The Courtney Room — Restaurant in Victoria

Went to the Courtney Room for the first time and was very impressed!

Started off in the lounge while we waited for our reservation in the dining room. Impeccable service and small touches like the frozen cocktail class were a big clue to the service and experience we'd get at dinner.

Dinner (chef's seasonal tasting menu — was told in a few weeks they'd be switching to a new fall/winter tasting menu):

We started off with a foamy, creamy sparkling elderflower lemonade to cleanse our palate after cocktails and prepare us for all the flavours…

Then got Fanny Bay sun seeker oyster with black locust blossom tincture, orange, umeboshi, and tonic syrup

From there we moved to appetizers.

Salmon roe tostada with corn tortilla, burrata, fermented black bean salsa

House-cured Hokkaido scallops with tomato ponzu, tart and tannic wild berries, hazelnut crumble, and wrapped in shiso leaves

Some sort of lettuce wrap with salmon, black and white truffles, and other stuff I can’t remember (this was all 10/10 but if I had to choose, this would be my least favourite…but it’s kind of like choosing your favourite child soooooo….)

House-made spam with Kewpie mayo and all kinds of other seasoning. The crispy rice with the spam was WOW — this is literally the best “spam musubi” I’ve ever had and I grew up on spam!

The appetizers ended with a waffle injected with foie gras, some sort of sweet cream, and fruit curd (almost tasted like dessert).

This was the “end” of the amuse-bouche part of the course

The next course:

Dry-aged hiramasa kingfish “salad” to start our next round, with summer tomato, caper, grapefruit, tomato dashi, sorghum, and this crazy ponzu sauce that I can’t describe and can’t remember what was in it. ALSO teeny tiny popcorn made from popped sorghum (the perfect nutty crunch that surprised me to no end — this place knows how to combine unexpected flavours and textures)

Followed by: B.C. sockeye salmon cooked mi-cuit style. It was to DIE FOR. I always avoid salmon in restaurants because it’s so dry, but this was….insane. I can’t even describe the texture. Came with salmonberry condiment, bay leaf, umami coconut emulsion and a tarte flambée (yogurt, preserved spring vegetables, pesto).

Thought this was the main course, but it wasn’t!

The salmon was followed by Metchosin-raised crispy duck egg on top of a duck confit served with fiore d’ulivo, dandelion, pecorino, truffle, and rosehip

It was so perfectly cooked. I can’t describe! The yolk was neither runny nor hard, but had this perfect mousse-like texture

The mi-cuit salmon was originally our favourite but then we got our “main course": Brant Lake wagyu ribeye — it was perfectly medium-rare and literally melted in your mouth — on top of a braised beef croquette with morel mushroom, purple and orange carrots, and green almond miso paste

Finally: I don’t even like dessert (like, at all — zero sweet tooth here) but this choux was insane. It reminded me of a highly elevated cream puff with whipped caramelia ganache, but the star was the seabuckthorn berry curd inside

(Also I stopped taking pictures but there were more desserts and housemade candies served when we got the bill)

Amazing service. The sommelier is very knowledgeable and would come and check on the temperature of our wine throughout the night to ensure it was kept at the right temp. Each server was amazing, and the timing was perfect between courses. Keep in mind this is a long dinner service when doing the tasting menu — we were there for about three hours and it was...

Don’t know where to start with. Not worth it. It does not mean I don’t I cannot afford a meal like this, but it is just not worth it. Something went wrong in many aspects. I have been to most of the highly recognized restaurants in Victoria.

The price on the Courtney room’s menu is certainly one of the kind amongst many restaurants in Victoria. It can compare with those Vancouver restaurants which mostly sell to rich Chinese people like mott32. I understand they want to be more in high tone of everything, but it is truly incomparable with those restaurants in Vancouver. Everything in fact makes you uncomfortable a little bit.

Servers are quite gentle and polite, and they are quite good at their memory in menu. I m sure they have a complete script of what to say through the entire meal time. It is however awkward after you ask for ordering food and confirmed by manager (I assumed) our server will take order soon, but nothing had happened 20min since. The waiting time between when we all set to order and our main entrees on table was about a hour!

