Au Comptoir — Restaurant in Vancouver

Yum! YUM! YUMM! Au Comptoir has been on my list to try for ages and it certainly did not disappoint.

We came to celebrate my birthday with a late dinner (around 8:30pm) and were seated immediately, without a wait. (Unfortunately, they do not take reservations.) We ordered a bottle of wine and enjoyed the following dishes:

Tartare de Saumon ($17) – THREE AND A HALF STARS Fresh and smoked salmon tartare, gem lettuce and horseradish. My least favourite dish of the night, not because it wasn’t good but just because the other dishes were amazing. The salmon was fresh and the flavours were nice. It just didn’t WOW us like the other dishes.

Bloc de Foie Gras ($20) – FOUR STARS Cured foie gras terrine with beetroot and apple. Generous block of foie gras with the fluffiest, lightest toasted bread I’ve ever had. The bread to terrine ratio was a bit off (not enough bread) but hey – plenty of foie gras to go around, so I’m not complaining.

Duo de Veau – Veal ($34) – FIVE STARS Grilled loin of veal, glazed veal cheek, asparagus, potatoes, morels and spring onions. Again, very generous portions of veal! Flavours were awesome!

Magret de Canard – Duck (32) – FIVE STARS Honey glazed duck breast, turnip, celeriac & potato gratin and rhubarb. Definitely the winner dish of the night! Portions were generous and the honey glaze on the thick duck skin really made this dish stand out! Reminded me of Peking duck skin. 

Chocolate Lava Cake – FIVE STARS Since we came late in the evening, two of the desserts that we were eye-ing were completely sold out. We settled for the lava cake that turned out to be AMAZING. Which makes me wonder how good the other two desserts were!

Service started out a bit slow in the beginning as it was quite busy, but still friendly in the French way ;) This is definitely going up there as one of my top favourite restaurants...

I have never been to a restaurant with so many shamelessly rude people working in it. The first time we came here it was for coffee and a snack during the summer and every interaction with the waiter was unpleasant. He kept acting like we were bothering him - even when we asked for a spoon to eat the soup we ordered, since he forgot. We chalked it up to the waiter having a bad day and paid our bill and left. We decided to give it another go today and it was even worse. The server/host/whoever he is that sat us down was rude from the moment we walked through the door. Completely unprofessional and obnoxious. He sat us at the bar for lunch and the bartender was just as rude. It was almost 2pm and we asked if we could order a salad from the main menu (rather than the brunch menu) and we received a drawn out "no" that was drenched in attitude, arrogance, and disgust, as if even the thought of us asking about the menu was a waste of his precious time. Having had a similar experience the previous time we were there, we decided we had had enough of their arrogance and left to go eat elsewhere. They do not care about their clients at all. At one point today, the server arrogantly said "Look around, the place is full, it's obviously good". The attitude of the staff here reflect this general way of thinking - they have good food (although I wouldn't know because we never really had the chance to try it) so they don't care about their service whatsoever. I wish I had looked at the reviews before even going here the 1st time because I never would have walked through their doors had I known this is how they treat their clients, and I never will again. A good restaurant is not just about the food, but also the experience. I don't care how good the food is, if I'm going to be treated like sh**, I will take my...

I was very excited to check out this place after seeing the reviews....That being said this was our experience: started off with some very good cocktails. We ordered the terrine appetizer. Which in taste was good but was hard in texture and did not spread well on bread. Cocktails were very good, wine very good but here’s where it really turned: We ordered the tenderloin special and the duck as our 2 mains. The duck was a decent portion, cooked very nicely but lacked any taste or seasoning. The other items on the plate were very! Burnt and purée was extremely sweet. Now my fiancé, being a chef himself, had no problem saying he was not satisfied with the standard of this meal. In explaining we got a very defensive!!! response to our reasoning. Yes, chard vegetables are one thing but we know the difference between chard and burnt. We did get an apology but afterwards we witness this fellow looking angry, slamming cups and dishes around, talking under his breath. Super uncomfortable to watch. I get really uncomfortable with confrontation so you can say the rest of my night there was ruined. My fiancé, who works in the business, was shocked and found it totally unacceptable behavior in front of a room of costumers (obviously) so he says to our waiter (who was delightful btw) "is he mad at us? What is going on here?" 5 mins later the guy comes and apologizes. Said he was just disappointed that dish was sent out. In no way were we disrespectful or rude we just could not justify paying for a dish that wasn’t up to standard or straight out not edible.

Honestly, things would have been fine, things can happen in the kitchen BUT the response and reaction?! Totally unnecessary and unacceptable! turned us off completely to any the positives we did experience. Extremely...