Tide and Vine Oyster House — Restaurant in Niagara Falls

We have visited the Tide & Vine on numerous occasions over the last five years having made it a destination when visiting the Niagara Region. In the past we have found the staff friendly and engaging and the food fresh and delicious. Well worth every penny. Not at all so on our recent visit.

We found the staff aloof and more focused on their own conversations or with those local patrons who were obviously well known. When they did speak it was smug and disinterested. A change from the past but having years of public facing roles, we shrugged it off as just the day as we know pleasing the public can be challenging at the best of times.

As always the Happy Hour menu of shuckers choice oysters and mussels were wonderful and the gulf shrimp a real treat. Given everything was so fresh, we decided to share an entree lobster roll which we often do when we've had appetizers. Admittedly and to our misfortune, we didn’t take a minute to check the menu price which, if we had, would have immediately put the brakes on that order.

Before going further it's important to note we are not novices when it comes to lobster, oysters and mussels. Being from Atlantic Canada now living in southern Ontario, we are fortunate to have a long history with these delicacies and have paid happily and handsomely to savor wonderful Atlantic seafood cuisine.

Tide & Vine describes their lobster roll entree as “chunked Atlantic lobster, caper & tarragon aioli, toasty buttered bun and German style potato salad” however it totally fails to measure up to these expectations and was a complete waste of money. The bun was dry, not warm or toasty and with no butter. The lobster while generous was bland and chewy. It didn't have any noticeable caper and tarragon aioli and dry which is a difficult thing to achieve with lobster! It would barely rate 2-stars anywhere on the East Coast.

The portion was small for an entree given the side of potato salad was in a tiny mason jar and it comes with nothing else. To add insult to injury, this mediocre entree cost a whopping $38! THEN we were unexpectedly charged an extra 75 cents on the bill for a second piece of bread that waitress innocently suggested "two pieces of bread with the mussels" without at all mentioning any extra charge. That's never happened before and was inexcusabley deceptive.

We said nothing as we knew by the attitude of the staff we would have only received a condescending rebuttal of “we only receive high accolades for our lobster roll” and quickly turned it to us as the problem. Success can nurture arrogance which sadly seems to be the case here given the tone of this last visit and the quick criticism of any less than positive feedback both in the restaurant and online wiith the owners sharply disagreeing with any negative customer experience.

To ease the pain of having dropped way too much money on a horrible lobster roll, the following day we went and bought 3 live Atlantic Lobsters which we cooked at home along with homemade German style potato salad. It yielded 3 meals - 2 rolls, two lemon butter poached tails with a side salad, and a sharable seafood salad with crusty rolls on the side. All with generous amounts of lobster and all for $55!

So, if you visit the Tide & Vine, the happy hour menu of $2 shuckers choice oysters and ½ price mussels are outstanding. The rest is really overpriced so check the prices before you order. Sadly FOR ALL... we left terribly upset, ripped off and violated. We...

