Cafe Chianti - Halifax

To start the night off, the restaurant didn’t see our reservation for 10 people. They were quite busy but luckily, they had space in their lounge area for our group. Our group was also late getting together so we didn’t mind that we had to wait until almost 8:00pm to get our table. After sifting down, we had ordered a drinks, it took a little while to get our first round. Although, we were a large group (total 8 people showed up for dinner) we had ordered our food, some had appetizers before their mains but our mains took over an hour before it was served. A few of us ordered the ‘special’ of that evening, turns out there was only two ‘left’ and three of us ordered. Still, we waited quite a while to get our food. Finally, when the food came out, the food was PURE salt. I changed my ‘special’ which was a striploin into a tenderloin meal, added the side of shrimps and scallops and everything the steak, shrimps and scallops was SO salty, it literally left a bitter aftertaste. This was common between everyone else’s dish just salty. Also, my steak was cooked to a medium instead of a medium rare but after waiting so long just not worth it to complain. The cut of the tenderloin wasn’t great either pretty gritty. The restaurant ‘normally’ closes at 9:00pm but we were there until past 10:00pm so even when we were finished eating, none of our group wanted dessert but there wasn’t an option for another round of drinks because they were already closed. The only person who had dessert was the one who complained about the saltiness of her lasagna and had the dessert as her main over getting any other main dish replacement. I’ve dined here before a month prior for a business meeting and it was good, so I recommended it to my out of town friends since it was a special occasion for us to get together again after 10 years, but this experience was just a disappointment and the food expectation was terrible. Only good thing was our server was very friendly and professional.

Was looking forward to eating at the new location but we were disappointed in our meals. I had the seafood pasta which had 2 scallops not seared), three shrimp, four mussels small meats), and a few small bits of lobster in a scant sauce that really did not have any depth of favour. My sister asked for extra Parmesan for her raviolis which were also bland and a very small sized portion, so I added this to my linguine to get a bit more flavour but for the price point $38) we expected much better. Our husbands had the steak and said it was ok but needing extra seasoning as well. The house white wine was brought out in individual small carafes was also not stellar. Compared to a meal we had the week before at a different waterfront restaurant with same price point, we were left wanting! I’m hoping things will improve as it is a lovely space and pretty good location in the waterfront and opposite the Westin. I’m thinking they are holding their own owing to the cruise ship traffic at lunch.

Food and Service was excellent. Will be back again next time we are in Halifax.

Nice location on the water and our server was excellent

We received an unfriendly greeting and were told to wait, even though we had a reservation for that time. We waited at the bar, but our drinks didn't arrive until we were finally seated. We ordered two items, but after 20 minutes, we were informed that they were unavailable. We then had to wait an additional 30 minutes for our food, which turned out to be quite average. I wouldn’t return to this restaurant and cannot recommend it.