lure restaurant & bar

ok if you are expecting pub food but i wouldn't recommend it for a meal.
fine for a beer or wine
overpriced and underwhelming
great view

a very disappointing dinner menu.
wanted a decent dinner and got pub food with fries.
need a dinner menu!
nice view , slow service.

good wings. food ok. service was lacking. food came out at different times. slow.

beautiful patio and restaurant, but we were quite disappointed with the food. expecting higher quality food, tasted just o.k but no garnishes on anything made it look bland. service was ok once they finally got to us.

mediocre & thoughtless. what a difference a couple of years make. despite negative opinions of friends, we've returned to lure because we had a really good experience in the past. now they're just about making a buck and giving a f.... !

what does any diner expect when the kitchen messes up an order ? steak overdone in this case. they expect a redo without question or attitude and maybe a free coffee/desert, heaven forbid getting it comped.

my birthday lady had to eat her main dish all by herself while i waited for my supposedly "angus new york steak" to be done to the right temperature. well, 20 mins later, done correctly finally, i then eat by myself. no real apology, instead... "we get this at this table all the time". really?? i'm the unlucky diner that happened to call out a mistake by the kitchen and i'm not the only one ? maybe other savvy diners that sit at the best table of the house and spend $300 for a dinner-for-two, are not some chums off the street and know a thing or two about food.

maybe they even grill a ny steak at home correctly and know when it's overcooked. for $33 a plate i can expect perfection and not excuses to make me and my companion feel stupid.

not even a $4 coffee was offered, but everything billed in full.

also, when they're out of a particular wine, they'll offer you a more expensive one, without adjusting for the difference.
tact and business sense and good service is a fine art in fine dining and sorry, but lure has sunk to a money grabbing and don't care hotel food court.

at $300 per couple you can get a lot better anywhere else. good luck with fleecing the tourists, this local diner won't ever be back!

lesson learned: don’t order the ‘casual fare'. today (october 12) i ordered a simple club sandwich at the lure at the delta hotel here in victoria.

sandwich arrived stone cold and the toast was so dry it was inedible. since i was with family i tried not to make a scene and managed to choke down (literally) half the sandwich before sending the rest back.

i explained to our server exactly what had happened in the kitchen: somebody made toast; let it sit until cold; made the club sandwich; then let that sit while the rest of the meal was being prepared. it doesn’t take a lot of ability to get a club sandwich ready to be served while its at least luke warm, so i’ll chalk that up to sheer laziness among the kitchen staff.

the server comped half the price of the sandwich ($7 off the $14 price). i guess company policy considers this fair as i had actually manged to eat half of it before giving up in disgust. no word of apology; no promise to do better next time. it would have been nice if she’d said something about the quality of the meal, otherwise it comes across as “the customer is always right but we still think you’re a jerk so we’ll do the absolute minimum, and damned if we’ll take the least responsibility.”

the other meals were reportedly quite nice. did i insult someone by ordering such ordinary fare?

of note: the lure has a web site but the “please tell us about your dining experience at lure” link doesn’t seem to be working. is there a message in this?

another wonderful experience. this is our second dinner visit to lure. sometimes a new discovery is never the same the next time around. but lure has not disappointed us. everything from the nice complimentary underground parking to friendly delta hotel lobby staff, to the great welcome at the restaurant ..right through to the wait-staff was exemplary. the wait-staff was always in the background but not in our faces. the corner table with a sunset view was wonderful: so much to see and occupy our time. now the food. in one word, excellent. this time around we had the chef's recommendation: a beautiful cut of tenderloin steak, sumptuous halibut cheeks, and their signature (bacon) risotto (however, they could have left off the swiss chard). otherwise, lots to eat on the plate and no rush in getting through it -- mmm, just melted in our mouths! a half-litre of baccus complimented the main plate to a 't'. we finished off the delight with a choice from their desert menu -- again, anything there is 'to die for'.

yes, all in all such a great experience; one which we will most likely repeat even without being a "special occasion".
this restaurant may just become our "special occasion" all on its own.

bravo!

