radius restaurant

we were a party of 4 and when we got there it was very busy so we sat at the bar until atablebecame available. we waited about 20 minutes and were seated in the dining room near the window. our server was tentative and quick with taking our order and bringing out our food. i highly recommend their charcuterie board as it had a nice variety and the portion size was good for the 4 of us. the decor was classy and modern - i think they had undergone renos not too long ago. atmosphere was lively and the restaurant was full for a sat night.

tried brunch today i . below is another time. sometimes they hit sometimes they miss. i loved the food-panacotta french toast is amazing! loved it . could be served with more maple syrup. fried potaos - total hit. great flavour and i love the crunch. the radius breakfast was good but had to be eaten without pepper. clam chowder- fantastic .i think this is one of the best bowls of this stuff i have eaten. it would be better with a few more pieces of bread. tea - ordered tea with milk. when tea arrived we waited and waited and waited.some.more for milk. didn't come
we asked again and it still didn't come
when it came the tea was stone cold . pepper and salt are not on tables and again waited and waited for them... pepper which is good on eggs and clam chowder never came. salt and pepper should be on the table. i get that the chef spices it to his liking but some of us need a little more at times. why waste the servers time in retrieving these things when they should be on thetableand the server can be getting my milk. previous- i went here last night with my husband and daughter. it took a lot of convincing with my husband to give this place a second try. the first time was just after it had opened. we had gone with a group of 12 people all of which did not like it. after 2 years of people telling me it was a good place to eat i am glad i finally returned.
atmosphere- this place is a lovely space. modern and spacious with a lot of natural light from windows in the front. there are 4 separate areas and all look comfortable to be in. i especially liked the soft jazz  music they played during the meal. i hate when music drowns out or makes people anxious with a fst beat. you need relaxing music to enjoy a dinner. 
food- they have a $35 around the world tour going on right now on tuesday nights.each tuesdaythey feature a different cuisine,  yesterday was costa rica. my choices were 1) a white fish salsa with avocado  with nauchos- lovely and light with a lot of cilantro ( my favourite) 2) chicken empanada ( on the dry side with too many potatoes ) with rice and beans ( i have never tasted such great rice and beans. whatever spices that the chef added was perfect) and a coleslaw ( far too vinegary for me) 3) dulce de letce cake with sweet milk ( my daughter liked it but i thought it was dry and not very sweet. almost plain cake with some milk poured on it. ) my family was a lot luckier with their choices off the menu: 4) carrot ginger soup- lovely with a wonderful consistency and aroma 5) arctic char- wow! 2 large pieces of grilled fish perfectly done on top of mixed vegetables. this was scrumptious. 6) hamburger- very nice with a sweet bread type bun with french fries lightly spices with salt and parsley- good. 7) flourless chocolate cake was fan -tast- ic!  it came with a strawberry sorbet that blended wonderfully with it and blueberry pearls . i would come back for just that. yum. 
service- our waitress was lovely, friendly and very efficient. she was there at all the right moments. 
impression-i loved the place. i did not like the choices generally on the world tour menu that i had but i would be open to trying another cuisine or order something off the menu next time . i would be happy just to go for flourless chocolate cake and tea in that lovely environment.

not up to the standard that the web site touts. the restaurant is large but strategic walls and stairways give it a more intimate look.
we ate in the restaurant in the corner by the two windows (james street and augusta). being ushered to the table, we were presented with the wine/beer list and the food menu.
we chose a bottle of creekside vqa pinot grigio ($39) - not too bad a wine.
fish cakes ($12) and mussels ($16) for starters. the two fish cakes were a bit dry and contained large pieces of potato. probably close to a kg of mussels were not the best i have ever had but at least they were not dried and small - not bad. the white wine sauce was bland and nothing to rave about.
fish and chips ($15) and manitoulin rainbow trout for mains ($26). the small piece of atlantic haddock was quite good but the chips were inedible - soggy and not properly fried and of course they were saturated in salt.
trout was over-cooked and a solid mass instead of being flakey and was on a bed of rice with the daily vegetable which turned out to be a few pieces of carrot. very disappointing.
i then ordered a glass of beer (they don't have pints but serve beer in 18 oz. glasses). the muskoka detour ipa was no longer on tap so i settled for a glass of goose island ale ($7.75). it was not on the menu. i asked about the abv and the ibus. both questions were properly answered by the waitress. that is a lot to pay for much less than a pint of beer which, i thought, was really only 16 oz when i saw it in the glass.
our waitress was quite attentive and charming until we told her about the chips and that we didn't want them. she went away and came back saying the cover would be removed from the bill. after that she was cold and left my finished plate on thetablefor a long time.
the verdict? nice setting and good service if you are willing to accept poorly prepared food. poor service if you complain. overall, the food was not properly prepared. total price was $112. 72. well overpriced for what we got.

