Vis-à-Vis — Restaurant in Oak Bay

Update: This is long overdue, but the manager of this restaurant sent me a gift voucher for a generous amount to make up for our experience here. Through no fault of this restaurant we haven't been able to make it out for dinner to let them make it up to us, so I can't comment on the service, but they seemed keen on letting us give them another shot. This is worth something.

Ambiance: 5 Stars Food and Drink: 4 Stars Service: 2 Stars

Vis-a-Vis is located adjacent to and is part of the Penny Farthing Pub in Oak Bay. The building is charming old brick with comfortable interior millwork. Vis-a-Vis itself is a little more modern than the Penny Farthing, but still charming and comfortable. The stage for a french Brasserie is set wonderfully in this restaurant that showed so much promise.

Food and Drink: I ordered 'The French Connection' wine flight (which was excellent) alongside the Duck leg (also excellent) with a side of cauliflower gratin (it was quite good) to be shared with my spouse. My food and drink all arrived at the table with no problems whatsoever. We ordered a Paris Brest to be shared for dessert, it was expensive ($12) and wasn't good, they advertised almond cream and lemon curd served with the pastry, it was just lemon curd and it tasted old. The Paris Brest at "La Roux" in downtown Victoria is far superior.

Service: My spouse was not so well treated. My spouse ordered a cocktail from the previous cocktail menu (That had changed within the last couple of days, and the drink she ordered is still on their website) thinking that their advertising on their website was legitimate: Vis-a-Vis says that they're happy to make cocktails from previous menus and that they keep all the old recipes on hand just in case one is desired. Our server, named Mishka, balked at my spouse ordering a drink from a previous menu, wasn't interested in putting in the least bit of effort to make the drink order happen (no suggestions, no questions about the recipe, not apologetic that it "wasn't available"), she only pretended to go ask the bartender (she just went to the bar and waited for 5 seconds without speaking to the bartender) if he could make it, and came back saying "He doesn't know" after my spouse mentioned what the website said about making older recipes. My spouse was disappointed as she wanted the drink she had seen on their website and had assumed that their promise of making older recipes was genuine. She ordered something else instead and was not satisfied. She also ordered a Chacuterie and Fromage board for herself, which did not arrive when my food did. It was obvious that when my food was delivered that there had been a mistake in the kitchen and that her food had not been made, though they were aware of the order. We had an awkward 10 minutes while the restaurant staff was staring at us and talking whilst a few cooks panicked in their haste to cut chacuterie and cheese for her. They delivered her food just over 10 minutes after my food arrived, and didn't seem apologetic or offer any recompense for the awkwardness or inconvenience. Also our table ended up being quite cluttered as the servers never bothered to clear our appetizer plates/flatware.

This was our first date night out since our son was born 7 months ago, and we were largely disappointed that we didn't just go to our favourite restaurant: Brasserie L'ecole instead. I wouldn't waste your time here unless you live in Oak Bay and even then: The service...

I share this review with a very heavy heart, as I was really looking forward to visiting Oak Bay, and this restaurant. Our visit was a few weeks ago. I will start with positive, the location is great and the place looks amazing. Nice and intimate, nice decor. However, our problem was with service, we did not receive much. My husband and I came in on a Saturday, around 1:30pm. When we we first seated the establishment was full, so we understood it would take the server a few minutes before he could get to us, 15 minutes later he came over and handed us menus, we asked for any cocktail specials, and he advised he did not know as he was new. He then handed us menus, which we noticed were Brunch menus, I had googled the menu prior to arriving and asked if we could order from the regular menu. His answer was "no" there was no explanation, just blank look and "no". We assumed that perhaps on weekends they only have the brunch menus, which we were ok with. By this time most of the patron had settled their bills, and there was only us and another table. We ordered the 1 salmon eggs benny, as we were going to hop over to the pub next door after to try an appy there. In the meantime a new group of 6 was seated next to us, they received service right away, and we noticed that they received the brunch menu and the regular menu, we were a little peeved, if we were told we only needed wait 15 minutes for menu, we would have. Now this place is not big, there were few other servers and who assumed was the manager walking around, they could clearly see we were not pleased, as now it was 2:30 and we still had not received our 1 item of food. What infuriated us was, the group of 6 all received their food, and we were still waiting! During this time, no one came to fill our water, no one asked if we needed anything. I finally was able track a server down as asked if we were getting our food, after a little discussion with server and manager, we were advised out food would be only few minutes, when it finally came, it was the wrong item, it was a regular eggs benny, which had been clearly been sitting on the counter for some time. This was the last straw, when I asked the server, his response was "oh... yah, it was suppose to be salmon". We got up and left, no one approached to apologize. We left the restaurant at 3:00, the only thing we had was 1 glass of water. Horrible Horrible service, such a shame, as when we walked in we had such high expectations. In addition to this we found out the PUB next door and this restaurant share a kitchen , which we assumed was mostly likely owned by the same person. So we opted out of going there as well. If you are in Oak Bay, head over to the Oak Bay Beach hotel for great food, and...

The food was excellent, but the overall experience was disappointing. We went there for my wife’s birthday. When we got there, we spoke to one of their employees about getting a table. It was all outdoor seating (their COVID protocols were very good) and we were told we could leave our number and go wander around the village and we’d get a call to return for a table in about 15 minutes. This was no problem of course, so we wandered a bit. It was quite cold out, but we were walking, so it wasn’t a big deal. But 15 minutes came and went, and then 30, then 45. At that point we were just waiting at a bench near the restaurant, freezing our a@&es off. Finally we went up and asked, and they realized they had accidentally skipped us on their list. They were extremely apologetic and sat us as soon as possible.

As far as we were concerned, this was a simple accident, and accidents can happen to anyone. In my opinion, how a business DEALS with their mistakes is the true test. Our waiter was excellent, and told us that the first round was on the house because of their error. We told him that we had been planning on sharing a bottle of wine and asked if that was ok, and he indicated that yes, it was. We weren’t extravagant, the bottle was maybe a LITTLE more than a couple of cocktails would have been, but not much. At this point I thought to myself “excellent, they made a mistake, owned it, and have certainly made up for it”. We went on to have an EXCELLENT meal, and just a really wonderful time. Our waiter was really friendly and helpful, and the food was wonderful. We had a couple of scotches at the end of the night, and ordered a desert to share which we were going to take home to our hotel.

Then the bill came.

When he brought it, he told us that they had comped the desert because of the earlier mishap. I thought to myself “wow, they’re going all out, I was happy with the wine, but this is really pulling out all the stops.” I paid the bill, and we got ready to go. Then I looked at it, and realized that the bottle of wine that we were told was on the house was actually NOT on the house. I didn’t want to ruin the evening for my wife, so I didn’t make a fuss.

As I mentioned, our waiter was excellent. This part is pure conjecture, but my guess is that this wasn’t his call. My guess is that a manager in the back probably said to him, “no, we’re not paying for a &$@&ing bottle of wine, just comp their desert, they should be happy with that”.

Our meal for two came to over $200. The difference between the bottle and the desert was probably $20, maybe $25 tops. I don’t really care about that money. But the apparent pettiness of the restaurant ruined an otherwise...