Vertigo

Nice ambiance and décor with an upscale veneer but no real effort on food preparation. Waitstaff was exemplary and gratefully recommended the Quinoa Salad which was the saving grace that evening. Since they were out of the only grass fed beef (veal) we decided to pass on the rest of their beef offerings. (You’d understand if you’ve seen CJD!)
Halibut À la Plancha Paella Style was overcooked dry and flaky. The paella had good flavor but was obviously not freshly made. Pulled Porc Poutine was not fresh as well. Fries must have been refried several times they were dry darkened and shrunken.
Cocktails were ok, nothing special.

I went here with my family of 6 for my mother’s birthday. When we walked in, the staff was friendly and brought use to a big table. The seating was very nice a high backed couch that surrounded the table. They asked us if the lighting was okay, if the location was fine, things like that. Overall, the staff was extremely friendly. We ordered appetisers, the tartare and the fried calamari. Because of my inexperience with tartare, I have no clue whether it was served well or not. It tasted good… The calamari was average. I ordered the baseball cut, but the wait for the main course was somewhere near 40 minutes. The steak was juicy and cooked to my order. I got the onion and blue cheese sauce, and it was a great touch to the dish. After finishing, we ordered dessert, which was pretty average for a restaurant. Tasty, but not hasty.

This steakhouse/​bar is situated at the heart of Montréal. Great lobster salad and rib eye steak. Service was satisfactory ! Will definitely come back!

Excellent service, excellent food quality, reasonable prices, truly impressive.
I went for the birthday of my friend to this restaurant and they did an amazing job at making us feel special and delivering the goods at every level. Highly recommended. Especially if you like trendy but high-​quality food.

Food was good. However, service was lacking. There was no follow up from waiters for long periods of times. Staff was rude and disrespectful.

Food was good. Service was intermittent with long breaks. Service staff was disrespectful at times.

While taking a break from the jazz festival, we stumbled on this restaurant. We are glad we did. Music was soothing, décor was pleasant. Our waiter, from Switzerland, helped me out with a beer selection. He was a excellent waiter who knows his trade. The food presentation was wonderful and it tasted even better.

Belle ambiance pendant le 5@8. Bonnes Sangrias, bons cocktails, bon vins, et bons plats!

They should update their website information. According to the website, on Saturdays they are open from 11h30 to 23hs. We went there today at 1pm and it was closed.

While staying at the Queen Elizabeth last week, concierge recommended this place to us. It was waking distance from our hotel and seemed to have a good vibe upon entering. A fabulous hostess seated us upstairs near the open kitchen area. We asked the waiter for food recommendations and while none of us were eating red meat at the time and made that clear, he continued to say that it was a steakhouse and that was the only thing worth on the menu. It was disconcerting that he couldn’t be positive about the Lobster Grilled Cheese or fried chicken sandwich. We then opted to just get a few appetizers, which were good. The fried cheese balls were delicious. We shared a fried chicken sandwich which was outstanding. It was delicious and came with slaw and shoestrings fries. Highly recommend this dish if you go and don’t want steak. Also, the quinoa chicken salad was huge and delicious. A great plate to share.

Very nice interior, good service, and tasty food. Quite a strong entry into the Montréal dining scene!

Excellent service and great atmosphere. Food was very good but not necessarily the best steak place I have been too. Still extremely good. I would definitely go back when I visit Montréal again.

THE INTRO:
–Despite my low two-​star rating attributed to this restaurant, I would point out that it is a brand-​new restaurant and they may be still working out some of the kinks. I would consider this as you read my review. We were at the restaurant for 2.5 hours. My goal when deciding on a restaurant this evening was to dine with a couple (2) of friends that just wanted to have a nice sit-​down meal to celebrate someone’s birthday. We ultimately chose this restaurant because it was new, had done some great marketing, and there was a lot of hype about the quality of the food, the décor and the location.
THE GOOD:
–the décor is great — walls made out of solid concrete with a cool fireplace (it’s not real fire, but very cool nonetheless), comfortable seats, a couple of wine cellars, soft lighting but still strong enough to see everything nicely, and a winding staircase going up to the second floor; and
–the quality of the steak — it was cooked just the way I ordered (rare) and had a wonderful charcoal-​tasting sear on the outside. Contrary to another poster, the steak was not drenched in salt.
THE BAD:
–speed of kitchen service — anything that we ordered from the kitchen (whether that was a snack, appetizer, main dish, or dessert) took a long time to arrive. Excessively long. We ordered a bottle of wine to accompany our main meal (we had had martinis with the snacks, etc., before the main meal). The waitress brought over the bottle (Penfolds Bin 9) immediately after the main meal was ordered and, amazingly, we managed to finish off the bottle of wine before the steak arrived! We didn’t «chug» back the wine, either: we took our time. Service was equally slow for the starters
–I feel bad saying this, but our waitress just didn’t seem to fit in this calibre of restaurant – there was just something about her service that was a little «off» by the comments that she made to us during the meal and her general demeanor came off as a bit «brusque»;
–the quality of the starters — we ordered smoked cheese fritters and Japanese dumplings. The dumplings were warm, not hot. The quality was only okay. Unfortunately, in a place like this, «okay» doesn’t cut it. You’ll see why in the next line; and
–the quality /​quantity /​price ratios (le rapport qualité-​prix) — the bill came out to $ 100 /​person but the size of the dishes (quantity) and the taste of the food (quality — except for the steak which was great) just didn’t justify the price, and that’s taking into consideration the nice décor.

