Alchemy (Richmond Hill) — Restaurant in Richmond Hill

Unassuming bistro atmosphere that gets straight to the point of a dine-in breakfast experience. The menu feels curated and deliberately balanced to provide the optimal meal and varied enough to cater to whatever your stomach's mood calls for.

First and foremost the coffee and tea offerings cover almost everything you could ask for. Their preparation and presentation are exactly what you would expect from a place that feels a cut above your conventional coffee spot. The matcha latte and cappuccino were pristinely authentic, careful attention had been paid to avoid anything burnt or chalky. Even after attempting to spoil my 2nd cappuccino with a little sugar by request, they managed to keep the sweetness from overpowering the rest of the flavors and achieved a very warm and welcome finale to my stay.

And last but absolutely not least, the meal was fantastic. There's a clear reason to why the menu imposes "no substitutions"(however they do consider any allergies upon request), they know how to deliver a meal that will satisfy and surprise you with its flavor. This is in a league where you don't need to say it's good, they know they're among the best. It's akin to complimenting a professional athlete performing at the peak of their sport, but regardless one just can't help themselves sometimes. My partner in crime imagined a brief adventure into time travel so that she could enjoy the sausage sandwich all over again. The steak and eggs were everything I could have wanted them to be and more. I feel the only way to achieve recreating these dishes would involve a good amount of culinary schooling.

Overall, extremely satisfied with the brief escape from my regular week and look forward to returning for another brunch...

TLDR: service sucks, but food is good. From getting into the door to leaving after eating, total time of 2.5 hrs

You need to be added to the waitlist using the Yelp app. It doesn’t say so anywhere, so you’ll need to do that, or be prepared to wait 15 min before the one person comes to seat someone. They also don’t ask if your name is already on the list, so you could be standing by the door without end. Many people who come in are confused because they waited for 20+ min to be added to the list, just to be told to return in 20-30 min after they get a text.

Once you get the text and you return, you stand inside the doors. They’ll still walk by you twice without acknowledging you because they don’t have a tablet in hand. You’ll need to get their attention because they’re not looking for the group that was contacted.

When you do get seated, the QR code on the table is a hint that they don’t give out menus, but they don’t say so either.

When you’re done looking at the menu, the guy who passes by your table 3-4 times won’t ask you if you’re ready to order. You’ll need to flag him down as he just looks dead straight. Fried chicken ran out by 12:30pm.

Once you do get an order in, drinks will get to you 15 min later. Food won’t arrive together to the table.

Now that we have the food, the carbonara is looks great for the eyes, but mediocre for taste. It comes off like using dried pasta.

The duck and waffles had good individual conponents, but it didn’t come together that well.

After food is done, the waiters were wiping down the tables. If there were any food on the table, it gets wiped...

My wife and I rarely get to enjoy brunch out, and we were excited to visit Alchemy with our two young toddlers after a previously positive experience. Unfortunately, our recent visit was a huge letdown, mostly due to their abysmal service.

Right from the start, we should have seen the warning signs. There were multiple tables waiting to be cleared and three groups waiting to be seated. It took 15 minutes just to get a table, even though there were empty, yet uncleared tables available.

The wait didn't end there. After placing our order, it took 30 minutes just to get water, and another 15 minutes before they realized their ordering system wasn’t even working. To make matters worse, we noticed another table next to us waiting for their food, only to be told they had to place their order again. I can definitely feel their frustration.

The tall waiter with glasses was hardly apologetic, simply brushing it off with a casual shrug as if our time and experience didn’t matter.

We ultimately decided to leave because we couldn’t bear waiting another 30 minutes (or more) for our food to arrive. I completely understand the challenges of being understaffed, and clearly, they need to bring in more staff as there were only two people between taking orders and making drinks. However, the lack of attentiveness and customer care made this an incredibly frustrating experience.

Alchemy REALLY needs to step up its service standards. This experience was unfortunately enough to make us...