Istanbul Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Ontario

If you are going to read any review, read this one. We went as a party of 8, and the experience was a mess from the moment we laid eyes on the menu. So there are 2 ways to view the menu. You can use the physical copy or scan the QR code to access a menu with pictures of the dishes on your phone. (why there are no pictures on the physical menu is beyond me). Upon scanning the QR code you realize the website they are using to host the digital menu has ads on it! This was really unprofessional. Also I'm pretty sure the picture of the burger is AI generated. Anyways, the menu doesn't tell you much about each dish, I would have liked to see the number of skewered included for the kebab dishes, the size of the steak in the steak section, and what the meal is served with (there was no indication on any of the menu items that most of the dishes were served with either rice, salad, fries or burghul). We ordered a ribeye steak, a few adana kebabs, a beyti sarma, and a few pides.

They provided complementary bread and dips, and honestly these were pretty good, especially the tomato based dip.

The pides where also pretty good, not the best I've had, the cheese was a little more oily than it should be, the dough was ok, and the meat and veggie fillings where a solid 7/10. Unfortunately, the are overpriced. They are about 20 dollars each, for what it is (A comparable item from other places is around 10-12). You won't be full with this unfortunately, and one of our party members ordered a second plate after finishing his pide.

Unfortunately, the good things stop here. When they brought out our cutlery we noticed one of the knives was extremely dirty. I wish we took a picture but it was really quite bad, there's no way it was washed, it still had bits of food stuck to it, and among the rest of the cutlery we noticed not all of them where cleaned properly.

For a place calling itself a steakhouse, the ribeye was really poorly done, with a poor sear on the outside that lacked any kind of crust development, and an overall lackluster texture and bland flavor. It also definitely was not a 12 ounce steak as the waiter had pointed out (significantly thinner than what a regular ribeye cut should be)

For the kebab plates, the meat was ok, 6/10 however in multiple of our skewers we found ourselves biting into something rock solid, I'm not sure if it was a piece of bone or what, but it was odd that it happened to multiple of us across multiple plates. It also felt like they really skimped on the portion size. The 2 skewers were fine, but they only really include a tiny amount of rice/burghul with each plate (usually because rice is cheap restaurants put a lot of rice to make the plate seem bigger than it really is but they did the opposite), and the random included slice of tomato wasn't grilled properly (had tiny char mark from when it was put on the grill but it was still fridge temp on the). Really for a plate at this price, there should either be significantly more rice/burghul, or a combination of rice & salad.

While I think this place can be redeemed, a lot of work needs to be done before I...

Update for restaurants reply:

Your response was just about as professional, as the restaurant is good (not at all). Why not address the specific issues that were pointed out? There is no way people would ever call your prices cheap, the other 1 star reviews attest to that. Shame on you. It is funny the only 5 star reviews are from Turkish people you know, and the other non 5 star reviews.. aka the honest reviews are from a non-turkish origin. Thus = fake comments. Others BEWARE.

Wow. I can easily say I have never had a worse dining experience than I have here. Save yourself the complete and utter disaster and do not go. PLEASE do not believe the 5 star reviews.. they either have to be fake or people are posting about the wrong restaurant.

To start, the prices here are absurd. I don't think Toronto would even charge these prices, meanwhile their building looks attached to Motel 6. I don't mind paying a premium price if the food is worth it, but I can assure you, their service and food do not reflect the prices they are charging.

Service overall was terrible. For example it took about 20 mins to even get utensils after our food was brought. We asked for additional condiments and they never came. It also took about 20 mins to get the waitresses attention. She would literally make eye contact with you and then run to do something else instead.

Next, the entire meal was luke warm at best. Was not enjoyable eating it all cold. Fyi don't count on getting the lamb chops, they will come and tell you they are out.

They also play games so be careful with your bill. They brought us the wrong food item.. we told them they messed it up... they apologized and said it was their mistake and to keep the dish because it was her fault... then she walked away and came back and TOOK the plate. We were stunned. Since they took the food back (even though they said it was ours for no charge), we asked for our original item to be discounted from the bill. They agreed. When we got the bill, they discounted one thing and added another random charge for an item we didn't order!! Please be careful with your bill. They are sneaky here.

We will never return. What an incredibly...

I really wanted to enjoy it here but didn't. Now that Istanbul has been open for a while, I dismissed past bad reviews and assumed any new-restaurant kinks had been ironed out by now. Unfortunately they haven't. I mean, management diligently responds to reviewers here on Google Maps, but nothing seems to be changing. :(

Service was fast, kind, and seemingly friendly but we felt very rushed to order, and ordering advice was not offered. We asked specifically if we had ordered enough and if we should order an $8 dip; they wouldn't answer -- shrugged and said "that's entirely up to you"... so we did. We then received 3 additional complimentary surprise appetizer dips‽ We all rolled our eyes at each other over it. Could easily have said we'd be receiving some anyway. Sigh. I don't really care about the $10, I care about the disrespect and wasted food.

We had to ask for glasses for pop. No ice. We had to ask for utensils to share things, and that request was met with pushback: "You already have forks". Well we'd prefer not eat the inside of each other's mouths if that's ok, thanks?

The food was all very tasty, though I felt value-for-money was a little low, particularly on the mixed grill.

Our food was prepared and delivered VERY quickly but then we were entirely ignored moving forward. Service staff was abundant and they didn't seem terribly busy, but NOBODY checked on us. In a restaurant with private booths? Baffling. For anything we needed, we had to get up and flag someone down. We wanted to order more drinks and dessert, but nobody visited for so long we just gave up. I tipped the minimum option of 15% after tax, but kind of regret doing so.

Lastly, two of the three of us in the group were very gassy for the evening through to the next afternoon... bad enough that we reached out to check in on each other. :(

I appreciate the gravity of reporting these things publicly, but I feel like people should know that past criticisms here seem to be unfortunately still valid, as of April 2024 anyway. If you have a great experience moving forward, please do leave a good review! I hope things improve and wish...