THE ALBION ROOMS RESTAURANT — Restaurant in Ottawa

I've been here with my boyfriend twice in the last month, and both times we sat in the lounge. The ambiance is very chill, and I never felt like I needed to dress up more than just business-casual. The staff were always very attentive and pleasant, though the second time we went the server pretty-woman'd us at first (treated us like we couldn't afford to be there) but changed her attitude very quickly when we ordered wine by the bottle along with cocktails, spirits, a full charcuterie board, and small plates.

The charcuterie boards are phenomenal, you get a lot more than just the three meat/cheese items from the list; the boards also have a nice selection of chutneys, pickles, fruits, mustards, and comes with a really handy bag of crostinis on top of the toasted breads. Last time we ordered veal carpaccio and calamari small plates, both of which were so delicious I just never wanted the plate to be empty! The cocktails are also some of the coolest that I've ever seen; if you like bourbon you really must try the Trap Door, it's an amazing cocktail served in an even more amazing glass container filled with cedar smoke that turns heads when it's served to you. Our bill came up to $250 before tip, which I found pretty reasonable considering the amount of alcohol we ordered. The charcuterie board is only $27 and if you just want to have a glass of wine and share the board with someone you probably wouldn't pay more than $50-70 total, which is fine with me.

All in all I would definitely recommend this place to pretty much anyone, but I can't say much about the dining room because the menu and atmosphere are different from the lounge and I've never had a full...

I am disappointed to write a negative review - I was so looking forward to dining at the Albion Rooms for a special occasion with a group of 10 friends. We had made reservations well in advance and called the day of to confirm.. When we arrived we were seated at two separate tables and told multiple times that we could not push other (empty) tables together in order to sit together. This was contrary to what I was told at the time of my booking, not to mention there was a table for ten set up and empty (I wonder if that was our reserved table..), and the rest of the floor was largely empty for the duration of our time there. This really impacted our enjoyment of the night. Finally after an hour the waitress changed her mind and allowed us to push tables together. The other table for ten remained empty the whole night. Not only were the two waitresses unaccommodating but they were unfriendly and made us feel uncomfortable, as if we were being unreasonable asking for our group booking to be seated together as we had been assured would happen at the time of booking and upon confirming the day of over the phone. . The service was slow, the food was average (nice presentation but very salty, tiny portions of meat for the cost - the lamb linguine had barely a speck of lamb in it!) We also had one member of our party have to try and order four different drinks on the menu before finding one that was actually in stock - and the waitress seemed totally unapologetic that so many menu items were unavailable. All in all I would not recommend this restaurant unfortunately, based on...

never going back to this place-

and let me just say, unfortunately the cocktails are amazing. They’re really good. Particularly the Smokey old fashioned which comes with a cedar plank lid and releases a beautiful and aromatic plume of smoke that really brings out the whiskey.

We arrived for 12:45 - we didn’t know this until we got there for our res but they were only doing the brunch menu which is fine, however there wasn’t anything vegetarian that wasn’t very sweet or very cheese heavy. The brunch menu wasn’t listed on OpenTable when we booked.

I asked if they still did the regular menu and they said no. My partner and I decided to just order drinks so as not to be rude and go to another place. The server proceeded to-in the open-go to her general manager and loudly complain about us asking about the menu. She did intonate that there was plenty on the menu for us to pick from. I felt bad and I felt observed. She then loudly complained about us ordering a drink that was promoted ON THE MENU because it was too Smokey and that I had gotten the dinning room filled in smoke (which was not true, and the dining room only had three spaced out seatings.) it made me feel really uncomfortable and observed.

Honestly the ambiance of the place is interesting and it would be cool to see what the regular menu is like, but I won’t be returning.

This was a rude, odd, confusing experience.

Food/ didn’t try it Cocktails 10/10 Service...