Wildlight Kitchen + Bar — Restaurant in University Endowment Lands

Decide to do dine out here as it is a Michellin Recommended restaurant. Been hyped by IG too so we thought, why not. Ordered the burrata for appys and fish chowder, lamb loin and rissoto for mains and another order of clasic steak frites with truffle fries and garlic mayo dip. For dessert..had the lemon tart (forgot the pic) and the choco mousse. Let me just say, how this place got the Michellin Recommendation is beyond me. Cactus club literally serves better food. The burrata and dessert were the only good points here. The rissotto was sour. Ive eaten many risottos in my life, and this one is the most sour ive had. Whoever made it squeezed too much lemon into it. The rice also want creamy. Consistency was off key. The fish chowder was by far the worst ive ever had in the history of chowders. It was not fresh at all. It smelled so fishy, as soon as it hit the table The pungent aroma floated to my nostrils, that i thought the server had body odour.

As the old saying goes about seafood, it shouldnt taste or smell fishy. Either the fish was bad or they didnt put enough dill or spices to mask the smell...but it wasnt good at all. Now i thought the steak frites would save the day bec when i tried the truffle fries...they were excellent. I saw real chimichurri sauce With peppercorn gravy…and i thought..it must be good. I was dead wrong! Lol. Only the sauces and fries were good, as well as garlic mayo. The steak frites was below average. Chewey and not smoky at all. Center was cold and outside not seared enough. So disappointed. The lamb loin with sausage was also a failure. Just look at the pic. Clearly its glued meat together and formed and rolled. Tasted like canned meat loaf. Not even the sausage was good. Plain and stale. And they charged $65 a head for this. What a disaster. The service...oh boy! Thats the worst Our server was nowhere to be seen most of the night. It was so hard to call her. Her focus was on another long table that were having a bday get together. Our water carafe was always empty. She passed by 3-4 times looked, and never did anything. We had some of our food changed she was no where. It was another server who came To our rescue and even took our pict. Even asking for the bill she was nowhere. Someone else had to call her for us. Complete failure for a place to be endorsed by michellin guide. I will never return so to speak. This is not fine dining but simply a glorified food court. I mean, some food court food taste better than this place. Cactus club makes better food than this place bar-none!! Inside is nice tho. High ceilings and dim light. Nice decors and table and chairs. But it stops there.

The manager came by and asked how was everything, i grinned and said, so so. Think he didnt like that response and never came back and asked why. Hahahaha. Ive been to many michellin places with 1-2 stars, even those recommended and bib gourmand ones. This place doesnt even deserve a pixie dust in my opinion. I regret coming to this place and spending $. Cheers!...

WILDLIGHT KITCHEN & BAR, University boulevard, UBC Update…Congratulations are in order for chef Warren Chow and his obviously excellent team at Wildlight- Michelin best new chef award 2023… kudos to you sir. My friend Anne and I will certainly look forward to coming back to visit soon…

My friend Anne suggested we try out a new to the neighborhood restaurant in the UBC area on a lovely sunny Saturday, as opposed to my pick , which would have been far more mundane fare at some other venue…From her perspective, it was literally mere minutes away…It is set amongst some other cool new and interesting looking buildings at an up and coming location I had never been to…As per usual, once again, her intuition was spot on and Wildlight Kitchen was the perfect choice…It could not possibly have been more convenient to get here, slightly removed from a lot of the hubbub of the main campus, with convenient underground parking, for which your server can validate when it comes time to pay your bill…We arrived there before all the many patrons with reservations were due to show up… so surprisingly, we were quickly seated by the very professional and courteous maître d’ and ended up in a comfortable booth with privacy from other customers provided by some glass panels at head height, other than immediately beside us. I really liked the scale of the space and vast amount of light flooding into the restaurant from the abundance of windows and very highly vaulted ceilings and heavy timber beams. We had a perfect sight line to take in the juxtaposition of all the colours and textures in the various wallpapers, feature walls, tiles, woodwork and curvy, organic light fixtures…I appreciated the jewelry like feel to the polished stainless like Hvac systems up near the metal roof as opposed to competitor’s use of a more muted and typical flat black look. The whole space was very modern, with a hint of an industrial feel, but not cold. The copper and other colours in the interior made It feel cozy and warm to me… Our server provided us with his recommendations and quickly brought us a glass of wine and a deliciously crisp prune cider to start. We enjoyed one of their flat breads and a wildlight burger with the best truffle fries that I’ve ever eaten, as our meals. We were looked after by our server very well, including topping up our fresh, cool table water in an ongoing basis. Our maître d’ even dropped by to see how we were faring…We were never left wanting for anything. Our dishes were absolutely delicious, and left us without one ounce of room for dessert.. I guess we’ll have to explore those options during another visit in the future. As well, the open, airy patio looks to be a very inviting space to try out this spring, with fans and heat ready to go…once the chairs arrive. Thanks so much for a lovely place to spend some time WILDLIGHT, we’ll be back without a doubt! John k welsh,...

Have come here a few times for dinner and most recent to celebrate a few birthdays together as a group.

This restaurant is excellent, and worth the occasional longer drive to get to. Food is very high quality and the presentation top notch. The service is excellent from the moment we walked in. Very attentive and nicely paced. We never felt rushed or that we were waiting too long between dishes. Nice touch to see a happy birthday card from Wildlight at our table. Our main server, Jessie, answered all our questions, accommodated a few requests (small bowl of pasta and bowl of fresh steamed veggies for the 2 small kids), and provided some good suggestions for a couple bottles of local wine.

We all chose the prix fixe menu, there were a lot of good options including full vegan choices. We all chose something different but collectively we covered most of the prix fixe menu.

We ordered the pescatarian board to start. Good selection of seafood prepared in various ways and very tasty. Good contrast of textures and flavours. The little baby octopus was new to the board and was good.

Salad was fresh and the dressing was amazing (some wanted to ask if we could bottle some home!). The Hamachi crudo had a nice Asian influence in the dressing, nicely citrusy and savoury. The fish was very fresh and firm. The "star" of the appies was the chowder. It's a huge bowl (and could probably be a main with a few slices of bread). Very flavourful, creamy, came out piping hot, and loaded with seafood and veggies.

Scallop dish had loads of scallops sitting on a generous portion of lobster risotto, both well done. The duck was nicely seared, with good sauces. The accompaniments were nicely done, especially the potatoes. They looked like large tear drops of mashed potatoes deep fried, crispy on outside and moist on inside (with apologies to Wildlight as I'm misrepresenting this delicious side). The steak was simple and seared to perfection. Comes with a side of salad in a bowl and amazing fries. A small nit, the extra $19 upcharge for this dish seemed a bit steep and not sure it was necessary.

The desserts are very well done and are a nice end to the meal (by this time we were all stuffed). The dishes with fruit were refreshing with nice flavours, and the one chocolate dish (Hide & Seek) was very decadent.

The parking lot is underneath the restaurant/Urban Fare. You do not have to pay as Wildlight will comp you 3 hours free parking, just have to register your vehicle at the front desk. If you are bumping up against that time, just go up and ask for a free extension.

Groups with more than 6 people, I believe, have an auto...