St. Martha's Brasserie d'Orleans — Restaurant in Ottawa

Went here with a couple friends to celebrate my birthday a few weeks ago. Our first impression was that it was a cute place with a good atmosphere. We were asked where we’d like to be seated which was nice but after that the experience just went down hill.

It took about 10 minutes for us to be brought our menus. During those ten minutes we noticed there looked to be just one server working and another employee sitting at the bar on her phone (we knew she worked there because we had to go ask her for some ketchup after our server stopped checking up on us).

We all ordered the same waffle meal. We had waters with it because we were never asked about what drinks we’d like. Thirty minutes into waiting for our waffles the server came by to inform us they were almost out of syrup and had enough left for one of the three of us to have it on our waffles. That was whatever but I would have preferred they’d mentioned that when we first ordered.

The food took an hour to arrive. We got to the restaurant at noon and our food arrived at around 1:30. Our waters were mostly empty by the time we got our food but the server never returned to refill them so we had to ration it to get through the meal.

We were starving by the time we got our food so we all dug right in. First thing I noticed was that my bacon was rock solid and one piece had a hair on it. I put that to the side and tried to cut up my waffles. Emphasis on TRIED because they were also rock solid. They made a clanging noise against my plate like an actual rock. I tried to get past that and just eat them but the taste and texture were so strange. Also the whipped cream and berries were disappointing. Barely any whipped cream and there seemed to be just one strawberry that had been diced into the smallest little pieces. My home fries were uncooked in the middle, cold, and not seasoned well. The waffles came with melon and orange slices (all dry).

Basically this was the worst meal I’ve ever been served but I’m a very non confrontational person so I just ate it and pretended it was fine. My friends had slightly better meals but were very upset about the service and the obviously poor quality of my meal.

When the server came to collect our dishes at the end of the meal I slid our dishes closer to him so he could collect them easier. When I slid our glasses over, he laughed and asked if I wanted more water or something. This was upsetting because we had each had one small glass of water for our entire dry meals.

My friends tipped nothing and I tipped 10% because it just felt wrong to not tip. All three of us usually tip 20% for service that is at least bare minimum (water refilled, menus given as we sit down, food is decent, server doesn’t laugh at us, food doesn’t take an hour to be served, etc). We usually tip 25% for great service.

We did notice we were definitely the youngest people in the restaurant (it was noon on a Saturday). Not sure if that had something to do with how it felt like we were being given poorer service than the older customers. It was very frustrating to see customers who came in after us getting their food way before us.

All in all this was a horrible experience. I’d just wanted to have a fun time with my friends and celebrate my birthday but we were left unsatisfied and frustrated.

I think this restaurant would be greatly benefited by hiring more servers and educating the current ones on what servers do (ie. ask customers what drinks they’d like to order, check in on customers at least once during their meal). Also, consider acquiring a waffle maker from this century as I myself could have cooked thirty waffles in the time it took this restaurant to cook three. It was appalling to see a restaurant being...

"The service was far better than the food" was my response when asked if we enjoyed our meal. This is not a big establishment but the only server (name withheld) was super busy but seemed to give everyone very personal service - great job. As for the food, the only reason I gave this place a 2 out of 5 is because of the service. The food was a weak one 1 out of 5. The four of us ordered the French Onion Soup and while it looked good, there really was nothing special about it at all. It was "ok". Two ordered the duck and two ordered the salmon. The duck seemed to have a raspberry coulee as you would expect on a dessert as opposed to a great demi glace or something more complimentary. At $30 per plate for the duck alone, it was overpriced for the quality offered. The salmon was certainly disappointing as it had been baked pretty dry. Instead of the cook pan searing the skin to make it nice and crispy, it was soggy and not edible. But, what really set me back was the mixture of cooked and undercooked rice. Quite obvious they had mixed two batches together and what you ended up with was a mouthful of cooked rice and uncooked "bone in" rice. Definitely not the quality you would expect at a refined restaurant. And while mistakes can happen, sometimes you just know this is not a one of.

So why did I not send my dish back, we were the last to enter the restaurant and I could see that they had cleaned up or were cleaning up the counter/line in the kitchen. Further to this, based on my observations from the four meals we had and those I witnessed being served at another table, at best a replacement meal would have been marginally better, and I am sorry I was not waiting for this.

Lastly, the kitchen is very open when walking back from the toilets, and I can assure you that kitchen needs an extensive deep cleaning. There is no way that much food on the floor is from one day; the kitchen was dirty.

I am the first person to pay for quality food and will review it as such, but I'm sorry, this was anything but. The service was great - but it really should not overshadow what...

Went there New Years Eve had a reservation for 8:15. Waited for 45 minutes for a table when there was several open tables for two. They sat others who arrived at 8:30 PM before they sat us. There were still empty tables that we could see and the waitress or hostess refuse to sit us. The busboy kept pointing out to this redheaded waitress or hostess that we had a reservation first and to seat us but she kept saying no no they are getting this other table where people are still sitting at and they have to wait. I will not be going there or recommending this restaurant to anyone. We left after having been there for 45 minutes in the doorway that got jampacked with many other patrons who are also waiting to be seated. Note that when we came in we were the only one standing in the doorway. Also the crowd at this restaurant was very old, lots of old grandparent types. The restaurant is very cramped and small and there wasn't even room at the bar for us to wait. We could see while standing waiting for a table in the kitchen that the cooked vegetables are just out on the countertop in a big metal bin and that's when you really decided we didn't wanna eat there knowing that the food wasn't going to be good anyways. Also the water did not have ice in it not that we were served any water but we were getting thirsty and looking at other people getting their non-iced water. This place was very understaffed and that redheaded snooty waitress/hostess whatever she was... was very distasteful in her manner and very disorganized and should be seating people who arrive first that have the earliest reservation. If you'd like to go to a nice restaurant this definitely isn't one you should try. Instead try an organized restaurant such as the Waverley in Orleans if you want good service and great food and friendly staff. Just the worst place ever. If I could give less than one star I would...