Sorrel — Restaurant in Toronto

Two stars because the food is genuinely deliciously prepared. But this place easily loses 3 stars for the absolute worst-in-class experience I have ever had at a French restaurant. As some reviews here will highlight the terrible service they experienced, I really need to make an emphasis on how bad it really was.

Had reservation, but was being continuously overlooked in being seated by individuals standing behind us. Clearly, they prioritize individuals who fit the age demographic that they enjoy serving the most.

Had to wait an extra 20 minutes after my reservation time to be seated. Others around us were given glasses of Rose for the wait, we were completely overlooked. We even attempted to call in 3 times prior to arriving to ensure that our reservation was good to go due to changes in the weather. Zero response/callback given.

The food was delicious as mentioned. Only until we ordered a bottle of Champagne were we given a semi-decent dining experience.. or we thought. We were making food orders however with individuals who were not even our waiter. The waiter also broke our champagne bottle, no comp on a new bottle. They decided to put shards of glass during the clean-up in our cocktails that we were still enjoying. No comp on new cocktails either.

Edit/Response:

Hi Faro,

Glad me writing this review on my fiancé’s account was the noise you needed to actually pay attention. It is your responsibility as an establishment to ensure the full customer service experience for individuals who dine at your restaurant. It is not hard for people to look through the reviews on both Google, OpenTable, etc to easily paint a picture of the type of experience you provide for those who do not fit the “mold” of what you feel to be a “Sorrel Diner”.

Having to pivot due to the weather is one thing. Not providing the customer experience attached to it is another. You knew you were going to have to pivot reservations indoors due to the weather. Your failure to have a staff member on the phone connecting with reservation parties to inform them of the change and the potential delay is a serious defect in your customer experience. No one shows up for a reservation at 8:45 to be seated 30 minutes later.

It took 30 minutes for us to be seated. You gave us water jugs at the bar with three chairs for four ladies. If that constitutes as a “drink” then, by all means, ill concede and admit that as truth on your part. The individuals that came after us with a reservation for 8:45 were sat before us, along with the friendly acknowledgment that you or the front of the house staff had known them and decided that nepotism was a bigger play to make than serving four ladies.

Wonderful how you like to claim there was no champagne bottle broken, but clearly ignored the claim I made where broken glass was put into the cocktails that we were still enjoying. My dry cleaning bill says otherwise, but sure ignore that for the sake of a craftily made response.

You clearly explained to my sister that it was a “bad night” and to chalk it off as such. Pretty bad experience for a “bad night”, yet you want me to come in with my fiancé to make it up to me? How about my three girlfriends who actually paid for the meal?

I 100% agree. You do not control the weather. But you did control our dining experience from the moment we entered your establishment. Hopefully, this edit/response provides you with the necessary harsh truth and customer feedback that you seem to desperately need to make the appropriate adjustments for future...

I have had Sorrell bookmarked for a while after two friends recommended this place, and finally found the opportunity to make a reservation for my best friend's birthday celebration yesterday. I'll divide my review in two parts, the food and the service.

The food: We ordered a Dirty Dog and a French Martini for drinks, Roasted Beets and Steak Tartare for apps, and the Clam Linguine and Mushroom and Tagliatelle for our mains. Everything we had was absolutely exceptional. A huge shoutout to the seasoning in the Steak Tartare, which both of us agreed was 'phenominal'. Having run a food influencer account for 5+ years and working with restauranteurs in Toronto for my banking job, I have had my fair share of tartares, and these were on the top of my list. The pastas were cooked well and I personally adored how 'un-saucy' they were; it brought out the flavour and the texture of the dishes.

We decided to pass on the dessert mainly due to what I'll be mentioning under the service below.

The service: Unfortunately, the service was disappointing to say the least. We are decently fast eaters, and the entire meal took 2 hours, mostly spent waiting to order and for water. It took our server close to 20 minutes to come around and take our drink order (at that time, the patio space was about 20% full). After that, it was another long wait until he's back to take our food order. When we wanted our water refilled during our appetizers, it was almost impossible to flag him down or get his attention. This got me trying hard to look for him, because we were pretty thirsty at that time (we had half a small-ish wine glass of water only and we were eager to get some more so we can continue to enjoy the Tartare!). I started noticing that he was visiting quite frequently, other tables he was waiting - checking up on them, filling their water glasses, asking about temperature, making small talk, etc. He walked by our table 12 times to another table without bothering to look at our empty glasses or check in on us once. When I tried to flag him down when he walked by a few times, but he seemed like he had his mind completely occupied at other tables (I'd like to assume he was not fully ignoring us). I hated to do this, but we had to ask a different server who came around collecting our plates to refill our water.

I won't go into more details, so in short, the next time we spoke to him, he was at our table offering the dessert menu. Clearly, we had no appetite for desserts.

Safe to say, as much as I love the food here, I will not be recommending or revisiting this space, especially if you're looking for a special celebration and want service that live up to the amazing food. In addition, I don't want to make assumptions as to why we were mistreated, but we did notice that we were the only two East Asians on the side of the tables...

Updating my previous review and dropping the rating to 3. I do have to say for the most part the food was excellent, but you would expect more than just food from a restaurant of such caliber overall the experience was lacking. The Caesar Salad, Artichoke hearts, duck confit, steak frit and Branzino were great. Unfortunately the short ribs were cold Where they lost out was on their service. They struck out not 3 but 4 times. It began with twp of us missing cutlery which is not a big deal but leads to the questioning of general attention to detail. The meals did not come out at the same time. The duck confit and the potatoes gratin that accompanied the still missing short ribs is what was served first. While we were waiting for the rest of our meals a server came by with a large pepper grinder stood over an empty plate and asked if we want any pepper. We replied possibly once our meals arrive. The meals arrived about 5 minutes later our server completely dissapeared even after we had asked for water refills. She did reappear without water to ask how our meals were, again we asked for water and mentioned the short ribs were cold. The response was too bad you should have mentioned it earlier and walked away. Our friends were celebrating an anniversary this was mentioned to the server early on and she acknowledged they will do something nothing was done or mentioned. We would have been happy with a candle in one of the desserts we ordered. Our friend asked the server if she could take a picture of the table and she said they are too busy to take picture requests and walked off, She did take our picture 15 minutes later, but it is just the attitude that was not appreciated.

Unfortunately this experience did not leave an enticement for any of us to return

PREVIOUS REVIEW We were 5 of us celebrating a birthday. Very busy and bustling evening. The waiter was very attentive and was always available. The wine list was very impressive weighted on French wines but great Italian and other geographies as well.

We started with a variety of apps and salads which were immediately devoured. The heirloom tomato salad missed the mark, the dressing was great however the tomatoes were not that great Mains were varied and shared with the table. Catch of the day was a Branzino and very flavourful. The Scallops went quickly and the Cacio e Pepe pasta was at the top for favorites. Surprisingly the black truffle pasta was not that great and was not finished by the table. Another hit for the table were the truffle fries a definite must.

We will definitely be back unfortunately could only give a 4 out of 5 due to some of the...