Chadon Beni — Restaurant in Toronto

I saw a few Instagram feeds about this restaurant, the food looked amazing and the perfect time came about to make it out there: For a Birthday! 🎂

A reservation was made for my party about a month and a half in advance for a party of four for the roof top. All to enjoy the beautiful views as was presented on IG.. Only for that reservation to be cancelled literally en route to the restaurant because a bigger party had requested the roof top. That was a major disappointment.

As a we ended up sitting downstairs. The server for us did try to get us upstairs with that party of six but also warned us space was limited. So really what was the point of it? We didn't want to be cramped with other people when we had already reserved it and they cancelled it. We did bring a cake and they gladly stored it for us till after dinner so I appreciate that.

Since it was a Friday it was fairly busy so it took a bit for our server to get to us but when she did she took our drink orders (Trini Rum Punch, Chadon Beni Scorpion Caesar, Trini Rum Punch and Birds of Paradise Island) and eventually brought them to us. Drinks were good.

We took a look at the menu and saw all the delicious items that had been posted on IG and decided to try them out. We pretty much ordered a bit of almost everything because they were only bite sized sample type plates and not full on meals.

In anticipation the food came through one by one: Bake and Shark & Bake and Shrimp, Shrimp Pholourie, Chadon Beni chicken wings, BBQ Pigtail, Callaloo Soup, Pineapple Chow, Salt Fish Bites, Roasted Curry Corn Ribs, Breadfruit Chips, Shareable Fries, Jerk Chicken Tacos and we prayed and started to dig in.

As lovely as the food looked for a lot of the items especially the chicken related items a key thing was missing: FLAVOUR.

The best dishes according to the table were the Roasted Curry Corn Ribs, Breadfruit Chips, BBQ Pigtail and Bake and Shark & Bake and Shrimp.

The Jerk Chicken Tacos, I expected a burst of flavor especially considering it was a Caribbean spot and...NOTHING. It tasted like a regular chicken strip just with some colouring to the batter.

We also ordered Chicken wings: Scorpion and Guava Pepper. Now, upon hearing those you'd expect to either be 🥵 and or 🤤 upon hearing those choices of flavour right? Well....Whattahappenedwas...... unfortunately that wasn't case.

Both of them just tasted bland. Like regular chicken wings. No heat, barely any sweetness, you would have thought they went to grocery store bought the wings, heated them up and served them to us.

The shareable fries were alright, lots of seasonings added on.

Ultimately it was quite disappointing and in light of the cancellation they took off two or three items but the damage was already done.

It is a smaller restaurant so spacing is limited and unfortunately the AC wasn't kicking in as much but they do also have outside seating as well as the aforementioned upstairs. I guess the key is if you are booking upstairs make sure it is a party of 6 or more in order to actually GUARANTEE the space. Otherwise it may end up being cancelled before you know it.

Would we go back again? Most likely not but grateful for...

Chadon Beni is a nice vibe, the excellent service was the highlight for me. The young lady who served us was very nice and helpful. She was balancing a lot of tables herself and was hospitable and checking in on everyone.

The menu is impressive, they have creative culinary ideas that are inspired by the ingredients and flavours of T&T. I had high expectations for the food seeing that it's evident they invested a lot of intention, time and thought into such creative recipes. Overall, the food was alright, some dishes were better than others. I'll list my favourites to least favourites, including drinks.

I tried the jerk chicken tacos, curry crab dumplings, mac and cheese balls with callaloo, donuts and coconut ice cream and empress gin.

From favourite to least favourite:

1. Mac and cheese bites. Very creative & tasty. I don't like cheese at all, but these were really good, weren't too cheesy, crispy on the outside and moist on the inside. Callaloo sauce was chef's kiss. Brilliant combination! The balls were actually much bigger than anticipated, it was very filling and priced well.

2. Coconut ice cream & donuts. The star was absolutely the coconut ice cream. I rarely eat ice cream but this was fantastic. Coconut flavour was a nice twist. Not too strong and overpowering, just perfect. The donuts were okay, but were kind of oily and tasted more like deep fried bake with syrup on top. Well priced.

3. Jerk chicken tacos. They tasted alright and the sauce was good, but the jerk chicken was fried a little too burnt for my liking. Perhaps it's because it was deep fried and that masked the spices, but it didn't really taste like jerk seasonings to me.

4. Duck sliders. Creative idea, but the duck meat itself lacked seasoning and the chutney tasted just like ordinary Dianna BBQ sauce. Just two small sliders for the price which to me wasn't worth it.

5. Empress Gin & Tonic. It was quite bitter, just a very strong grapefruit taste.

6. My least favourite was the coconut curry crab dumplings. I didn't like the taste or texture. It was quite cold, and to me didn't taste anything like curry or coconut. I didn't enjoy these, and it's a bit expensive for the amount you get.

Overall great vibes, great service and a great menu, but execution on some dishes fell...

A few Sundays ago we attended Chadon beni for their Sunday Brunch! The place provided a nice warm feeling and the servers were very pleasant, even allowing us to order off of the regular menu should the item be available. We ordered salt fish buljol with fried bakes, Benny beni with lobster and without, bake and shark, sholourie, crispy jerk chicken & coconut rum donuts, macaroni pie bites and callaloo, pineapple chow and bread fruit bites. The portion sizes weren't too bad but majority of the food lacked flavour!! The salt fish buljol was ok but not spicy at all unfortunately and very cold, I know I know it's supposed to be cold but damn that cold, my girl definitely asked for hers to be warmed up and two bakes were not enough in my opinion. The benny beni was mid in the words of my teen, the lobster had no flavour it was just there. The bake and shark was BLAND it was as if they didn't even season the fish before frying it. I was looking forward to trying the sholourie only to be disappointed as well, it was deep fried shrimp in flavourless phlourie batter. The Mac pie bites lacked flavour as well and the callaloo was callajuice, the look was not appealing much less the taste. The pineapple chow could have used more pepper and the breadfruit bites were DRY. The jerk chicken and donuts taste better than they looked. The best part of the meal were the drinks, hold the seeds next time though, we had passion fruit juice and pineapple juice. Overall the food was lacking in flavour, seasoning and spices. Now we understand that this is a trini and Caribbean fusion inspired restaurant and not authentic trini food but does that mean you skip out in the seasoning and spice?! It's so disheartening that Caribbean restaurants always water down the flavour to meet the needs of others outside of...