Alta Bistro — Restaurant in Whistler Resort Municipality

Alta Bistro is the definition of French cuisine, small portions and large prices. Entrees are not shareable and you'll have to order apps, dessert, and lots of wine to not have to go to kfc afterwards to not feel hungry.

Don't get me wrong the food is quite good here, it's more like a food art experience. Your dishes will come out in 3D abstract forms that'll make you hit pause to admire it before you chow down.

So here's the breakdown of what we had:

Halibut-$46 cooked to perfection and served with a thick tempura like broccoli, plump mussels, and another veggie that I can't name? Maybe it's a parsnip? It said it came with a green curry sauce which was tasty but not very strong in flavor. I personally like the halibut in the bison entree sauce.

Bison-$42 This was some tasty meat! I only got five thin slices of it and tiny speck on a bone, but it was good. It made me wish the polenta, carrots and string bean art, was more meat!

Lentil mushroom salad-$15 if I were a rabbit this would be the meal I always prayed to god for. It's like eating a fresh garden of lentils. It's a unique taste, the lentils were almost raw but not, so I'll assign the adjective "fresh" to it. I did really like the sweetly marinated mushrooms in it.

Sourdough bread-$6 it's bread that's sourdough, and made in house. It's like a darker wheat type, which is different.

Spiced white chocolate mousse cake-$13 this was the big winner of the evening! It was topped with sweet crunchy coconut like candy flakes and a strawberry jam and fennel seeds that just wakes up the palate. I hope this stays on the menu if it changes.

The wine list is very extensive but they only had two types of Pinot noir by the glass one from burgundy the other from Naramata, BC and both went so well with the bison and halibut. Definitely buy the bottle of either of you're going to have two glasses each.

Service here is great, our server was super friendly and carried out requests quickly. The rest of the team was cheery and checked up on us a lot. Definitely make reservations or you'll be SOL, they get busy!

I just couldn't do the full five stars because of the disparity between pricing and quantity of what you get. I understand these ingredients and meats are organic, local and of super quality, but at the end of the day perceived value is important too. I wasn't really wow'd and unfortunately the meal fell a little...

Normally I don't leave negative reviews, but I also think that feedback is a part of the evolution of a business. A friend and I had dinner here October 2017. It was probably one of the worst restaurant meals I've had, ever. I had the 3-course meal for $29. The portions were tiny, and it ended up being a good thing because the food was awful. The soup was okay, we paid extra for the sourdough bread which was the highlight of the evening, the kale salad was very strange, the pork entree was absolutely terrible, very strange tasting (barely edible).

Dessert was extra, and we thought we couldn't go wrong with the sorbet. I've never had a sorbet that I didn't at least like, if not love, until now. We both had one spoonful and both put our spoons down. It was terrible. We asked the server what was in it and he said there was pickle juice in it. Wait what? Why would you put pickle juice in a sorbet? There is no way that this was in any way, shape or form, dessert. (Which they did take off the bill.)

We ordered a bottle of wine, and the they were sold out of the first 2 picks on their wine list, and the 3rd pick they had which was great, but they didn't make the wine (luckily).

It really seemed like an experimental menu. And I would say, if you are going to experiment with food, ensure to let people know. Maybe the servers could have guided us to the better choices on the menu.

We left totally unsatisfied and unfilled by the experience. Unless there is a major change in the menu, it's not...

First of all, the mussels we ordered as an appetizer were so unfresh I had to spit them out. We then waited exactly 1 hour and 10 minutes for the next course. While the plating looked appealing, the taste was a complete letdown. The bread was rock-hard, and the steak was so overcooked and burnt that the inside was dry and impossible to chew.

All four of us ordered the 3-course meal, and the overall quality was shockingly poor—honestly, not fit to be served to anyone, let alone at a $300 price point. We had just come from the spa, starving, and still could barely bring ourselves to eat more than a few bites of the food.

When I brought this up with the manager and suggested at the very least they deduct the inedible mussels from the bill, his response was nothing short of arrogant. He dismissively said, “I’ve never had a single complaint about our food!”—not even a hint of apology or accountability.

Even if a customer’s complaint is unusual or rare, a basic level of respect, listening, and humility should be shown. Instead, we were met with defensiveness and rudeness.

In disbelief, we paid the full bill and left upset and still hungry. On the way back, I stopped at A&W in Squamish and bought an $8 hamburger—which, shockingly, was a hundred times better than what we had just paid $300 for.

If you can’t treat customers with decency, you shouldn’t be in the business of serving food. Food is precious. Respect it—and the people...