absolutely awful service. i was there for a lunch break with a friend from work and we only had an hour. we thought we would check out radius, because it looks really nice from the outside and had never been in. we were seated right away, and someone came to take our drink orders within 5 minutes. he dropped off the drinks and turned away before we could order....and then we sat there and waited for twenty minutes. our waiter was no where to be seen, and then when he was around, he was doing anything and everything except taking our order. we even thought he was finally coming over, but decided to clear plates on a close bytableinstead. the place was not overly busy, and there was no need to clear the plates before taking our order. we were getting so frustrated with the lack of service that we decided to leave. when we told the waiter and hostess that we were leaving they both just said "why?", and when i told them we had been waiting for 20 minutes, they did not even attempt to apologize or offer to take our order at that moment. we left, without eating, and would never ever go back there again. it has great decor, and probably good food, but the service is absolutely awful. the owner of this restaurant should be ashamed of his/her staff and should look into hiring some competent people.

so sad. i attended there on sunday, january 26 with a friend of mine. he had gotten there before me, had received a coffee and there were already two menus on our table. we had chosen to sit on the cafe side of the restaurant. there was a girl behind the counter the entire time we were there. i went up to the counter twice and even said hi to her one of those times, but never received an acknowledgment. we sat for at least 20 minutes, she walked by ourtablea number of times as did another employee working on the other side of the restaurant, but again we were never acknowledged or spoken to. only when we started to leave did the girl from behind the counter say, "oh did you want breakfast, like do you want me to come there so you can order something?" to which we politely declined.

whether or not it was her job to actually service customers i can't not say, but it would definitely had been the prudent thing to do. only three other people came to her counter the entire time she was, a little initiative would have gone a long, long way. i run a small restaurant and this would never, ever be acceptable of my staff.

therefore, i can not comment on the food, nor will i ever have a chance to as i will certainly never return.

brunch. i visited radius café for the first time today for brunch. we were immediately greeted at the door by a young man who asked us if we were there to dine; an odd question, i replied, "yes." we sat at atablefor two and had to wait a little too long for someone to take our order. the food did not take long at all to arrive. my eggs benedict was good but almost cold. my husband raved about his florentine omelette. i am used to being provided with a second cup of coffee but none was offered. our server was no where to be seen for 15 minutes. when my husband got fed up with waiting and took our empty coffee mugs to the bar for a refill, the woman there said she couldn't do it, it had to be done by our server. this is nonsense, it should always be a team effort. i believe it understaffed and the women that were working there were obviously inexperienced and way too young. a beautiful interior does not make up for poor service. i still tipped our server very well in spite of her only visiting ourtable3 times. it isn't her fault that only 3 women and a male greeter were handling the entire restaurant on a busy sunday afternoon.

great food, not so great service. absolutely loved my plate, and so did the people dining with me,
however service was mediocre, and during the coffee/tea/dessert order, she completely skipped my end of thetablealthough i was waiting eagerly to order a tea! i had to call her over a while later, which she responded with a booklet full of types of tea... and 15 mins later, i had to track her down myself with my choice.. at which point i barely wanted it anymore..
loved the meal however, i would go back and hope for different wait staff.

it's that time of year again - the hamilton downtown bia presents  the 6th annual localicious . twelve restaurants come together and offer prix fixe menus from september 20th to october 6th. like other similar events - summerlicious, winterlicious, and taste of burlington - this is a great opportunity to check out some local restaurnts - without breaking the bank! i attended the lauch party and here is what i had:  chagall's at the sheraton : i walked by thistablea few times and didn't really pay much attention to it to be honest. i mean tomato soup? blah! but i thought for the purpose of blogging - i had to try it. and to my surprise - it was pretty awesome! the tomato soup - which i usually despise was perfectly seasoned, not too acidic and the perfect temperature for such a cold day. the grilled cheese was a cute addition.  manual coffee labour : hot chocolate made with real chocolate - très expressive, no? la piazza allegra : this was probably one of the more well known establish

service improvement. we were excited to try radius after hearing about their use of local food and their downtown location. everyone in my group was happy with their food but the service was poor. when asked about items on the menu, the server seemed clueless. the place wasn't busy and service was slow. appetizers and mains all came out together & were just thrown on thetablewithout regard for who ordered them. i wouldn't rush back!