$$$$$ = Environment + Foods + Price Customers
They have good meals and the atmosphere is enjoyable. Classy stuff lol
Drinks are good as well ;)

This restaurant looks fabulous. The décor is quite nice, not to mention the overall ambiance. The food, at least when I was there with my partner, was pretty good. So these two items together would ordinarily receive at least a three star rating from me.
The primary reason it won’t is due to the atrocious service, and if I could render a negative star rating, this would be it. When we first arrived, the hostess seemed flustered (apparently she had misplaced something). While this is not an issue for me, the frown, accompanied by scratching her armpits in front of customers (me included) is a bit disgusting (I don’t care how hot she thinks she is). Our server seemed pleasant at first, but she seemed to be having the most difficult time serving the two tables she had (one of them being ours of course). While the other table had three people, and two at mine, having done food service before, this shouldn’t be an issue. But our server only showed up twice after we placed our order: once to see if our meals were okay, and to present our check. The rest of the time, she was engaged in what seemed to be an epic conversation about something not concerning work. Our server didn’t even both either asking if we wanted waters, and routinely failed to refill anything. Now I’m not sure if it’s policy at this place to have bussers refill your drinks, but when they have been asked to request the server several times, and the server has not shown up AT ALL, I think there are larger problems at stake than the steak at this place (pun intended). Our busser finally got appalled enough to ask us if we’d like our waters refilled at least. While the service time for courses was long, it was terribly excruciating to be waiting on our server. After finishing our main courses, we were going to order desserts, however, after again requesting our server to place the order (and her not showing up, per the usual), the busser again refilled our water (non-​revenue generating drink) and brought us our dessert menu. After twenty minutes, our server showed up, but only to seat a few people next to our table. This is when we decided that the service was atrocious and no dessert was worth this amount of consumer negligence. After paying our bill, the server came to our table, and asked why we hadn’t tipped her more, and she said that any service issues we had was the result of the kitchen staff. We informed her that we’d like to reserve our opinion on the service, at which point, she began to literally yell across our table at us, while also facing the table next to us (while I normally tip 15% or more, this server has no service standard, heck, it’s subpar). And when you create a public forum out of an issue where you’re not able to accept personal responsibility (in this case, our server being unable to see how inappropriate she was, while blaming everyone else), I think I’ll reconsider either going back or recommending this place to anyone. If this place does stay in business, I hope they improve their service standards and hopefully replace that particular server. Perhaps then I can consider this place again.

Amongst the plethora of downtown restaurants that make heaps of promises to be ‘the’ destination for after-​work eats and drinks, Vertigo is a relative newcomer. Sassed out in a spanking-​new tower on the corner of University and Cathcart, complete with a mix of modern steel, aluminium and natural wood (not to mention the central spiral staircase that ascends to the clouds, er, the second floor), Vertigo claims that its steak and other eats are from ‘selected’ ingredients, holding at least the promise of a decent nosh.
Well, decent is as far as I’d take it. Had the Steak+frites off the lunch menu, while my dining companion had the lobster salad. The steak was cooked correctly (medium-​rare, pink on the inside, but hot) but the chef decided to drown the meat in salt. So, all I could taste was the salt and not much else. I understand in this day and age it’s difficult to get your hands on grain-​fed beef (not really), and so the meat has little taste, but really? Salt? Not much imagination there. The fries were okay, but just that. My companion’s salad was bland, despite the fact that it had lobster and the croutons were tasteless.
Overall, a nice vibe and a good premise — not to mention a fabulous lcoation — but the chef needs to step it up if they want to get people to keep coming back.