ARC RESTAURANT — Restaurant in Vancouver

I visited ARC several years ago (brunch as well) and I knew I wanted to come back since it's a nice experience, with pretty good food in a great environment.

A quick rundown of the items I had:

Ooey Gooey Skillet - So heavy, decadent, but good. It reminds me of a fresh Porto's cheese roll, but even much more decadent.

Roesti - Wife complained that salmon was way too oily and didn't eat it. Only dish we ended up not finishing. It's sitting on top of a hash brown that we first thought was just an English Muffin, that part was good.

Dutch Baby - Not a sweet pancake. It's a savory housing basically a burrata and arugula salad. I enjoyed it.

Braised Lamb Shakshuka

Beef Shortrib Poutine - They of course have a poutine. Luckily it's pretty good, not overly salty and fries were crisp when it arrived.

Pork Benedict - Tasty flavor from the pork, not overly salty.

Bone Marrow - I never get the allure of eating bone marrow, but the wife liked it enough to get it twice. You can ask for no bread if you don't want it.

Spicy Buttermilk Fried Chicken - Really good. Better than I've had at other places, but could not really taste the spicy flavor. Great balance of sweet & savory though.

Mimosa Tasting Flight - Nice to look at and take photos. I imagine many girls order it. Flavors all sound appealing, but I really just tasted the champagne mostly.

Blackberry Mule - It was alright. Would be better if there were some more fresh muddled blackberries inside to add more overall flavor.

ARC is located within The Fairmont (nicer hotel) and the decor of the place is fitting. Nice, spacious interior, better than I've seen in higher-end restaurants. We sat right by where we could see the rain outside downtown, city tourist vibes. It was a cold January but the heaters along the front of the windows more than warm the place up. In fact, since the window seats are right by the heaters I actually got to hot even after taking my jacket off.

The server was very nice (is too nice a thing!? lol) She was attentive and we never felt like she was not there when trying to order more food. I know some people (the more anxious type) who might be bothered by this almost overzealous type of service. But I'd much rather have it than have no or bad service, and than they still want a 20%+ tip for....

There is a parking structure (several) serving the area but since you are downtown, be prepared to pay a premium. This was the most I paid for parking my entire Vancouver trip, I think it was $5/half hour. Compared to that I remember thinking how cheap parking was in general at all other places.

While I very much enjoy the AYCE brunch at ARC and none of the food I've had there has been bad there are a few things they could improve on. I did find some of the portions too big, such as the Spicy Buttermilk Fried Chicken. If you are like me you are going to order many dishes at once, but along with that things get cold quickly as you are eating. I wanted to get another of the chicken, and I would have if the portion was smaller, but I was full and did not want to waste food. It might throw the kitchen logistics off, but something like half-portion options would be great and elevate my experience here. It seemed like almost everything came with a poached egg which I know is a brunch staple but some other variations would be appreciated. The drinks were not my favorite overall, but they did look nice. I'm guessing they can't control it, but some type of parking validation would be great especially since it's not the cheapest meal.

If you are looking for a great (AYCE) brunch option with variety you should check out...

My husband and I celebrated our anniversary at Arc on November 27th. We booked the private dining room from 7:30pm until closing for our family.

First and foremost, the service and staff were exceptional. Our waitress was wonderful, I believe her name was Jennifer, and I was so thankful for her care and attention. The bar seemed a bit back logged when it came to serving drinks so that was perhaps the only service-related issue. It look a long time to get the drinks at our table.

My biggest issue was with the abysmal quality of the vegetarian food. We were a group of 9 with 5 of us being vegetarians. This was something we informed the restaurant of when we made our booking. We emphasized multiple times that it was really important to us to have some good options as we weren't keen with what was listed on the menu. We were assured that there would be a good seasonal option if we didn’t like what was on the menu for the entree.

That night, all five of us vegetarians had the arugula salad and pappardelle pasta.

The pears in the salad were hard and undercooked and there was a lack of walnuts and balsamic dressing, so the salad itself was very poorly flavoured and fell flat.

The pappardelle was all pasta and maybe 2 halves of brussel sprouts and a couple pieces of broccolini. The taste of the sauce itself was also very bland. I wonder if they thought loading the vegetarian dishes with cheese was the only course of action with respect to flavour. No one actually finished their pasta and the dishes went back more than half full -the majority of the dish was empty carbs and just bland pasta!

