Parlour — Restaurant in Ottawa

While I am grateful for them for giving us access to their establishment to eat on such short notice, besides the barman who gave us good service - the rest of the staff even if well mannered and polite completely forget 1- that we were waiting to get a table we had to ask again 2- once seated the waitress who said "I will be your server for tonight" never came back to our table. We never got a server to come see us. We waited about 45 min then my friend stood up went to the bar and asked if it was possible to have someone come see us at our table. Meanwhile they were walking around serving water to clients. It was interesting to watch that no one seemed to notice that we had been seated at that table but none of the staff came to take our order.

The menu is very very limited. I haven't seen this often. We ordered the 12h brisket for 2. What a deception ! It was dry, overcooked, had no flavour. Served with a side of veggies and fries. Fries do not fit at all with this food whatsoever I have no idea who thought this would be a good idea to put these together. We had ordered the sourdough bread but they never brought it up to us.

There is a very limited number of tables, but it's a huge space. Like huge. I really don't get it home they can afford this in this very competitive market and with this kind of service. They are all over the place, totally disorganized. I do not know if they want to have this hippie vibe going with the look of the place but good service should always be important. And when I see them walking around looking like a lost soul, not doing much, serving water, and clients haven't been served yet clearly you are not doing your job. Stop apologizing to us and do better. I didn't look at the bill they said the cocktails were on them for making us wait that much since they didn't realize they had moved us to a table... Crazy. I wish I would have checked my friend's bill;) but he was paying. Just to make sure. Ambiance: It's so empty nothing to cut the noise nothing has been put in place to reduce people's voices so that's all you hear, you can't hear the lounge music. You need to add partitions, plants, to absorb sound, it's basic ABC in a space like this. Instead of feeling cozy, it feels more like a cafeteria where all you hear is people talking no ambiance. Not impressed.

Vintage: does mid-century mean that a chair should break in the middle of your dinner? That's what happened to the lady in the chair right next to us. A leg of her chair just broke and she fell on the ground. They all laughed good for them but how terrible is this. What a shame. It should NOT HAPPEN!

And last point. They took our plates and never came back to clean our table. It was disgusting to finish our bottle of wine like this.

I liked the host they were nice and polite and the the barman was good. The sommelier was also good. That's it only...

Ive been 4 times now. The first 3 times were acceptable meaning: Interesting layout inside. Good energy. Kind staff. The food is standard fair - lets call a spade a spade - serving fried chicken burgers, burgers, sandwiches, fries, salads and the likes. Good mixed cocktails. There are however dozens of these options in Ottawa but I found this place did it well. That being said they have not mastered the side salad - all times I went it was a miniscule portion, lacking dressing and flavour and honestly any memorable qualities...that is until... the 4th visit.

Ordered my usual fried chicken burger with half fries half salad. Burger was fine. Fries were soggier than the last times. And the salad was actually just a dozen mesclum leaves without any dressing or flavour. I dont mean under dressed, I mean no dressing. There were no other garnishes... EXCEPT that my salad had a live bug in it. A green little slimmy guy. I stopped eating and mentionned this to the waitress who brought it to the attention of the higher-ups. What followed next was interesting. A woman shows up with my salad in hand. No introduction. Jumps in to a speech about the freshness of the produce. Its local. Its organic. Its free of pesticides. Mentions that she would prefer having a bug like this in her salad than knowing her salad was bleached. Asks me what I would "like done about the situation" to which I reply "Its at your discretion". An unpleased look follows. She leaves the salad at table side and heads back inside.

Per me: 1) This person should have introduced herself at the outset. We later learned this was the owner 2) I think it a common reaction for someone to drop their fork and stop eating if a live critter is in their salad, irrespective of the purity of the salad. 3) It is clear that their intention is not to have a bug in their salad - so just say that outright maybe? 4) It would be common place to offer to bring a new salad 5) It would be common place to offer to strike the salad or the sides or even the whole meal off the bill as opposed to indirectly asking the customer "what they would like done".

In the end, I didnt pay for my meal. So that was a plus. In the end, not sure Ill be going back. Not because of a little critter in an organic salad. But because of the interaction that...

The other night (May 6, 2022) we (3 people) ate at Parlour and at first we enjoyed the vibe; it seemed chill and hip. It didn't last long though; we waited 20 minutes for our server, ordered drinks which arrive quickly, then enjoyed those for another 20 minutes with the oysters we ordered as an app. While enjoying our drinks/apps we were treated to the sounds of the DJ and multiple moments of dishes breaking, silverware crashing on the floor in the kitchen... We weren't the only ones who noticed the commotion.

We ordered our entrees and had to wait another 45 minutes to receive them. Unfortunately, one dish was delayed by 9 minutes and when it was received, it was undercooked and not hot. We thought that given the amount of time it took, it should be cooked and hot. Unfortunately not.

While the food tasted okay, nothing to write home about, but waiting that long was too much and we won’t be coming back. From the time we entered to the time we finished eating was about three hours. THREE HOURS!

We didn't ask for a refund, as we're okay paying, but we wanted to post about our experience and add that after making a comment on the Parlour Instragram account, they blocked us and deleted the comment.

We're disappointed in their actions and understand that's their prerogative. Due to the fact that if it took abnormally long and they want to censor feedback, we can’t recommend this place. Please look elsewhere.

EDITED TO SAY: Parlours "original offer" was a phone call to discuss, but I preferred to email as our conversation would be easy to refer back to. Sadly, they'd rather not discuss via email and prefer blocking individuals who pose constructive feedback, which is why I'm a little more constructive, open and blunt...