 top that got sat right next to us . Him being sat a 10 top was not the issue, how he handled himself was . It took 10 minutes for the steak knives to come out, which was brought out by a gentleman named Yusuf (gustaf) . Even though we asked for the steak to be cooked medium, the steak came out medium rare . Unfortunately Theo never checked on us so we couldn’t let him know what the issue was . Yusuf ,on the other hand , was the only one who took care of us, asked us if everything was ok and refilled our waters constantly. He’s the only reason I’m leaving 2 stars for service or why I even left a tip . Anyways, after we finished eating, we wanted to take the leftovers home . When Yusuf came over, we asked him if they could cook the steak a bit more before throwing it in a to go box. Yusuf told us that they ran out of to go boxes but that he would try his best to wrap up our food, which I appreciated . After this interaction, no one came up to us for about 40 minutes . When I finally was able to get Theo’s attention I signaled for the check which he didn’t bring out himself . He had his female colleague bring it out . I had my card ready in hand and the female ( I’m sorry I don’t know her name ) dropped the check and left before I could run my card (she literally had the credit card machine in her hands and walked away?) . So we waited another 10 minutes but she never came back . By then we had sat there 50 minutes and we were angry . How do you manage to ignore a table for 50 minutes and not even bring out the leftovers we asked for ?? It doesn’t take 50 minutes to heat up some steak and wrap it up in some foil ? We just wanted to leave at this point . So I went up to the bar where the female was and told her I was ready to pay . Once I paid I still couldn’t leave because we still weren’t give our leftovers. So we asked Yusuf for the leftovers and he brought them out 5 minutes later on a plate . He explained that the reason it took so long was because there was nothing he could find to wrap the leftovers in which is completely not his fault . (It’s not his fault the restaurant ran out of to go containers). He did the best he could in that situation. Yusuf could tell that me and my boyfriend were still upset and told us to give him 2 minutes of our time . So we reluctantly waited and he brought out a piece of cake and apologized for how the evening went . I reassured him that he wasn’t the issue . The experience wouldn’t have been nearly as bad had Theo not been trying to pass us on to everyone else . After taking our order , Theo never came back to ask us if we wanted another drink or to explain the reason for his absence . I tried to be understanding , Theo just got sat a part of 10, maybe he had his hands a bit full . But all he had to do was check in with us and be like “hey I’ll be right with you” or “I apologize for the wait” . But he ignored us after taking our order . Didn’t bring us our check, didn’t wish us a goodnight. Nothing . I think it speaks volumes that we interacted more with Yusuf than our actual waiter Theo. I won’t be back . I Would definitely not recommend this place unless you like being ignored for 50 minutes ! (There were only 2 tables there aside from us , a two top and the ten top I mentioned previously plus a couple of people at the bar ) . Not busy enough for the service to...

Am I the villain?

I went to Sel Noir with 6 other family members to have a great time and celebrate a birthday - wrong idea.

I had a reservation for 9:45. Upon arrival at 9:30 they took my name and had us waiting, which was not a problem. However, several other people arrived after, and I noticed their coats were taken from them. I went and asked if we could also hang our coats or since we were 7 it was an issue, she said no that’s fine and proceeded to not be bothered at all.. hmm ok?

We were seated at around 9:50 and a server only came 20min later to ask if we wanted anything to drink .. we ordered 4 drinks and they came wayyy later. The waitress bringing the drinks couldn't be any more clueless or rude. Didn’t care to bring the drinks to us but just dropped them at the center of the table and left.

When ordering we asked if we could order fries to share while waiting for the actual food since it had been at least an hour of waiting. The waitress said that ordering fries would delay the preparation of our steaks. huh?? So we didn’t order anything cause wth.

At 11:30 when we were still not served, we tried to ask the girl who brought us the drinks for more info, she did not want to stop to talk to us and just said she would call our waitress .. right .. the waitress never came and at 11:40 we talked with the first girl who greeted us while passing by and said at this point we just wanted to pay for our drinks and leave because the restaurant closes at midnight and we hadnt started eating yet.

The manager came and tried to gaslight us - talking about a steak takes 1h30 to be cooked .. we ate a steakhouses before .. please. He then said he had 2 cooks and a waitress who had called in sick last min. I am usually very understanding but at this point really none of this was NONE of my business. He then offered 20% off the bill and desert for everyone. I kept trying to explain that I was not complaining to get a discount or cake .. I just wanted to leave.

They ended up bringing the food 5min later. Half the orders were messed up, steak was either burnt or not cooked as requested, and many items missing that we had to remind them of. The food was room temp at best. How?? If they had just done cooking it? Confusion, confusion and more confusion!!

We ate in 15min top and asked for the bill. The drink girl came back actually more clueless than before and had us repeating our orders at lest 3x before getting it right .. to still get it wrong LOL I can’t.

The 20% was not added, items we didn't order were billed - got them to rectify this but never got the offered desert lmao.

We had to ask for the bill at least 4x because they were more concerned with taking their closing shift shot than serving us properly.

This place is a fiasco. This employee was raging on a table close to us with his notebook. An accountant? I don’t care. Why are you slamming doors and crashing out in front of clients?

What is going on?

If you still decide to go there, please be aware of their uneven step at the entry. 3 of us almost fell and I watched other girls came in going through the same.

Anyways, it was not a real question - it was rhetorical. I am not the villain, the service was just atrocious, brutal...

It was the most disappointing restaurant I have ever been to. In conclusion, the 4.9 Google Maps rating can not be considered justified.

The restaurant was opened only a month ago and the interior is clean. The atmosphere is not a steakhouse, like a dark bar. Almost no customers, so it was quiet, but the music was loud, and the table was unstable.

The Caesar salad was good, but the overall taste was quite strong and too salty. The steak was also too salty and peppery, so we removed the surface seasoning. Steak sauce was served when we were eating it halfway. The lobster risotto was good, but it was like squid-smelt risotto.

Service was unfriendly and unpleasant from the start. When ordering drinks, we were told, "I don't know."

The most disappointing thing was that the food was too slow to arrive. We waited 50 minutes for our appetizers. This is unthinkable in the restaurant with only a few customers. For the main dish, two hours we had already passed since we entered the restaurant. It was unbelievable. They didn't seem to listen to our requests and didn't apologize for the delay at all.

The service times for other tables were similar. I can feel the same frustration here. They will not be coming back. Despite the 4.9 rating of the restaurant, the fact that there were only 8 customers out of 50 seats during the prime time of the dinner hour says it all.

When we left, not only did no one see us off, but we had to find our coats ourselves. There is no way I would tip at least 18(~25) % for such a service. I have been to over 150 restaurants in Montreal and have never had such a super disappointing experience.

The restaurant has been open for a month. It is hard to imagine about 100 reviews with 5 stars in only 30 days, even though there are only a few customers. I sincerely hope it will be a fair rating. The interests of customers should not be harmed by ratings made with money. Only 4 reviews out of 100 were not given 5 stars. However, the content of those four was quite agreeable.

I hope Google will improve its rating system to be fair. If the evaluations had been fair, there would not have been so many complaints.

In general, there is nothing more painful than the cost of failing to overcome a high hurdle. In other words, setting high expectations can have the opposite effect. This is without saying that restaurants should value repeat...