Bold Knight Restaurant — Restaurant in Nanaimo

I brought my second son to Bold Knight for his birthday dinner and it still stands as our favourite steak and seafood house in the Nanaimo region. My son had his favourite Moscow Mule beverage served in the traditional copper mug. The tossed salad is fresh and crispy and the bread loaf warm and fragrant. I had my usual New York Steak with baked potato, and my son had the Dungeness Crab with Lobster Tail and rice. Both meals were superb. My steak was thick, juicy and incredibly tender. I ordered Bearnaise sauce which was creamy and hot, but only used about half. There was nothing wrong with it. It was delicious. It's just that their steaks stand so well by themselves. They are aged to perfection, cut and trimmed with skill, seasoned with a very gentle hand, and grilled with just enough char to seal in the juices. Their steaks are a study in perfection. My son's crab was delicate and sweet and his lobster tail meaty and tender. For dessert I had mud pie with a cappuccino, and my son had another Moscow Mule. It was a wonderful birthday supper. The staff are all wonderful and our server was a sweetheart. It was excellent value and well worth a premium gratuity.

I took my youngest son to The Bold Knight Restaurant for an early dinner on a Friday evening and we were promptly and courteously seated at a table of our choice. One of the many benefits of arriving early to any restaurant. We ordered New York steaks with baked potato and vegetables, which came with bread and a tossed salad. The rosemary loaf was hot, fresh and delicious with whipped butter. The salad was very good, as was their blue cheese dressing. The steaks were very thick, juicy, flavourful, scrumptious and cooked to order, much to our delight. My son had Steak Oscar and I had peppercorn glaze with mushrooms, both were excellent. The potatoes were hot, buttery and were loaded with ingredients of our choice. Veggies were perfectly hot and crisp. My son had their apple pie for dessert which came with a streusel top, and sides of whipped cream and ice cream and looked awesome. The service was spot on friendly, attentive and warm. I honestly cannot understand the bad reviews. Is it expensive? Seriously? You get what you pay for. Is the atmosphere old school? Yes, it is. Wonderfully. Unashamedly. I haven't been to a restaurant like this in many years. It was amazing. We've found our local Nanaimo steak house, and...

I just had one of the most underwhelming dining experiences of my life. I've driven past The Bold Knight countless times and have often heard it referred to as the fine dining spot in Nanaimo. So, for our anniversary, we decided to finally give it a try. Unfortunately, things went downhill from the moment we walked in. We weren’t greeted upon arrival and were left awkwardly standing at the entrance while three staff members moved around us without acknowledging we were there. After a few uncomfortable minutes, a hostess finally appeared and seated us — right next to the entrance, despite us making a reservation weeks in advance. The first thing that stood out was how casually the staff were dressed. For a place that brands itself as fine dining, t-shirts, shorts, and even socks with sandals felt completely out of place. To their credit, we were brought waters quickly and our drink order was taken promptly. The drinks were actually quite good — I had a Cabernet Sauvignon, and my partner ordered a Longwood Lager. When the waitress returned to take our order I chose the sirloin steak with lobster. The “lobster” portion was barely a tablespoon, severely overcooked, and rubbery. My steak, ordered medium-rare, came out rare, dry, and suspiciously like it had been cooked from frozen — it was incredibly tough to chew. Everything on the plate was cold, poorly presented, and lacked any real flavor. Even the bread that was brought to our table was bland. For the price paid it's sad to say that the blend vegetables were the best thing on the plate at a steakhouse, and even then there could have been more veggies. My partner asked for extra seasoning on his steak and it was still quite flavourless. No one checked in on us during the meal, we weren’t offered another round of drinks or water, and there was no mention of dessert. When we finished, the server returned with a flat, “So just the bill then?” For a place that’s marketed as a premium dining experience, this was incredibly disappointing on...

RESPONSE TO OWNER: It's unfortunate that you took my review personally. A professional response would be to express disappointment with our experience along with the hopes we'd return and have a better experience. I left an honest review and if you see my other reviews, you can see that I'm pretty fair. And unless you're purchasing good reviews, I'm left with the conclusion that your patrons either have lower standards (yours is not the first 'high' rated, low standard restaurant we've experienced in the area) or we happened to arrive on the one bad night. But given the lack of professionalism in your response, I anticipate it's not the latter.

I've driven past this restaurant sitting alone on the side of the highway for 40+ years but never stepped inside until recently. I figured that any restaurant that has lasted this long must be good and I really wanted this to be an amazing experience. Unfortunately, it fell far short of expectations.

First, my steak was undercooked. I ordered medium-rare but my steak arrived was very rare with blood pooling on my plate and soaking into my vegetables. The peppercorn sauce tasted like powdered gravy with fine pepper milled into it.

Second, we ordered 2 tails of lobster and contrary to the steak, the lobster was exceedingly overcooked and so salty to be inedible: 12 ounces of salty rubber for $70.

Finally, the meal itself was quite dear. Comparable in price to The Keg but at a quality standard lucky to be 40% of The Keg. In fact, nothing exceeded mediocrity with the exception of the seafood chowder. There wasn't anything that I couldn't cook better myself, which is not an ideal outcome for dining out.

I'm glad I went once to satisfy my longstanding curiosity but I most certainly won't be back. I'm not sure why this place attracts decent reviews but presume it has something to do with the palates of the locals who have yet to experience...