Aiana Restaurant — Restaurant in Ottawa

My wife and I went back to Aiana for the Chef's Taster Menu and this time, I have to say, we were blown away by the service as well as the food!

Please could I take this opportunity to thank the team profusely for such a wonderful evening last night. The experience was literally the other end of the spectrum from last week and we really, really enjoyed our time with them!

My wife and I were so touched by the personal service they provided, and especially the small touches – absolutely incredible.

Phil, our waiter, displayed some of the best FOH service we have ever received at a fine dining restaurant, and it was such a memorable evening for us, especially as he displayed the exact qualities you would want from someone you see so often through the evening.

We would like to thank the team again from the bottom of our hearts for such a rich and exceptional experience and we will definitely be back in the New Year to sample the new tasting menu.

It was lovely to meet Chef Chaudhary last night at his restaurant at our table where we had the wonderful opportunity to watch his team create some amazing dishes. We really did enjoy the food immensely for my wife’s birthday.

However, we received pretty poor service last night and this is not in keeping with a fine dining experience that matches the heart of the restaurant, the kitchen.

Upon entering the restaurant, there was no offer to take our jackets that were wet from the rain, so they had to be parked messily on a neighbouring booth seating. There definitely was a coat cupboard, which seemed to be filled with a group party’s coats, and someone’s shoes, so might explain why our coats weren’t picked up. The service we received from our waiter was very stiff and impersonal – seemed quite distracted and stretched. My wife’s first drink had cork in it – luckily another waiter managed to change this for her fairly quickly. We had to wait 30 mins for our second drink. This was also after asking one of the other clean up staff to follow up with a waiter to take our order. We had to keep reminding our waiter that we needed a drink and to place our food orders. At the end of the meal, there was no acknowledgement of my wife’s birthday at all. No gesture such as petit fours or some form of dessert or drink, in recognition. We might as well have been there at a business meeting.

It’s a real, real shame that we received such sub-par service, when we cannot praise the kitchen enough. This leads to the restaurant having no soul at all. The staff is clearly trying too hard to be formal, rather than just being themselves and letting their personalities come through. I would encourage them to review the service at some of the competition restaurants in the area, such as Riviera which has their service spot on.

Being well travelled, the best restaurants in the world have wait staff that have the ability to read their customers to interact at the level that they are comfortable with – I would recommend a lot of training to the front of house.

Overall, with a bill that pushed over $400 for 2 people, it was not worth the experience that we received. Hopefully the FOH pull their socks up to redeem what otherwise is a lovely restaurant with a passionate Chef...

Edit: The sommelier Rob has reached out to me to rectify the situation. I am happy to report that they take these incidents very seriously. The service at Aiana really is beyond belief and I am looking forward to being their guest again in the very near future.

I've dined at Aiana three times, the first of which was back in December 2020. It was an incredible evening full of great food and great wine. I absolutely raved about the restaurant for weeks.

I enjoyed it so much I returned for my birthday in February 2021. It was one of their first weeks back to work and there were some hiccups which were understandable. However, we were not informed that there was no sommelier and the wine pairing we had prepaid for was not going to be honoured. Furthermore, when the cheque came the prepaid deposit had not been accounted for. However, the food was still delicious and I was excited to return again.

I dined there last Thursday. At the time of reservation there was a note left on the file that I was allergic to lobster, and the restaurant was also called to inform them of this. They assured us it would be no problem and had a substitution for me. The food was a little hit or miss. We had a couple of dishes that were phenomenal and some that missed the mark. The wine pairings were phenomenal though. When the seafood platter came mine had the appropriate substitution. Again, they had an issue with the deposit when the cheque came - for a restaurant where you're paying $800+ for two people this is unacceptable.

I started feeling ill at the restaurant, but I wrote it off as simply too much rich food and wine. That evening and into the next day I was super ill - it was an allergic reaction to the lobster. When I was feeling better on Saturday, I called the restaurant to inform them of what happened, it is important that the kitchen know. I had to call three times before reaching anyone. When I finally reached someone, he wasn't all that apologetic and said he would pass on my message to management and the kitchen staff. I left my name and number so they could follow up. I did not hear anything for a couple of days so I followed up yesterday. Again I could not reach them but left a detailed message. At no point did anyone bother to reach out to me again. Their apathy to someone who got ill from their food is disgusting. I'm fortunate it wasn't an anaphylactic reaction. Fast food restaurants would've been more compassionate with someone getting sick off of their food. I am very disappointed and I caution anyone with allergies from...

We went last Friday for a friend’s birthday dinner. We were a group of 10 and were placed in a private room which was nice. We were offered a menu which had a lot of appetizing choices. I settled on the Foie Gras for appetizer and scallops for main. The presentation was on point. Sadly, we could barely taste the foie gras. Portion was small which is standard in this type of restaurant but you’d expect the taste to be on point. Other people who had also ordered the foie gras were also disappointed. Two people ordered the prawn appetizer and were disappointed that it was a plain cooked prawn with a crab salad. Someone had the Bannock and they really enjoyed it. The portion was huge. The scallops were good but again, it was missing something. It just felt underwhelming. The dish came luke warm. I had a taste of my partner’s halibut which was really good. Someone had the pasta and thought that it was missing something acidity. She didn’t finish the plate. I finally settled on a desert called mango. Which was lacking a lot of mango flavour. Tasted more like cardamom which I like but again, the overall flavours of the dish were lacking. The only word I can find is “weak”. Others had the arabica which they enjoyed. The waitress was nice but wasn’t very experienced. The wine bottle was placed away from our table and we had to get up ourselves to refill the glasses on two occasions. Some people received their dish 5 minutes after the rest of the group. Some elements were missed (that were supposed to be added table side) and I had to point it out twice to the waitress. I ordered a decaf coffee which was very watered down and definitely not worth 8$. Then we had to wait over 30 minutes to get our bills. There were 3 couples who had their checks together and the remaining were solo, 7 checks in total. 3 checks had errors on them. Another 10-15 minutes to have them sorted out. Service was included. I don’t know how much it was but it was certainly more than what I would’ve given. We then found out that some people were offered a coat check, we didn’t know that it was an option until it was time to leave. I’m not sure if we just had bad luck on that night given all the other stellar reviews. For 330$ for two people, it was certainly not worth that. Unfortunately, I...