The Diamond — Restaurant in Vancouver

I don't really want to bother reviewing the diamond. I feel bad giving it 3 stars because the cocktails here are F*ing awesome and reflect an enormous amount of care and effort by a skilled team of barstaff. Get a cocktail here. They are almost universally good, but I don't think they are they best in the city (or even close to it). I have a friend who knows the owner and he sounds like a pretty stand up guy (but I'm getting this second hand so who knows).

The sushi there is good, but it's fairly expensive and it definitely won't impress you. Sushi in Vancouver is a competitive niche. This is a city with some really incredible sushi so my lackluster endorsement of the food menu should not be taken as an indictment, just a statement of relative disappointment.

My main issue with the Diamond is that it's too damn loud, and not loud in the good way. This isn't a club, it's a cocktail bar. It's loud in the deafening, anxiety inducing, hundred disimiliar voices droning on in a cacophonous chorus kind of way. I go to cocktail bars to savor painfully expensive drinks in a setting befitting of great conversation and the temporary suspension of fiscal responsibility. I want to kickback and enjoy the moment, enjoy my Negroni or whatever delightful seasonal cocktail the bartender has concocted. I just can't do that if I can't hear myself think. I don't want to yell at someone 2 feet across from me. I don't want the waitress to take my cocktail menu away before I know what I want next, just because they don't have enough menus for the restaurant. I don't want to have to book a table in advance for that experience.

I want to feel welcome at a bar, no matter how good the cocktails there are, I just didn't feel welcome at...

THE WORST EXPERIENCE EVER ! / The Diamond, I went once few months ago for few drinks and it was perfect : the ambiance, the barman, the look/taste of the cocktails...everybody's was friendly. I went tonight with my parents visiting from France to had few cocktails. Usually the cocktails are amazing here, a bit expensive but delicious. We order the same drink and it appears in two different glasses : one tall and mine, in a small one. It was so strange...so we asked two different waiters if it was normal, and if it was the same amount of cocktail in that two different glasses. They both say yes, one of them even promise (you must be ashamed) ! We was disappointed because even with a quick look you can tell my glass had less countenance ! So we start to measure it with an empty glass of water and YES, my glass was 1/2 smaller than the other ! So we ask the waiter again and show him that he was wrong...we saw on his face that he was upset, but please, we want to have a good time, don't lie and be unrespectful to your customers ! This guy even ask us if we wanted the bill...it's so inappropriate, we didn't even try the drinks. I just say that he can forgot the bill and we are just going to leave and NEVER COME BACK to this place. Shame on you the Diamond ! (The worst thing it's we see when we leave that we wasn't the only one with the same cocktail...but served in different glasses/sizes...so maybe it's a good way to make more money but it's also a good way to lose...

Food and service left a lot to be desired.

I ordered the 48hr short ribs with potatoes. The ribs were chewy and full of bone fragments and sitting in entirely too much sauce. If you're unable to remove the ribs without leaving shards of bone in the food maybe just leave the bones in. I don't think they were actually 48hr ribs based on the grittiness, but the potatoes might have been, they were tough and dry. Why is the Sahara desert inside my potatoes?

I waited about 20 minutes as servers passed our table avoiding us and cleaning glasses. No one asked how our food was or if we wanted another drink. Once we finally flagged someone down she went to pick up my mostly full plate and turned to leave without any question as to why I hardly ate. I stopped her and explained how terrible the food was. Then she took the plate and ignored us for another 15 minutes even though she had cleared our table at this point.

We had to get up and head to where the servers were mingling to finally get our bill and leave. My date asked "Did we lose our server?" to which they responded "we're all the servers". No apologies, no nothing. Actually, they did remove my meal from the bill, the first decent work the severs did during our visit.

To recap: Terrible food Worse service But hey, the...