Ancora Waterfront Dining and Patio - Ambleside — Restaurant in West Vancouver

Went here on Valentine’s day. Unfortunately disappointed would be an understatement. This was the closest you can get to being legally robbed.

I have never left a bad review, since I myself love to promote businesses and good gems. However, after spending $300+ on the Valentine’s Day 5-course menu, I hope others don’t make the same mistake I did.

Service was okay (not specially great or bad), the biggest problem was the FOOD.

Let’s break it down:

Course 1: Beef Tartare

Super small portions, with only 3 chips with the beef tartare and crab cake with mayo. (This was the best appetizer which is troubling, but no complaints)

Course 2: Seafood (Oyster, Scallop, Ceviche Cod)

The oyster sauce was way overloaded, and only got served 2 oysters (remember the total bill is $260 for 2 people + 18-25% tip). The flavors and portions of the oysters were absurdly small and just tasted like sauce.

The scallop is just shredded scallops (less than ONE scallop) bunched into a cucumber. Once again super small.

The Ceviche Cod, good lord was this horribly flavored. Super sour, watery, and the unflavorful. The combination did not make sense, and for that price I wouldn’t consume it if they paid me.

Course 3: Tortellini

Wow, when you think about a lobster tortellini what do you think? Flavorful, creamy, silky, fresh. Unfortunately for some odd reason all they did was sprinkle a bottle full of cayenne onto the plate making it taste bland and unnecessarily hinting of spices that you would NEVER find in a tortellini.

The bread that came with the tortellini course was also completely covered in this cayenne cajun seasoning. The mussels that also came with the dish was grainy and was not properly washed.

Course 4: MAIN COURSE | 5oz Ribeye

When you think of a Ribeye that is in a fine dining 5-course meal, you think, luxurious, flavorful, beautiful, delicious, etc…

This was however, probably one of the WORST steaks in general I have ever had.

We requested a medium cook on it, only to have it completely gray, cut like a 5 year old sat on the steak and cut it afterwards.

The Chimichurri oil that was added on the dish, just made the already oily steak even worse.

Within the cuts of the steak, I had half of those cuts being completely or 90% outer beef fat.

Really disappointed in the main course and would not have fed that steak even to my own dog.

Course 5: Pavlova

Pretty good honestly, but who can screw up a Pavlova.

Felt it was very underwhelming to be served a Pavlova in a $300+ dinner, but I understood that that was in the menu, so that wasn’t a concern for me as it might be for other folks.

Summary:

The portion sizes couldn’t even feed a toddler, and the worse part is we were still so hungry we went to a actual restaurant with good food and it made up for this horrendous experience.

The food just tasted terrible, either over seasoned, or not seasoned at all. The cooking methods were horrendous, and the presentation was decent except for that MAIN COURSE which amazed me so much on how a fine dining restaurant chef manages to not be able to cut a thin cut of steak.

Will never be coming back, this is not an attack to the restaurant, but hopefully this review will improve their food, because I would not even let my worse enemy dine here.

Photos attached...

My Brother and I took my Mom and Dad to Ancora for Mother’s Day and our Dad’s birthday. We had reservations for 5:30. We arrived at 5:33 when the restaurant was nearly empty as they open at 5:00. The server asked us if there were any special occasions, and we told them about the birthday and Mother’s Day. We gave our appetizer and dinner order between 5:50 and 6:00. The appetizers took roughly 20 minutes to arrive. We finished them in another 20 or so minutes. From that point, we waited 45 minutes until the server told us the dinners were being plated. Then another 15 minutes went by before the food came. Other tables around us had arrived after us and had already received and finished their food. At some point during the meal, the server, let us know that desserts were on the house because of the long wait for our food. She brought the dessert menu and we all choose desserts. The server returned to take the dessert order and said that it might only be one dessert that is complementary which left us a little shocked. She went to confirm with the management. Most restaurants give a free dessert when there’s a birthday involved anyway. After several minutes, she returned and told us it was only one dessert that was complementary, to our surprise. As if only one out of four of us waiting an hour for our dinner… So we gave them menus back and did not order dessert and let her know that we did not want to order anything else. 15 more minutes went by as we watched the server take other orders and clean tables among other tasks without bringing us the bill. Then the server brought a plate with four tiny Chocolate truffles with a happy birthday message painted with chocolate sauce. At that point we had been rather frustrated with the timing of everything so the gesture of four tiny chocolates seemed like a joke after the poor service and amount of time we’ve waited for everything. We didn’t eat them and went next-door to Thierry to treat our Parents to dessert. We did not complain once throughout the entire meal about anything so there is no reason for the poor service whatsoever. This place gets an absolute F for service and management. Virtually all restaurants I’ve been to give a free dessert to the birthday person. So to offer one dessert to four people for extremely poor service and very long wait times seemed like nothing and not an offer of apology at all. The bill was almost $600. For the manager to decide on that, put the server in a terrible situation even though her service was quite bad. We left at almost 8:30. We made early dinner reservations because our Dad was leaving for a three vacation the next day and needed to be home early to organize… We won’t be returning to Ancora....

tldr; nice decor, food was ok, service was also ok. Seafood and sushi pizza worth trying. Some details were overlooked, which is surprising and disappointing when the place is categorised as "fine dining".

Food 2.5 (rounding up to 3 since you can't give half a star) Service 2 Atmosphere 4

Had an e-gift voucher to use and according to the Vaggio hospitality group website, Ancora is labelled as fine dining.

I made a reservation for a wedding anniversary lunch. In the reservation form, it asks if it was a special event so I marked it as wedding anniversary. They did give us a small complimentary cake in the end, which was nice.

The sushi pizza is worth trying, the truffle fries were good (albeit the truffle taste was a bit too faint for my liking), the seafood (especially the prawns) was fresh and tasty.

Some specifics that happened that dulled the fine dining experience:

Server had to ask if it was a special occasion (why ask when it states in the reservation form?) We asked the same server for a recommendation between the yucas bravas and truffle fries. She couldn't as she had not tried the yucas bravas nor was she sure what it was. This surprised me considering it was a "fine dining" establishment, you would think the servers would have tried the items on the menu at least once, or at least be knowledgeable on the items. Not all mussels I had were cleaned. One other server had bad body odour... The same server thought the special event was a birthday (in fairness, he corrected himself later on) Some of the food e.g. the ceviche was way too salty (this could be subjective)

For other lower-end restaurants, I don't think most of those things are a big deal but for something labelled as fine dining, definitely not, considering the price you pay.

The overall experience wasn't too bad, all servers were friendly and the ambience was pretty calm and comfortable.

Edit: looking at another reviewer mentioning they also booked Ancora for a wedding anniversary, it seems the restaurant didn't make it a point to improve it's service when it comes to noted...