Ferris' Grill & Garden Patio — Restaurant in Victoria

Do not recommend it. Ran into many of the issues other reviewers describe.

Pleasing atmosphere. It's warm and cozy; the paintings on display were beautiful, and the brick and stained glass is pretty. Relaxing environment torpedoed by unpleasant food and uneven service. It is a bit dark and hard to read the menu. The bench seating isn't particularly comfortable, and the music included some very loud and cacophonous brass instrumentation.

The food is really odd. I agree with other reviews that it lacks something. Salt, brightness, balance? I don't know. It's all stuff that sounds great but was lackluster and odd.

The cocktails were unbalanced and boozey. The lentil mushroom pate was stone cold and didn't come with enough bread. It lacked flavor. If you've ever made lentils, you know they need a lot of seasoning, and they can have a sort of chalky, powdery texture. Both problems were evident here.

The seafood pasta was OK, although the sauce just tasted of cream, and it was awkward to eat with all the shells.

The warm cauliflower salad is one of the weirdest things I've ever eaten. There was something in it that I couldn't identify and strongly disliked. The description on the menu is all things I enjoy - although none of the crispy prosciutto in sight - so all I can think is something in the dressing. It really was vile. Sort of sour. Warm lettuce and soggy caulifower. They forgot my add-on grilled salmon, and when it did arrive, it was overcooked and underseasoned.

Our server was with us for the first half of the meal and corrected the missing salmon with apologies. Then we had two other people stopping by to finish the dinner service. One saw my half uneaten salad and asked about the food, which we unenthiastically said was ok. I think he knew it wasn't and ran away, because a third server took over getting us the check, and she was the cheeriest of all of them.

For $125, this was underwhelming and honestly upsetting.

Furthermore, the special bonus suprise was feeling sick after dinner and being greeted by massive gut distress the next morning.

If you would like to spend a lot of money on bad food that makes you sick,...

We were visiting Victoria from Toronto and looking for a place to eat on a Wednesday night. It was around 8:00 and we had looked at a few places. Nothing tickled our fancy. We happened to see a fire truck and wondered what was going on. Fortunately, no fire. But it was stopped outside Ferris’ restaurant. We looked at the menu and were intrigued. The prices weren’t outrageous and the variety looked good. My friend was interested in the Seafood Laksa while i liked the description of the Seafood Tagliatelle. In we went. Since it was getting toward closing time, we didn’t want to keep the staff too late. We waited about 90 seconds and were seated immediately. We were given menus and our drink orders were taken. My friend had green tea, while I decided to wait for a while. After reviewing the menu, we both decided to have the Seafood Tagliatelle. The description was so inviting: prawns, clams, mussels and salmon, Pernod, lemon cream and pecorino. Mmmm. Delicious sounding. But then the food arrived. It was beautiful. I can’t do it justice by trying to describe it. The food was steaming hot. All of it. Pasta beautifully cooked. Four clams, four mussels, two prawns and salmon in a beautiful lemon sauce. I say beautiful because it was rich, but the lemon cut through the richness. I wish I were a food critic or a chef to really appreciate this food. Now we were hooked. Dessert? Yes, please. Crème brûlée? Oh, yes please. A beautiful dessert to top off an excellent meal. The servers were friendly. They didn’t mind that we were arriving toward closing time. We tried to be gracious and not to linger over our meal. Admittedly, it was a struggle to not draw out every mouthful of the crème brûlée. Alas, we did have to leave, but not with regrets. The chef deserves a standing ovation. Well done! Outstanding food and well...

If I could give 0 stars, I would.

I came for a late lunch with a friend during happy hour, and we ordered a two happy hour items and two mains. The waitress asked if we wanted to have the happy hour items come out as appetizers, and the mains come out as entrees, and I agreed. After around 15 minutes, our two happy hours items came out -- mini fish and chips, and 6 oysters. The oysters were fine, but the fish and chips were absolutely tiny. It was 1 piece of fish, and a couple of fries.

After quickly finishing our happy hour items, we waited over 30 minutes for our server come to our table and clear our plates, and the server showed zero concern for us waiting that long. She instead pinned the blame on me, and stated "you wanted the mains to come out like a second course." After asking twice about an update on our mains with nothing done to help with the situation, i ended up waiting a total of 42 minutes AFTER receiving the first few plates before asking for the check. Once I asked for the check for the two happy hour items ONLY (since that was all we ate), our waitress came over and informed us that our mains were ready if I wanted them to go, and I refused.

I ended up spending OVER AN HOUR in this restaurant, and only ate 3 oysters and half of a piece of fish with some fries.

Once I was starting paying for the half of a meal I had, the server began chatting with us and acting incredibly friendly. It was so off-putting, especially after having such a negative experience with her dismissing all of our concerns earlier.

I would not recommend coming here. The atmosphere is fine, the service terrible, and the food is okay at best, if you even get a chance to eat all of your food. There are definitely better restaurants in the area where you can have a much...