Maize Restaurant — Restaurant in Perkasie

Had dinner here a few weeks back and wanted to wait to write the review until we had some time to think on our experience.

The restaurant is small but cute. My husband and I booked for the 8 course to celebrate his birthday - we were recommended by older friends who had great things to say. Over all, the dishes were good, the ingredients were fresh, but several of the courses were a bit bland/under seasoned and really didn’t wow us for the price point. Each dish was a small portion, which is to be expected at a coursed dinner, but the time in between each plate made the size of them a lot more disappointing.

My husband and I love dining out and we regularly make reservations for coursed dinners - we’re foodies I guess you can say - so we were very surprised by the pacing of the meal. We arrived promptly at 725 for our 730 reservation, but were told they weren’t yet ready and asked to wait outside. There is no waiting space in the restaurant itself. The host stand is in the middle of the dining floor surrounded by tables. There is very little parking (not the fault of the restaurant) so we had to park a few blocks away. It was snowing and windy and we had to stand outside as guests inside watched us wait. It was an uncomfortable 20 minutes.

When we were finally sat, we were ready to go. We had waited to eat in anticipation for a big dinner but the courses came out at a snails pace - starting with popcorn as an amuse-bouche. The popcorn was great, as was the corn bread that came out next. These came out in the first 15 minutes. Then we spent another 30 minutes waiting for the actual first course.

It continued like that for the rest of the night.

We came hungry and ready to eat but we were served alongside those in the restaurant who booked the 4 course. This was a huge bummer because we were forced to wait to enjoy our meal until everyone else was ready. It really took away from our experience and it made us feel captive at a dinner we were paying quite a bit of money for.

We had asked our server about pacing, and she said she would ask the chef to speed our dishes up but it was clear that this was an uncomfortable request for her and it made the experience even more unpleasant for us. This was disappointing because we were hungry and excited to try the dishes - it was like asking permission to eat the food we were paying for.

We had other plans that we ultimately had to cancel because there was no way we’d make it out of the restaurant on time. We asked for the check with the last dish that came out. We paid immediately and the server brought out a secondary thank you dessert - I think as a way to smooth over our experience (the late seating, having to ask for courses, asking for check with dessert) - as I was signing my receipt which we declined. However, it was a nice gesture.

Ultimately, our experience would have been better had we actually been able to eat dinner at a reasonable pace. Expect to be here for the full two and half hours for the 4 course and three and half hours for the 8 course regardless of how quickly you finish your dishes.

It’s a nice concept restaurant - farm to table vibes and if you’re looking to go I would recommend starting with the 4 course dinner before choosing to upgrade. It seemed the earlier seating enjoyed their meal and loved the leisure pacing of the dinner and the hands off disposition of the staff - but it was not something we enjoyed and after sitting on it for a few weeks, if we had known about the pacing, we would have opted for another restaurant.

TLDR: book the 4 course early seating if you’re curious - don’t go hungry, go ready to sample the...

Great Food, WORST EXPERIENCE I have ever had.

I was there for a rehearsal dinner with my family. My brothers wedding. My children were with me, as well as a few other children. I asked if they could serve the kids first, they told me NO. I explained that kids when hungry are very irritable, and still NO. As they were serving the adults, my 4 year old was telling me he was hungry so I asked again. The answer... You guessed it, NO. At this point I very firmly said that the answer is Yes, because I refuse to eat while the children watch in hunger. That was the start to my awful experience. They fed my kids but still left the other hungry. They then served my uncle a meal he did not order. He explained this, and they told him that he did order it. I spoke with a different server to see if they could give him what he ordered. They finally did so, 30 minutes later. We had been there since 7:45, it was now 9:30 when they were serving the dinner portion of our meal. By then my kids were tired and my 1 year old was crying so my sister gave me hers. When they asked if we had switched plates, I attempted to explain that we switched and the man lost it. He stormed off without allowing me to explain who he needed to give the last plate to, and then came back and slammed my mothers plate down in front of her. At this point I told him that he needed to calm down, that I had never experienced such inappropriate behavior. He then yelled at me, that I was the problem.

First off, any parent worth anything would not feel it appropriate to eat while their child is hungry! Secondly, giving attitude to a table because they did not allow you to dictate their meal, is again inappropriate! Lastly, slamming a plate down in front of a customer like a petulant child is absolutely INAPPROPRIATE!

Never again, will I eat at this restaurant, which is sad because the food was...

I'll echo what most of the other negative reviews say: incredibly loud restaurant, and be prepared to wait what I'd say is an unreasonable amount of time before every single course. It must be intentionally slow, and personally I can't get behind that, I don't want to sit down at a restaurant for over three and a half hours, anything over two hours and I'm squirming in my seat ready to roll.

Another complaint I have is you can't order your own stuff. While a "chef knows best" type of restaurant is cool, I wouldn't have ordered four of the five things I received if given a choice, and I wish I was.

It all combines together for a pretty awkward experience if you ask me. You sit there back to back with others in this small claustrophobic room, with no volume left in the air to hear yourself think, for three or so hours for stuff you are gambling on. Ideally you bring a fine lady or gentleman to gaze at to fill the time, but I wasn't so lucky.

That all said, the staff was attentive and the food was excellent, other than the dessert and salad. The biscuit they give you was the best bread product I've ever had in my life, and the sauces on any given course were a lick-your-plate-clean level of good. Personally I'm not a fan of a salad after appetizers and entrees, and having to wait a whole hour and thirty minutes after my entree for a salad and then dessert was appalling since most restaurants have you in and out in that time frame.

I don't believe I'll be back but I can see the appeal. If I'd sat outside and the food came out at a timely manner, I'd say 4 or 5 stars. That's just not the...