I can’t say enough about this place!! I’m sorry I didn’t take more photos but I was stuffing my face! Yes it’s in a strip mall and no it isn’t a strip mall dining experience. My husband and I have traveled near and far and this is hands down the best seafood and service we have ever had!!! I’ll start with when we first entered the restaurant. The two hosts, I believe one was being trained at the moment. They both handled and issue with an extremely rude guest with so much poise and class, a guest with zero respect for personal space or trust in them to do their job was basically in this poor girls face demanding to have a table with no reservations and at one point I thought she was going to grab the tablet from the young lady. Anywho they handled it extremely well. Moving on… our server Talia (I hope I spelled that correctly) was an absolute gem her personality, passion for the food as well as knowledge was noteworthy to say the least! Talia was genuinely excited it was our first time to Canada, she went into great detail to explain everything from the homemade sauces, gave recommendations, as well as personal favorites. Not to mention told us if you bring your bill next door to the fish market you get a discount . She👏🏻was 👏🏻a👏🏻ma👏🏻zing!!! Now to the food, I am a chef myself in my own kitchen lol but we do have high standards for eating out due to this and don’t often go out because… well I can make it better at home🤷‍♀️Toot toot ( yes I know I’m tooting my own horn) but this food and dining experience was worth EVERY dollar!!! Starting with my drink…My strawberry rhubarb margarita I had … well I had three let’s just put it that way lol. Perfectly balanced flavor chefs kiss! And they didn’t skimp on the alcohol either but be careful it snuck up on me. Strong but couldn’t taste anything “strong” it was a perfect drink! I’m no light weight either being in the industry myself lol. So appetizers, we ordered the parm truffle Fries. Normally when we order something with truffle we wonder where our money went because we can’t taste it. These fries were AMAZING!! The truffle was definitely there but not over powering also got a dozen assorted oysters, I’m a Charleston SC girl raised in Florida so my standards again are high here. These oysters were mudflaps! Big but not ridiculous they were so salty and briny ugh we almost ordered more but we had a fine more food coming. The seafood chowder…. GET IT and a BOWL I could have swam in it!!! If we had a way to get it home we would have bought a vat of it. I closely examined it and will attempt to recreate at my family’s desperate request! Lobster roll was great as well but they’re hard to mess up. The olive oil cake we had with strawberries apricot reduction and a marscapone whipped cream was the cherry on top!! We drove to see the falls but this dining experience was worth the trip alone! As an Italian woman myself, food is a love language to me and my family. This food was a giant kiss! You can taste all the love, care, time, quality ingredients and hard work that goes into this food. It truly was a pleasure dining at your establishment. We did not stop smiling throughout our entire meal. Thank you tide and vine for a rare experience! We will be back if we ever make it up that way again!! Love, the...

Visit this restaurant in the first or second week of April for my mom's birthday during lunch hours. See loves seafood. Parking seems to be limited. Upon entry we were greeted kind of cold by the host. She asked if we made reservations. Replied no. I asked if it is required as I look over their website and had no mention only when it gets to the busy season it is recommended. We stood there while she typed in an online reservation before being seated. Anyways, we were seated for three and the servers were friendly. That was welcoming. We asked questions and recommendations for oyster and the dishes. It was a Monday and it was happy hour all day for 🦪 and mussle. However only one type of oyster was in the happy hour and the other types of oysters were at a regular price. We ordered the oysters and mussels to start while we decided which dish to pick. Also lemonade and tea. Mussels broth was excellent but the kicker was the sauces/ vinaigrette at the tables. For me that was the best and was a great companion to enjoy the oysters and even the mussels. I wished I could bring it with me and we found out by the server there a shop next door that sells those in house made sauce. That was something to do after we dined in. The sauces: mignonette, island hot, something scotch bonnet, and w'oysters (new favourite). All four were excellent. Not overpowering the oysters and taste both the sauce and the oyster. Tried a combination of the sauces as the sauce bottles had caps that poured out droplets for better control. We enjoyed it. The main dishes we ordered were pan seared scallops and pork and daily po'boy. Also, asked for 3 spoon caviar - our first time. The caviar presentation was nice until my sister pointed out the spoon. It was handcrafted from the oysters shell. I thought it looked like plastic from a quick glance but no. Caviar test - new experience. Yes, it has the sea/ocean flavour, bit salty, nice burst of the eggs, and a surprise creaminess. Found the caviar comes from farmed sturgeon and tends to have a creamy flavour compared to wild sturgeon. The spoon is available for purchase in the next shop for $10 each. Tempting and maybe in the summer will purchase a few. The scallops and pork I recommend. The daily po'boy was a tuna sandwich melt I do not recommend. The pork and scallops combination was on point excellent. The celeriac puree was new and wonderful. Overall we enjoyed it. We even added a few droplets of the sauces to see how it would taste. I say give it a try. The tuna melts just a standard tuna melt sandwich with American cheese slices. Flavour was not really there and tuna was dry and had to drink water in between a few bites. Would go back for the happy...