Koultures

AVOID THIS RESTAURANT
We made reservations 3 weeks in advance for our table of 10 (we ended up being a table of 7) — they had no clue who we were when we arrived — — however, restaurant was completely empty when we arrived — so we had no issues getting a table.
All our chairs were broken when we were seated. Server took 10 minutes to greet us and ask for drink order. We thought we would share a bottle of wine — as there is an entire PAGE in the menu illustrating the white and red they have. We were then told WE DON’T SERVE LIQUOR — — ??? Once our drink order was taken — it took quite a while — when she did come from the kitchen she brought out 3 drinks at a time with a 10 minute lapse between.
We then ordered our appetizers — 2 each of 4 items — 2 sets came out together. At that point we had 3 plates and 2 sets of cutlery (table of 7) — — after waiting a few minutes one of our diners, frustrated, went into the kitchen to fetch our server. Another 5 minutes — she brought out 3 more plates — — still short 1 plate — and NO cutlery was brought. Another few minutes — out came cutlery and a final plate. After all this — our 3^rd appetizer came. We finished all 3 sets of appetizers when one of our diners said — «wait we ordered 4» — Same diner went back into the kitchen to fetch our server a SECOND time — and at that point he was told not to come into the kitchen again. At this point we had to remind her about our final appetizer. This was beginning to be a wee bit of a nightmare.
We tried to place our entrée order — — only to be told many items were «unavailable» — we waited well over 30 minutes before food began to come out of the kitchen. Out came the first whole tilapia (raw in places), another 15 minutes — out came dish number 2 — kingfish — not terrible. 10 minutes more — second tilapia came out — this one was cooked through, 15 minutes later out came curry chicken — completely bland — by this time the kingfish diner was finished eating, and the first tilapia diner was also done. Then came 1 of the 2 jerk chicken ordered — another 10 minutes came the goat, and 5 minutes later came the 2^nd jerk chicken. By the time the final dish arrived — 4 diners had completed eating — and 3 were only starting.
At this point, we were not checked on to see how are meals were or if we needed anything else — never saw our server again. After waiting a significant amount of time — I PHONED THE RESTAURANT AND ASKED FOR OUR BILL TO BE BROUGHT TO US !!!
Once the bill was presented — we needed change for a 5 dollar bill only to be told WE HAVE NO COIN CHANGE — — I’m sorry? what business establishment doesn’t have COIN CHANGE?
Needless to say — we felt like we had slipped into the twilight zone with this restaurant — never had any of us had such poor service — such oddities going on — and we just simply couldn’t believe how things went.
PS — if you sit at the back of the restaurant — up high — which we did — you can see into the men’s bathroom and look at a urinal — one diner said she could smell the urinal pucks.
As a note — we as a group get together and try new ethnic restaurants every 3 weeks — so this isn’t our first time eating out together — this restaurant was the 18^th we have tried in the city. With that said, when we all agree this was the worst dining experience we had ever had together or even privately — we aren’t kidding.

I loved this place — friendly service, great music, and interesting, delicious food.

My wife and I have been looking forward to trying Koultures for a long time. We finally found time to visit with a few friends recently and decided to try it out. We were very disappointed.
The service was incredibly slow and super lax. The server seemed to forget about us a few times, got one of our orders wrong, and didn’t inform us that the kitchen was out of pretty much everything until we tried to order the items they were out of. We tried to order various types of fish… each time he’d pause, think, and say: «I don’t think we have that.» Finally, someone asked, «What do you have?» and he said, «I think the only kind of fish we have right now is king fish.» The strangest thing is, it didn’t seem like they’d run out of the other kinds of fish; it seemed like they just hadn’t bothered to order any that week.
It kind of felt like going to someone’s house for dinner and having them serve whatever happened to be in the fridge.
He also never brought us our appetizers (we would have complained, but the whole experience was so disorganized that we kind of forgot we’d even ordered appetizers until the end of the night; they weren’t on the bill, so I suspect that he never even put in the order).
The food itself wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t great, either. The goat (which pretty much all of us ended up ordering, since they were out of nearly everything else) was incredibly tough. The king fish was OK, but nothing to write home about. The rice was good, but I’m not fond of paying $ 20 for a plate of rice and overly-​tough goat.
The atmosphere in the restaurant was OK. It’s advertised as fine dining, but I’d say it is more of a middle-​of-​the-​road atmosphere. It’s not super fancy, but not dingy, either. Oh, and it’s VERY pink. The décor is black and hot pink… and lots of it!
In summary, the service is terrible, the food is mediocre, and the prices are too high for what you get. I don’t understand why this place received positive reviews in a number of local newspapers. It’s not a place I’d ever go back to.
I’m giving it two stars, because I thought some of the food was good, but I think most of the people I went with would probably only give Koultures one star.
The owner did apologize for the wait as we were paying, but she didn’t make any attempts to correct the problem.
One final note: their website says that they have both an African menu and a European menu. One of the people in our group isn’t a big fan of African food, but agreed to the choice of restaurant because she thought some of the European dishes looked good. The website must be out of date, because there is no European menu.

African (Nigerian) food. $ 20 for the buffet. Cooked very primitive, utilitarian style. Not to my taste. «Stewed and Fried» Goat? Why fry tender stewed goat meat and make it like chewing on rocks, unless that is the intention to save on buffet costs? The ribs were okay, as was the fish. Planters with chick pea (?) chilli was passable. Cow skin? Had a nibble, for the heck of it. Certainly not ‘Fine Dining’ for me, contrary to what their name says. More like days old leftovers from the trashcan.