After this hour waiting, the food did not surprised us at all. I m not food expert nor a chief. I never got systematical training about cooking. I however know what to expect to taste of certain meats and vegetables. We had aged ribeye which I think is mostly failed to achieve certain level. Ribeye supposed has simply creamy oily fat, which makes the entire steak rich. Your meat should melt in mouth. Aged beef should contain strong essential beefy flavor. None of these happened, but in fact it is a little bit lean. Fat was definitely trimmed when they prepared it, but a little too much to my opinion. I also confused with the definition of medium rare. It is more like a medium well, with complete pink centre. My guess is because the beef was under the warmer light of kitchen for long time. The beef’s inner self cooking time is so long. The plate was warm but the beef was not at all. That just meaned it had been sitting there for long time with a bit heat on top.

Lamb rib has the same issue with the degree of doneness. It is perhaps I was wrong, but is it a goat meat or lamb meat? I grew up in muslin neighborhood, and lamb was my main source of animal protein. I could not figure out what it was because of the distinction of the smell and taste of this dish.

Duck breat was quite properly done with crispy skin.

Halibut was also okay, but the size was really tiny.

The taste overall was not too much fun. Vegetables does not match with the meat. For example, Soft marshed potato is better than half cut braised ones in order to match with ribeye, so all juice and sauce gets absorbed into the starch of potatoes. The braised potatoes was a bit isolated. Halibut with heavily picked vegetables makes the halibut to soft in taste. It does not stand out as it is more like a decor.

Cooking is supposed to cover the bad and bring up ingredients freshness. I did not see it. Flying otter’s 15 dollar paella “soup” can just achieve it, but Courtney rooms 40 dollar halibut did not.

5 oz 2017 Okanagan Pinot noir, Oaked but finishing was to simple.

The lightning of the restaurant was also not right, “cold” which matches the servers awkward faces. In fact, a “doll house” is the best description of Magnolia’s Courtney room. Everyone there was “pretending” everything was okay.

This 2 hour journey just made us run to Il terrazzo to have another delightful dessert meal right after. The tiramisu and brûlée at il terrazzo are so...

Came here for brunch on a weekday with my bf and two friends.

Unfortunately the service as this restaurant definitely has room for improvement. Our reservation was at 10:15am. We were seated 5-10 mins after we arrived as they were still preparing our table, however the restaurant was not very full or busy.

After we sat down the server poured us water but not enough for the fourth glass. Our server informed us that they were out of sourdough, sausage, and hollandaise. This affected about 80% of the menu. We were surprised about this since we were seated at about 10:30am which is decently early. Our server explained that they were “slammed” in the morning since they opened at 7am. We did not understand this explanation since the dining room was not even half full when we arrived. Even if it were completely full I have never experienced such a shortage of item availability at a restaurant ever, not even ones where I’ve had to wait 2 hours in line for reserve 2 months in advance for because it was so busy. We also felt that this should have been communicated to us before we were seated as almost every item on the menu was missing ingredients or could not be made at all.

We ordered pancakes after which our server informed us that they may not have pancakes and she will check. We said if they don’t have pancakes we will have waffles. Our server did not return to inform us that they did not indeed have pancakes but instead brought us the waffles. We were of course fine with the waffles but were unhappy that we were left to guess what we were getting and she never returned to tell us if they had pancakes or not.

Lastly, as I mentioned before my friend never had a full glass of water. After our meal we asked for more water as it was never refilled. However, we eventually left the restaurant without our water ever being refilled.

I totally understand understaffing issues especially if the restaurant were busy, but it was not and we did not ask for much besides water, were patient and adjusted our orders based on availability of food. However we definitely felt that communication was poor and service definitely left something to be desired. The food itself was delicious thought visually nothing really exciting (I didn’t even take any photos of the food).

Originally I had this restaurant booked as a backup for Fathom for my mom’s 65th birthday and I am extremely glad that Fathom worked out and that we did not come here for her special occasion…

Unfortunately would not recommend and...