Calistoga Grill

I left Montréal 20 years ago and each time I come back for a visit I take advantage of the wonderful restaurants that Montréal has to offer.
Unfortunately, this is NOT one of them.
We were a party of 5 and made reservations for Thursday July 16, 2015. We arrived on time and the restaurant was not very busy.
The hostess didn’t even bring us to our table. She walked us towards the patio and pointed to the table from inside to let us know where our table was.
The waitress Darlene B came to our table to take our drink order. She was not particularly pleasant and somewhat abrupt in communicating with us.
Darlene took our food order and brought it to our table.
The food was mediocre and not hot at all.
Myself and one guest shared a Tortellini — it was not hot and a little dry — it could have used more sauce.
My husband had the fish and chips. It was mostly batter with very little fish, the French fries were terrible and the meal also was not hot.
My friend had the southern fried chicken which was cold and not very tasty.
My other friend had a salad and this was apparently good.
Since one of us has previous restaurant experience it was decided not to return any of the food back to the kitchen as there are concerns throughout the restaurant industry about returning food.
At NO time during the meal did Darlene come and ask if we like our food. (I suspect she already knew the food was not very good)
Darlene came and cleared the table and overheard one of us mention dessert — only at this point did she ask us if we wanted any dessert.
She brought the dessert menus and didn’t return for quite a long time to see if we wanted anything. As it turned out we did not order anything.
Then we waited for another very long time for our bills. (We had asked for 2 bills)
Darlene noticed that I was paying by credit card and proceeded to set up the machine and pointed out that she was including 15% for tip.
As it turns out I usually leave 20%. However, due to the poor service and food my intention was to leave only 10%. Once I saw that I was being manipulated into a 15% tip I choose «other» instead of «ok» for the 15% and ended up leaving nothing.
Darlene TOLD me that I had not left a tip and that I had pressed the wrong button. When it appeared to her that it may have been a mistake she offered to «fix» it.
My friend that was paying the other bill with cash ended up leave her just under 10% of her bill. Very generous in my opinion as it was certainly not deserved.
I am not sure if the fault lies with the Waitress, Hostess, Chef, Owner/​Manager or ALL of them.
I didn’t notice any other servers and more patrons were arriving at the restaurant.
If Darlene was the only waitress — then I can’t blame her as she clearly had too many tables to take care of and the Manager is to blame for not having sufficient staff on site.
The patio was nice, the duo playing music were wonderful and were not too loud — allowing us to enjoy the music and talk to each other at the same time.
I will not be going back, nor will I recommend this restaurant to my many friends and family still in Montréal.

Disappointing. Very disappointing. I don’t believe in reviewing after only one visit, so after 3, I figure that I can make a value judgement. The food does not taste fresh. One night, the smell of garlic from the kitchen was almost overwhelming. The classic Caesar salad was limp and lifeless. The «homemade» Caesar dressing lacked character or depth. It tasted as if it had come out of a bottle. The crab sliders were, well — mushy and again, lacked a freshness.
It seems as if the restaurant is having an identity crisis; unsure as to what type of fare it should be offering and covers the gamut, thinly. When you try to do too much, as a restaurant, more often than not, all the dishes suffer. This is the case with Calistoga. I also found the venue a bit too small for the volume of the music.
One of the three visits was with a larger group; the service was slow and inattentive. Glaringly so. The restaurant had been notified of the group’s intent and even with this notice, the staffing for our table consisted of 1 lone server who did his best but was overwhelmed.
We will not be returning.