varied experiences. i've been here 3 times, all for drinks on the patio. the first 2 times, i didn't really have many complaints (easy drink orders of beers, wine and vodka sodas, staff were friendly and on point). the third time was saturday night and we sat on the rooftop patio (myself and one other person). it took about 10 minutes just to get greeted and put in our drink order. this wasn't the server's fault, i think they were just severely understaffed. how is there only one server taking care of an entire rooftop patio on a saturday night? we finally put in our drink order of 2 vodka redbulls. 15 minutes went by (during this time we witnessed atablecome and leave because they still hadn't been greeted) and finally the server returned, without drinks, only to tell us that they didn't have any redbull. what kind of a bar doesn't have redbull on a saturday? he offered to get us something else, but we opted to leave at that point, as we'd been sitting there nearly half an hour and still didn't even have a drink in front of us. i felt bad for the poor server, he definitely just needed some help to accommodate that many people. i may be back but probably not on a saturday night.

slow servers.. went there the other day for lunch and sat on the patio. i had been here numerous times before for drink but never actually ate here. when my friend and i arrived we were greeted by a server (hostess?) who told us to sit wherever we like so we chose a nicetablein the on the non-bistro side of the patio. after waiting for close to 10 minutes (with several employees walking past ourtableand not even acknowledging us) a server finally arrived at ourtableto ask us if we'd like something to drink, my friend ordered a water and i ordered a water and an alcoholic beverage. after probably another 10 minutes our water finally arrived, and the server told me she needed to id me before getting my other drink, fair enough and responsible, however it should have been done at the time of ordering. about 5 minutes later my drink finally arrived, and although delicious, probably would have been quicker for me to simply go to the bar myself. we ordered the dip trio and a salad, both which came quickly and at the same time. the food was nothing exceptional, and slightly over priced in my opinion for what you get, however all the drinks we had throughout our lunch were delicious. simply put, the service there is bad. i expected somewhere like this to have incredible service and when it didnt i was highly disappointed. i would like to note however that all the employees were very nice and no one was rude, our server actually apologized for taking so long. in the end, if you are looking for somewhere in the area that has a great selection of beers and mixed drinks, i would definitely suggest radius (and sitting at the bar/ordering directly from there yourself) but as far as food and service goes, i would not suggest this place for a lunch date.

well te ambiance and service at radius is exquisite, the food is a different story. i went in for brunch today an had a rendition of eggs benedict which included eggs in a mushroom with scarce prices of (tenderloin?) steak. the only redeeming quality of this dish was the béarnaise sauce. for some reason they coated their breakfast potatoes in an obnoxious amount of rosemary, it was almost unbearable. although their beer and bacon caesar is delicious in theory, it to was awful and the salt was caked to the glass. thetablewas very clean though. brunch with my girlfriend costed $70.

we had atablefor 10 and though it took awhile to get our food out, the manager was very accommodating and our waitress was superb. great ambiance. hamilton needs this restaurant. love the local farm support, salmon, the choc brownie. will definitely return on my next trip to hamilton.

disgusting service and disappointing. the interior is alluring but the photocopied menus and food service ruins the ambiance quite quickly. we were seated and two waitresses had a fight over who was to wait thetableand the rest of the stay was very disappointing.
the steak and the pork chops were tough, the salad material was not washed and there was sand on the rib of the leaves. the curried vegetable rice dish was a mess and the vegetables were not fresh. the apple crumble was a huge disappointment with 4 cubes of poor quality cheese and lacked any character to continue eating it. over all, the whole experience was gravely disappointing and i have told many people not to bother visiting it. it lacks
class and the servers lacked professionalism. absolutely not worth the money and i am still embarrassed that i brought my friends there.

had the pleasure of eating at radius on a sunday night! arrived at 6:30pm and the dinning room was packed (which is always a good sign). the interior was beautiful - high ceilings, large glass window fronts, tree stump/glass tables, chandelier lighting. after waiting about 10 minutes and chatting with scott at the entrance we sat down at atableright at the main corner facing james/augusta. the staff were friendly and the food was served hot. unfortunately they had run out of stuffed mushrooms and the brownie dessert, but it means we'll be back! the serving sizes were good in relation to the price. we stayed for 4 hours and learned that they support local farmers, winery's and the city kidz charity - would go back in a heart beat! don't think twice about this restaurant - go and eat!