My husband’s sirloin dish had more vegetables than my vegetarian dish.

For the record, the meat dishes looked incredibly well composed and there were no complaints on that. But the majority of the table was vegetarian and we only enjoyed the shared appetizers and desserts. It would have been nice for my vegetarian family to have enjoyed the food as much as my in-laws did.

This restaurant should and can do better than that for vegetarians, especially in a city like Vancouver. There seems to be a lack of creativity in the kitchen when it comes to anything plant-based. I'm not sure why there weren't more vegetables in our dish to compensate for no meat. Is the kitchen seriously lacking bell peppers, mushrooms, or other basic vegetables that they surely use for other dishes? Why did the meat dishes have more vegetables? Is that how this restaurant believes vegetarians eat? Bland and boring food with no soul?

It was really disappointing that we left feeling so underwhelmed with the food after having paid so much for the meal.

I was contacted by the restaurant after sending them an email (with everything I explicitly detailed above) about our experience with the food and they apologized for not making it clear what their capacity to cook vegetarian food is at the time of our booking. I was also told that they would speak to the chef and get back to me but that hasn't happened.

I would give this restaurant 5 stars for service and ambience, 4 stars for the meat dishes, and 1 star for quality of vegetarian food.

Update (12/6/21): Arc emailed me back and will compensate a portion of the dinner bill and apologized that the vegetarian options were not up to standard. No word on whether their vegetarian options will improve moving forward, but I do appreciate that response over...

My friends and I went there for the weekend brunch after seeing so many Tik-Toks about it. Overall, it was really disappointing. The food was very underwhelming and significantly lacked flavour. It seemed like the majority of the 'hype' surrounded the presentation and the 'all-you-can-eat' aspect of it. As for service, it felt very casual. Our servers barely spent time at the table, and did not seem passionate about the food they were serving. For about 50CAD, I would not recommend the Weekend Brunch. Sure, the food itself is worth that amount, but the whole experience was definitely not.

For those who want to know more, here's a more detailed review of every food item we tried (which was almost everything) in descending order:

Buttermilk Biscuits (9/10): These, along with the Ooey Gooey Skillet were the highlight of the whole brunch. They were great and the honey butter that comes with them was delicious

Ooey Gooey Skillet (9/10): This was honestly really tasty! The croissant was crunchy, and the dish had a great flavour similar to a cinnamon roll.

Salmon Benedict (8/10): Good quality salmon, tasty hollandaise sauce, and a nice buttery english muffin. This was my favorite savoury item.

Beef Shortrib Poutine (7/10): This was also one of the better dishes. The flavour was nice and smoky; however, the fries were soaked in the gravy which made them soggy towards the bottom of the bowl.

Croque Madame (7/10): This was the last thing we got, so I was a bit too full to really have more than a bite. Overall, it tasted nice. The cheese and ham were good, and the bread was toasted/grilled nicely.

Jerk Fried Chicken (6/10): This was okay. The chicken was slightly on the dry side, but the flavour was definitely there. The funnel cake was nice and soft, but the 'habanero' maple syrup did not taste at all like habanero.

BC Berry Basket Smoothie (6/10): Basic and bland - nothing special.

Liege Waffle (5/10): I have had much, much, better waffles than this liege waffle. The waffle itself was okay, but the chai tea 'sauce anglaise' was very thin and felt like we poured an actual chai tea latte over the waffle. This made it very soggy.

Meat & Potatoes (4/10): Potatoes were okay, but lacked seasoning. The sausage was tasty but that was about it. The bacon and ham did not have any seasoning or sauce, so the taste is based on preference. There were also about 5 caramelized onion 'strands' - basically, they weren't even there.

Granola Parfait (4/10): Basic as well, and significantly lacked flavour.

Avocado Toast (2/10) (Note we got the scrambled tofu): This was actually horrible. The mashed avocado did not have a hint of seasoning, and that could not be carried by the scrambled tofu. This was extremely bland!

Harvest Grain Bowl (1/10): OMG! This was absolutely horrible. All the veggies were dry and bland. This...