North 54 Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Prince George

The good:

Great food. Beautiful atmosphere. Refined and diverse drink menu and lots of wine options for all price points.

The not so good: It was a very interesting evening for sure. If I was rating based on the first 30 minutes of our arrival, I would be giving it a very low rating indeed. Arriving into town late in the afternoon after a horrible drive through freezing rain for a visit with my daughter and her partner who moved to PG this past year, we decided to have dinner downtown. N54 looked very inviting so we decided to see if they had room for us despite it being very busy. They said they were full in their main dining area, but offered to seat us in the lounge area. This area is gorgeous and comfortable, and I certainly didn't have an issue sitting there. If they had said they couldn't seat us because their kitchen was too busy, we wouldn't have had an issue with that either. Totally understandable. After we were seated, they brought us water. Then... We didnt see anyone for almost half an hour 😳 We were getting our jackets on to leave (again, they were busy and we assumed they had forgotten about us, totally fine there are other restaurants downtown we can go to) at which point a quite rude server/bartender came by and gave us a drink menu and said 'we'll maybe get to you when we can but we're busy with our reservation guests' and her tone was so condescending and almost as if we were a giant inconvenience to her. So odd because I didn't remember begging anyone to eat in the restaurant...

At this point, a different server arrived on the scene , and the night definitely turned around. I'm glad we stayed. However, we did witness a verbal tiff between the two staff later in the evening, after also witnessing the rude server/bartender quite literally swear at another walk in guest who didn't have 'a f*3$king reservation' so I am assuming tensions were heightened in the restaurant for several reasons and probably not indicative of their vibe normally, but its definitely something I've never seen before and hope not to again!

Overall, do I recommend? Yes... With a reservation. Its pricey in some ways, but overall the quality of the food is totally worth it.

Will I go back? Probably...but only if I make a...

Keep North 54 in mind for your next special occasion, …or if you have someone to impress, …or if you love pasta, …or all of the above apply.

While you have to be prepared to spend a bit more here, you will notice where every dollar went: the restaurant has great ‘date-night’ ambience, the staff are known for their top notch service, and the food is not only presented well but also taste great.

For our dinner, my wife and I ordered the Escargot and Mushrooms to start, and enjoyed drinks stocked from local breweries.

For mains ,we had to try some of the pasta dishes they are best known for. We ordered the Lobster Ravioli and the Angel Hair (Baby Shrimp) - both with plenty of parmesan cheese on the side. The pasta in both dishes was freshly made and cooked to perfection. Each of the sauces were distinctive, with the Ravioli being thick and smooth, while the Angel Hair was full of chunky seafood and well seasoned vegetables. We also had as a side dish the Tomato, Burrata and Pesto which tasted as good as it looked.

We suggest having an advanced look at their menu as certain seasonal items change. For those interested in drinking, their cocktail, wine and beer selection has great variety so there is bound to be something...

North 54 is a great higher end restaurant in PG. The service and food were good.

I had the Lamb Rack. The lamb was cooked perfectly, as were the vegetables. There were only three ribs in the rack and for over $50 for the plate it would have been nice to have had a 4th rib.

The mashed potatoes could have been better. They had all the flavour boiled out of them before mashing and they were mashed with the skin still on which is not to my liking.

My wife had the lobster ravioli which was pretty good but not great. The sauce was nice and had fresh basil in it. The ravioli had a spice in it that I couldnt figure out what it was but it definitely didn't go well with lobster. It might have been cumin, which I love, just not on lobster.

The high price point makes it necessary to point out these minor issues. Regardless I still recommend trying...