Borealis Grille & Bar - Kitchener

It was a real treat to have a private room for our family. We hadn't seen each other in a long time so great that we didn't have to disrupt others.

Very nice overall. But a bit too smart to our taste...

So Borealis was excellent. Really excellent. The food was inventive, the flavours were balanced, and everything was delicious. The server was personable and had great recommendations. We had only two small issues, minor to be sure, but we still can't give a full 5 stars. More like 4.8 stars, if that was possible. First of all, the waiter sold me an amazing apple carrot soup followed by steak frites. He also sold me on the idea of the house's incredible sautéed onions and mushrooms for said steak. So naturally I ordered it that way. Then, after some delay (the place was insanely busy), my meal showed up minus the highly touted mushrooms and onions. I guess the cook missed it or the waiter didn't order ir. Doesn't matter. But if you talk something up like that, you need to bring it. I didn't say much because the kitchen was slammed and it wouldn't have been possible to fix in a timely way. The steak was still excellent, but maybe it would have been perfect with those mushrooms. The other minor headache was that he made two wine recommendations to my wife and both times the wines were sold out after she ordered them. I don't mean to be picky, but some communication is required there when each error causes a 5 minute delay as the waiter goes off to fill the order and ha to come back to explain. Having said that, all the food was delicious, the wine and beer excellent, and the service really was very good. We would very cheerfully return. Hopefully we could have our mushrooms this time.

Love this place and the atmosphere. This time the kale caesar had too much dressing though, and although the duck was good there was not a lot to it.

When we arrived (party of 4) we were seated quickly but it took a while for our server to get to us. She seemed swamped, I guess they were quite busy even though there were a lot of empty tables. Drinks took about 25 minutes, I guess they were out of wine glasses?! We placed our food order and then nearly an hour later didn 't have our food yet. We asked for some bread while we waited. They sent over 4 pieces of thin toast with some cold garlic butter. Our server said the manager would be over to apologize too for the wait. No one ever came. I will note our server was very good, and checked in on us even though she had nothing to offer. The food arrived and we all enjoyed our meals, although my side salad didn 't come for about 15 more minutes. I was disappointed that a discount or free dessert weren 't offered, and the manager never appeared. That would have changed my review.