Play Food & Wine — Restaurant in Ottawa

TLDR: DO NOT EAT HERE Last night 4 of us visited Play and I must say this is one of the WOST “fine dining” restaurants i have ever been to. From the ambiance to the service to the food… Overall would NEVER recommend to anyone. To start, upon arriving, we had to wait 20 minutes for our 8:30 reservation… to which we were not seated until almost 9pm. What is the point of a reservation?? We ordered drinks and waited 20 minutes for all of the drinks to be served individually- no trays in this restaurant? We then ordered food and planned to share all of the small plates… small is an understatement for the price. We ordered 8 dishes and we left and got a second dinner afterwards. That might have something to do with one of the dishes being absolutely INEDIBLE (tempeh). To be blunt it was foul, and tasted like it was rancid. My sister even gagged and had to spit it out immediately. This dish was awful and left her feeling sick all evening. The chef in the open kitchen upstairs watched my sister gag and spit the bite out - a professional chef would have sent our server or the manager over to our table and give us an opportunity to say we did not enjoy the dish. That did not happen and in fact our server avoided us following that incident and clearly sensed we were not impressed with the meal. When we were done dinner, one member of the party had to explain that the tempeh tasted rancid and bad to our server who only then offered to comp that dish… that we only took 4 bites of. Did not offer to add on a dessert or anything else. Additionally the scallop dish was served with 3 scallops about the size of a loonie - it would have been helpful to know as we were a group of 4 and clearly sharing all the plates. The scallops were cooked well but served with a red sauce that closely resembled in consistency and flavour- Heinz ketchup. Dishes lacked flavour, and had seemed to be trying too hard to be experimental and innovative. Finally, all our dishes were served to us cold - we did not want to send anything back after waiting so long to even sit down at our table. We watched all the patrons dishes sit at the expo line for several minutes before wait staff served them. Overall, this restaurant is unprofessional. It should not be priced or advertised as a fine dinj g restaurant. It seems suspicious that there are so many glowing reviews. Recommendations include implementing a professional dresscode for all staff including hostesses, menu revamp, additional wait staff so food is not served cold and drinks are served in a timely manner, and respecting reservation times and making an effort to comp something when guests with reservations are kept waiting 20+ minutes. There are far better fine dining restaurants in ottawa, i would never recommend Play to anyone. It was a...

No complaints about the food as the kitchen was on point. Service was the problem.

Arrived on time for our reservation and were seated with a three table berth around us so the restaurant was not busy.

It took about 10 minutes before we placed our food and drink order together (bottle of wine, entrees and side) and we were given tap water. Then we went through a dry spell of not seeing the table staff again for 30 minutes when our side dish showed up. Which was turnip (think sliced, raw carrot) which is now with our glasses of water.

Thinking the entrees (and bottle of wine??!?) would be up shortly because who would give their guests water and cold/sliced turnips for 45 minutes. After another 10 minutes of no table staff, we got up and went to the kitchen to ask to leave.

Suddenly our entrees were delivered and the waiter asked if we would give them a chance to fix it. Which we said sure, but we were not being unreasonable since we haven’t even gotten the bottle of wine and entrees are now served (not to mention 45 minutes of water and turnips until now). Shocked, the wine was delivered immediately and they offered to ‘take care’ of the food. Which we declined - we are perfectly happy to pay $200+ for good food, but we just weren’t happy with the service in a quiet restaurant.

The food was amazing. Zero issues with the kitchen. The rest of the meal was fine, but still missed out on service touches like asking if the food tasted good, or topping off our wine glasses from our bottle - which you would assume service would be more attentive given we almost walked out and we ended up refilling our wine glasses ourselves.

They provided two free desserts and we paid for our food/wine, and headed on our way. In all fairness, it was a long weekend and they did try to make things right. Best of luck to the owners - as the food is good, but...

The journey which this restaurant took us was amazing. This was one of the best meal we had in Canada. They like to change the menu frequently so probably you will not the find the meals in the menu today. Let me start with mixed charcuterie plate (pork creton+prosclutto +genoa+saucssion sec). I want to specifically recommend Prosciutto, Italian style, dry-cured ham that is usually thinly sliced and served uncooked. Second recommendation is pork creton, one of the delicious Canadian speciality, pork meat containing onions and spices. As the main dish I ordered duck liver mousse with cherry molasses and grilled challah. This was not a simple duck paste. It was prepared with so many integrants that it deserves to be main dish. It is a small portion dish of course so don't expect to be full with just this one. We also ordered grilled halloumi which was OK. As wine, we ordered Cabernet Sauvignon '16, Girasole . It was, dry, full bodied and a bit fruity. Went well with the plate. Our table was on the second floor, just in front of the open kitchen so it was also interesting to experience the busy kitchen. You don't get this chance a lot so try to book your table close to the kitchen. Their effort through out the night was worth mentioning. Not one second to breath. Unbelievable! It is for sure an expensive restaurant. I gave 5 start to many restaurants but I rate them based on my taste to price ratio. This restaurant deserves 5 start. It does not...