Luna Kitchen | Bar — Restaurant in Regina

Revisit Feb 2025:

My parents, boyfriend and I went out for dinner on Wednesday night. My parents were quite happy with their meals. For me, I ordered a Truffle Burger ($24.5) with truffle fries ($3?).

The burger is house-made, with garlic aioli, sautéed mushrooms with butter and thyme, arugula, black truffle cheddar and (my favourite) a bacon-onion compote. It was served on a sesame brioche bun.

It looked great, but there were some problems. The patty itself was much too small for the rest of the burger. My boyfriend also mentioned his was gritty. My fries were warm, not hot. But the biggest let down were the mushrooms. They were extremely tough to eat, I ended up not eating them all because I couldn’t get past how rubbery they were. And I’m a fiend for sautéed mushrooms which says a lot.

The flavours here are good. This is the first time I’ve had issues here, so I am willing to return and I'm hoping that this was just a bad night.

Visit in 2024: This establishment is known as Breakfast Bistro by day and Luna’s Kitchen by night. After being heavily suggested, I finally got to try both. However, this post will focus on Luna’s Kitchen.

I ordered the Drunken Burger with truffle fries, this was $23 and $2 respectively before tax and tip. I have to say WOW, just WOW. I was absolutely stunned with the neat presentation, the taste and the freshness. The brioche bun smelled and tasted amazing. The fries were the best I’ve had in the city pared with what I believe is Parmesan cheese shavings. I’ve had a lot of burgers recently, this was by far THE best I have had at a restaurant so far. Cheese was melted, bacon was crispy and patty was flavourful. The only thing I can comment on is that I wish the patty was flattened a bit more. Other than that, this was just perfect.

My mom ordered the Brie and bacon chicken breast. This was $36 before tax and tip. I had a bite and it was delicious. I also appreciate the colour of the beet root powder on the plate. Whoever is in the kitchen is thinking of everything, including presentation. Which is hard to come by in Regina.

Although I didn’t snag a photo, we were brought fresh toasted bread slices with some dipping oil. We loved this so much we asked for seconds.

I also want to touch on the amazing Ukrainian Man that served us. He was probably the best server I have ever had in the city. He was easy to talk to, attentive and checking in on us throughout our time there. Seriously, please give this man a raise!

While this restaurant is a bit in the pricier side, I say GO HERE. Save your money and your disappointment on eating a burger elsewhere. Just go directly to Luna’s Kitchen.

NOW ON TO THE DESSERT Even after a big, delicious meal, I couldn’t pass up on some home made baklava. I realized quickly that this beautiful restaurant is Greek owned. I want to start off by saying that I’ve been to Greece. I’ve tasted Baklava made by many, many Greeks. This dessert was probably one of the best if not the best baklava I have ever had. You can taste the love, the skill and the heart in this dessert. It isn’t too sweet, it’s heavy on the nuts. Which honestly, I’m not complaining.

I usually have square sized or rectangular sized baklava, but a roll was unique! If I could comment anything, I would want just a liiiiiittle bit more syrup drizzled on top.

Other than that, go to Luna’s Kitchen. Even just for...

Horrible experience, will never go back and will never recommend. I know restaurants are struggling, especially to get staff, but there was no excuse for the bad attitude of the manager the evening we were there (or I think it was an owner, hard to tell as he spent most of his time sitting at the bar or pouring trays of shots behind the bar). We were offered "de-boned" fish. Three of us had fish. Kitchen staff clearly didn't know what they were doing and everyone's fish was full of bones, including large pieces of spine. When we noted this to our waiter, he spoke with manager/owner. The manager/owner couldn't even be bothered to come to our table, even though we were the largest group in the restaurant at the time. Instead, they threw the poor waiter under the bus sending him out to tell us that it was fish and is going to have bones. I've eaten fresh fish all over the world, including while living for over a decade on the west coast. I know what to expect when a fish is professionally and properly deboned. It's simple, if you don't have staff trained on how to properly debone a fish then don't offer it deboned. Moreover, don't insult your paying guests by suggesting we are so dumb that we don't know that fish have bones! I also have enough experience to know that if you are told you have unhappy customers a good restaurant manager/owner comes out, checks in on the table and apologizes that our meal was not as we had expected. Again, really simple and basic rules of service. Also, our waiter introduced the fish, including a special, as being brought in fresh every 2 weeks and held on ice as being the "freshest" fish in Regina. I assumed he meant the fish was brought in every 2 days as I've never heard of a place considering 2 week old fish to be fresh. However, after our experience with the fish and management's attitude, I am suspicious that the waiter did actually mean the fish was up to 2 weeks old! Even the chain grocery stores get it fresher. I checked the next day at my usual grocers and sure enough, they had fresh fish for sale that was 2 days old. I also let the waiter know that the starch on my plate was icy cold and got no response at all on that. We went in with high expectations having heard great reviews and recommendations, but left with nothing but big disappointments. It was supposed to be a celebratory evening for our family, but was spoiled largely by the incredibly bad attitude of the manager/owner. We had been planning on staying and ordering dessert, coffees and after dinner drinks, but packed it in early largely because of the manager/owner's bad and insulting attitude. We had no interest in spending another dime there. We tipped our waiter well as it wasn't his...

We arrived and were shown our table. Great waitress, very friendly and pleasant. Ordered drinks. Ordered JD, was told they didn't have any...ordered Makers Mark, was told they didn't have any. Had to settle for Jim Beam. My friend asked for Tanqueray gin...not available. His wife wanted a Cosmopolitan. The bar staff didn't know how to make them. Took 1/2 hour for my wife's drink to arrive after the rest of us had already received ours. She ordered a Dirty Martini...what arrived was a drink that was very red in colour due to WAY too much olive juice. Re-ordered...same result only marginally better. We ordered our food. I had the calamari as an appetizer...about as average as you could get. Were told the Sea Bass and Bream were available and fresh that day. Our friends ordered one of each. Then the waitress told us the Sea Bass wasn't even there and they only had time to clean one Bream. Seriously. The dinners began to arrive. Mine and my friends came first. Then his wife's arrived. We waited for my wife's pasta meal for maybe 10 minutes. She told us to start because she didn't know when food was going to show up. The waitress apologized and was very nice. I finally told her that we were very disappointed in the ineptitude of the bar staff, the lateness of everything and the general lack of knowledge as to what was available and there for the diners. Then the owner/chef? came over to see what was happening. I began to explain and then he started to tell me about supply issues trying to deflect and making excuses... I told him he wasn't listening. He then told me to calm down. I was not yelling etc so I told him the conversation was over. He went away. If he had been a tiny bit more solicitous and listened before making excuses, showing us he was actually concerned we might have come away with a different opinion. Absolutely no effort whatsoever to make any sort of amends. Now the funny thing is, the food (except for the calamari) was very good. As we were leaving another patron was going out for a smoke break and asked us how our experience was. I briefly explained the situation and he replied that their group had been waiting 1.5 hours for their food and were unhappy as well. In closing I would also say that IT WAS NOT BUSY! The place wasn't even half full. Will not be going...