new menu.... bad food. we've been to well over 100 restaurants in the victoria area, and i can warn you that this one is not at the top of their game. they just changed menu items and we waited over one and one half hours to be served. the halibut was tasty, but appetizer sized. stay away from the rack of lamb if you like lamb. it was so badly overcooked that the steak knife wouldn't, or couldn't cut the meat at all.

other patrons were complaining bitterly about the slowness of the kitchen. this so called high quality establishment is more like a low class joint that wants to sell liquor not well prepared food. the only saving grace was the service provided by a very professional wait person named trisha who tired her best to make up for the clear deficiencies in the kitchen.

one can only ask....where was the chef?

fresh dungeness crab cobb salad from the delta ocean pointe’s lure restaurant. a staple on its appetizer menu, the layered salad included butter lettuce, hard boiled egg slices, crispy bacon, creamy avocado and was garnished with colorful edible flowers.

save your money, don't bite the lure. dreadful experience for me... wasn't sat where i wanted to because the table was 'reserved'; i was in the restaurant for over an hour and no one sat there, more meat on the menu than fish;screaming whining kids all over the place, very slow delivery on the main course that was so small it was gone in 3 minutes....thank god there were some potatoes on the plate, albeit very small and very few ones.
some vegetables floating in black muck that was probably something to do with truffle that was just disgusting and completely unappetizing, the piece of fish was minuscule...and all through dinner getting hear kids whine and bawl... i would have enjoyed macdonald's fish sandwich more...

great food, meh prices.... ate here last year when visiting some friends and i was immediately impressed with the menu and service from the moment we walked in the door. the crab was fresh and i assume caught locally, along with the fish. presentation was very colorful and thoughtful, but for the price, we all left just a little bit hungry. perhaps we're too used to unhealthy portions of food, but i like to think that at that price i could bring a little home for a midnight snack. may return if it's a special occasion.

a view to dine for. we didn't eat at lure the night we stayed at the delta ocean pointe hotel -- so many restaurants to try, so little time! -- but the innovative seafood-heavy menu looked great. (and pricey) breakfast the next morning (included in our room fee package) was good, real canadian, lotsa sausage, bacon (and not back bacon) for me and salmon in my wife's frittata. but it's hard to screw up breakfast unless you're really trying. our cappucinos were not as good as australian coffees always are, but very few outside oz or italia ever reach that standard.

what merits a mention is the excellent view from lure's picture windows. they have a great east- and southern-facing aspect over victoria's inner harbour. you can watch the passenger ferries cruising to and from washington state, seaplanes taxiing in to their landing, b.c.'s parliament house, kayakers and sculling teams paddling by... if i was a tourist from someplace far away (instead of just a visitor from the other side of the georgia strait) i would totally want to book a table by the plate glass just to drink in the scenery. that's as intoxicating as half a bottle of wine!

not as good as i hopped. i expected a lot more but...fish and chips were excellent. hallibut is in season and was just excellent. my son had a bbq burger and also liked it.

a pleasant father's day meal. table for 4 in the window - you can't beat the view and how much it impressed our parents. for that alone i would return to lure. service was a definite highlight other than having to ask for a gluten-free menu twice. our server went far out of her way to ensure we were happy. dinners were a bit old-school w/baby veg and styling. sauces were hit and miss... well, maybe mostly miss. my steak had a very sweet vanilla sauce which i avoided but my partner gobbled. mother-in-law's chicken was on a bed of a couple of vegetable sauces (?) - the fennel was nice but there was a cold (as in salad-cold) cubed white bit which was a complete mystery to all of us and not particularly enjoyable, father-in-law's halibut (perfectly cooked) had a grey sauce which someone identified as mushroom reduction but the colour alone was off-putting. our steaks were a tad over-cooked for both medium-rare and medium, but they were very tasty and tender. steaks came with delicious potato croquet-of-sorts wrapped in bacon which was the highlight for me. coffee was great. we all declined dessert so they provided us with a nibble of chocolate, strawberries and a little taste of mousse - how thoughtful! (because you know we all wanted dessert anyway). we really enjoyed the night and would return regardless of the low-points. would be nice if they updated things a bit though.

upon being seated i was actually given a dining option, i could either order from the a la carte menu or have the chef put together a tasting menu. what!? really!? you do tasting menus!? yes please!