SMITH Restaurant — Restaurant in Winnipeg

I think the word 'upscale' is an overused term, but in this case, it doesn't even apply. Valentine's Day date night. We arrived in great spirits. Expected to share apps, mains, dessert, and drinks. The duck croquettes and Trinidad doubles were flavorful because duck and tamarind were both present, but the execution was just average. Still, we remained optimistic for the main. We selected the pickerel and the burger. The pickerel was well cooked and as tasty as pickerel should be, however, the preparation and seasoning let the fish down by being quite bland. Zero sides are included so we ordered the carrots. Vastly inconsistent cook with a smooshy, lackluster sauce of no distinguishing flavor. Did not finish. Luckily, the $31 burger came with a side of fries. Again, they were inconsistent and wildly subpar, however, the Heinz ketchup was on point. We ordered the burger out of an inane curiosity about what a $31 burger might taste like. I suppose it could be argued then, that it's our fault for having elevated expectations, but nevertheless, we responded to the dare. I was a couple of bites in and began discussing the near bloody 'rare to medium-rare' of the burger when the waiter arrived, took one look at the burger, and promptly attempted to rescue the moment by clearing the dish before I could take a picture, with an assurance that a new one will be on the way. The new one arrived dramatically overcooked, almost inedibly. Or was it the bites I had of the first one which was now making me queasy? Or was it the fact that I found myself trying to enjoy a romantic evening sitting in an 'upscale' restaurant and trying even harder to ignore a misguided pricing strategy while being dumbfounded by the fact that they couldn't even get a burger right? I think it was a blend of all three, but it was enough to make us cancel dessert, cancel drinks, and cancel the entire remainder of the evening. Anyways, now I know, and for those of you at home looking at their menu with the same curiosity I had.. spoiler alert: Their $31 burger is an embarrassment to food court fare. There is NOTHING special about it that would even warrant going near even $20. Now, apply that math to the rest of their menu and you can thank me for taking one for the team and saving your night out. To make matters worse, the rumor is true.. the food does arrive quite tepid. Definitely not hot. This happens in restaurants with great distances from the kitchen to the tables without a good signaling system in place. In other words, this will be consistent, but not entirely your waiter's fault. Our waiter did remove the burger from the bill, but that's all that was done, even though I had stated that I felt ill and had to stop eating what was in front of us and cancel dessert as a result. I left there feeling horrendous. Turns out a better move would have been to remove my name from the...

We went to this place as this has been recommended so much on blogs and other social media. I’ve had it on my “Want to Go” list for a long time. Finally had a chance to go tonight.

You can book a spot about 4 weeks out from preferred date. Reservation online was easy with no problems at all.

Parking is NOT free at The Forks. I wish they would pay for your parking if you spend a certain $$$ at the restaurant. Expect to stay about 2 hours for dinner.

We were seated right away and our server was nice, friendly, and attentive to our needs in a timely manner. We ordered a variety of items on the menu as it’s our first time here and wanted to try a bunch of different things.

We got the pounded cheese and classic beef tartare as appetizers. The beef tartare was great and the pounded cheese was good. They were both served with the right amount of sourdough. Appetizers came first.

For mains, we had to wait a while. We ordered the buttermilk fried half chicken and 10oz berkshire pork chop with a side of brussels sprouts. To be honest, the mains and side were underwhelming. The fried chicken was not cooked and seasoned evenly. The top half was less done than the bottom half and the bottom half was more seasoned (therefore, more salty). On the good side, chicken was tender. The buttermilk dressing was just ok. The pork chop was smaller than I expected… and personally not a fan of it. The meat wasn’t as flavourful as I hoped it would be. The Brussels sprouts were a bigger serving than expected. But it had a weird taste to it. Wasn’t too happy as well that the mains are priced so high but you have to pay extra for the sides.

For the cocktails, I had good ones and the sangria was ok too. Had the paper plane and oaxaca, 5pm.

We ate only half of the mains so we had leftovers to take home.

This is our first and mostly likely will be our last time here. For the price, I expected way better tasting food and a more remarkable overall...

Went here yesterday for an Anniversary dinner. We ordered a beet salad, my wife had a half rack of lamb and I ordered the flank steak.

The food was fine but several things occurred during the service which left me with quite a disappointing experience.

First off, I made a reservation for 2 the night prior. When we arrived there, the host directed us to our table only to see that another table had taken the chairs that were reserved for us leaving us having to stand there and wait while our host scrambled to find 2 actual seats for us (ok.. not the end of the world)

The second issue is that the server didn't bother to explain that the dishes here were served a'la carte. We made it a point to mention it is both our first time here and if I had been informed that the rack of lamb and the flank steaks came with no side dishes then we would have gladly ordered something more...

But instead, the beet salad we ordered came out as an appetizer and we were served our protein dishes without a side... in fact, it wasn't even asked if we wanted the food to come out together or the salad first...

The third issue which is the biggest one for me is it took over an hour to receive our food. I understand restaurants can be busy but the excuse we received from the server was "oh we have a lot of big tables tonight so yours probably just got lost in the shuffle."

When the food finally came out, there was no acknowledgement that we had waited such a long time and to be honest the food felt a bit cold by that point.

Don't get me wrong the food was fine but for the price we paid the experience definitely did not meet our expectations. I was really looking to give my wife an enjoyable experience but we definitely walked out of there feeling a bit frustrated. We will not be recommending this place to our friends or family...