The camellia cafe & music bar — Restaurant in Chiang Mai Province

This place is all fluff, no substance. I would leave a negative five star review if I could.

I rarely ever place a complaint, but this was the worst experience at a restaurant I have ever had. I expected more considering that Camellia is in a swanky part of town and they charge an arm and a leg (in Thai standards) for their meals. I had the steak salad and the rack of lamb with a local craft beer while my partner had the medium grill platter.

Firstly, the beer was poured so badly that a second waiter came to try and "fix" my beer only to scoop out the half glass worth of foam instead of getting me a new one. The second waiter then poured my beer very pourly yet again with about a third of the glass being foam. The steak salad was inedible. I actually choked on a three inch piece of steak that was clearly the wrong cut, raw (I like medium rare steak), and cut WITH the grain. I had to grossly pull it out of my throat to prevent myself from needing the heimlich. This seems to be a common comment in the reviews, but the manager insisted that they have never had any issues. The lamb was overdone and came out lukewarm. Tasted microwaved. The vegetables were poorly cooked and the whole dish was reminiscent of middle school cafeteria food. The sauce on the side was inedible and might as well have been concentrated pure vinegar with a sprinkle of mint. The only edible thing on our entire table was the chicken skewers that were part of the grill mix. My partner also complained of how tough the steak skewers were.

The cherry on top was that even after all these complaints made, the manager told me to go teach the chef how to cook. She even insinuated that I was "used to" a different quality of food than in Thailand, which was definitely not the case. I had better food from the 7-11 beside our hotel and the mall. The food at Camellia seemed fresh, just incredibly poorly made. The manager also made us pay for our atrocious meal despite verbally expressing how displeased we were. I was appalled at the lack of integrity from a bar+restaurant regarding their own drinks, food, and overall service. Might I add, they only checked on us once, which was because the beer pour was so bad it turned the flavour of the beer unpleasantly sour and bitter like stomach acid.

They are lucky that they have gotten by on good entertainment and ambience, but frankly, I don't know why they serve food at all if they are not willing to address their problems.

DO NO GO HERE...

First I am going to say we are spoilt for choice of good quality food in Chiang Mai and this is not a place for quality food. For example I ordered the sausages and mash Potato for 320 baht. When it came out I thought it was some sort of joke I don’t know what that slop was they called potato and the sausages were probably equivalent to 7/11 warmed up hotdogs in the microwave and not worth the 320 I paid. The other fish dish was acceptable but overall I live in Chiang Mai and do a lot of travel and food blogs on my TikTok and YouTube around Chiang Mai and we are spoilt for choice here and I can say honestly this is a place you come to drink for the great atmosphere but it is not a place you come to eat as the food is not worth the price you pay. I enjoyed the atmosphere and having a beer here but won’t come back as too many other actual great food places in Chiang Mai both western and Thai. If your a tourist in Chiang Mai eat inside Maya, the burger place a short walk down the street or One Nimman or old town but unless they actually start producing quality food I won’t be back unless I am just meeting friends for a drink. I gave it 3 stays because of the setup and atmosphere if you are wondering why it scored so high. Customer service can also be hit and miss here as we order ginger ale and got water and the waiter also spilled beer...

I usually read the reviews before going to a restaurant super disappointed that I didn't do it this time. Drinks extremely expensive. As we don't drink it was almost frowned upon that we didn't want to order alcohol. Food was really bad. I ordered the fried fish and chips,I mean really how bad can you mess that up. Apparently very easy. I received calamari instead of fish and when I asked about it I was told that is the fish you get. The calamari on the menu was charged at 160 baht and the fish was charged at 350 baht. I mean if fish and calamari is the same thing why have 2 dishes and charge more for the one than the other? Service not great. Couldn't properly explain the dishes. It was a disappointed experience especially as this was our last night...