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I wish that I had read the reviews before going to dinner. I bet that the people at the next table were wishing that they had as well. The portions in comparison to the price tags was outrageous. What little food we got was good but if it hadn't been for the bread that the waitress kept bring we would have gone home still very hungry. (maybe she knew this).
This restaurant was a major disappointment, more style than substance and grossly overpriced. The serving portions are minimal at best, nowhere sufficient to satisfy even the smallest of appetites. What little food there is, is average. My three small pieces of beef tenderloin were luke warm and certainly not worth the hefty price tag of $39 nor are the deserts at $15 for the similar small portions. Pretentious it is, value for money it is not.
Seems a lot of really great reviews mixed with some really bad. We didn't know what to expect except that the reputation of the restaurant in Stratford is so strong that we thought we would put ourselves in the hands of the chef. I'm not really sure where the bad reviewers were dining, but it couldn't have been the same restaurant that we visited. For a 'fine dining' restaurant, the portions were very good, the flavours intense and focussed, couldn't have asked for a better experience. Our waiter (a blond chap) made a couple of mistakes throughout the evening, but we suspect that he might have been new to the restaurant. Disregard the nay-sayers and enjoy the restaurant for the destination that it is.
Some reviewers have cited that the Church is serving small portions and I guess that's probably true if you normally eat at American chain restaurants. If you order the 4 plate pris fix, you can't miss. The portions are more than enough to satisfy and the flavor combinations are interesting and complex. Our waiter was very kind but not as knowledgeable as we would have liked. We'll try the Belfry next month when we come back.
For $200 we got 5 tortellini (nothing special), 3 1-inch in diameter beef tips (tough), a red mullet about the size of a sunny my kid might have caught (unexciting), a spoonful of linguine (with scallops and octopus we couldn't find), 6 half-pieces of asparagus (nothing special), and a very small portion (1/8 cup?) of rabbit (tasty, except for the truly disgusting "soup"). Had we stayed for further courses, we would have spent over $500. Had we actually ordered enough for a modest dinner, it would probably have been $1,000. The proportion of plate (very large) to food (microscopic) was the most outrageous I've ever seen. It's unbelievable that anyone thinks this is an acceptable restaurant. We had more knives, forks and spoons than there were bites of food. The Church is like a parody of the haute cuisine restaurants of the 70s. Save your money and get better food elsewhere in Stratford.
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