La Societe – Toronto

One of my favourite restaurants in my Neighborhood. Foods always great. Service is hit and miss. Best night is Thursday night for $ 1 oysters.

When I’m wanting a slower pace after a hectic day of shopping along Bloor Street, this is my go to sanctuary. The food is superb and their service ranks fairly high up in my books.
Their menu is definitely sophisticated if you’re accustom to fast food. Well worth the experience of you don’t plan on leaving the continent.

The patio is super nice. Music is jazz that makes the lunch more pleasant. Excellent service and love the beautiful people around.

I genuinely like the food at La Societe, but the prices are reflective of the prime location it holds in Yorkville.
I keep returning because it has a convenient location with decent food, beautiful décor, and they validate parking up to $ 15. If you are determined to try La Societe, I would recommend this place for brunch/​lunch over dinner as it’s an extremely expensive place to fill you up unless you go on Thursday nights for their oyster and crab claw specials. I feel like the portions get smaller and smaller every year.
Service is a toss up. It’s either the expected standard or super terrible. I’ve been here maybe 8 – 9 times and I’ve had decent service but I’ve also had terrible service to the point where I had to talk to the manager and he had my party’s whole meal reimbursed. Most of the bad experiences occurred on the bar/​lounge side opposed to the dining side though. Never had a noteworthy service experience to share.
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Today, I came here for dinner with a friend and we shared the scallop carpaccio, ahi tuna, and steak & frites. All the food was delicious… but the portions? Quite possibly made for a mouse.
The scallop carpaccio was yummy — but wasn’t really a carpaccio? It was more of marinated scallops on a bed of some sort of carbohydrate. Delicious and would love to eat again… but not for the price (~$ 20+).
The ahi tuna. Whut??? Only 2 chips? See picture for reference.
Steak and frites. The only thing we ordered during this meal that was semi-​worth it but small for $ 32. It won’t fill you up for dinner by itself (especially when the 2 sauce pots together are equivalent to the size of the steak). The steak was done perfectly. Perfectly sauced and cooked. The fries & accompanying dips. Absolutely in love.
Service was polite and the waiter asked if I parked downstairs to validate it and explained how to operate the payment machine (points for you, sir). Usually I ask the maitre-​d on the way out for validated parking.
Total bill: $ 108 without tips. Craziness.

Talk about over-​priced, under deliver. The food was decent at best for small portions with crazy prices. Nice décor but not worth it!

stopped by for happy hour for a dollar oysters, no minimum or maximum order. the service took a while for a slow thursday. the oysters were small but thats as expected for a dollar, and came with a side of cocktail sauce, horseradish and lemonsss.

This has got to be the worst meal at its price point. Everything we tried wasn’t even close to par. What saves a star is the ambience and the adequate service.

Went to this place many times since it’s really close to where I live.
— for the brunch, they are offering the free bread, but they never give to you until you ask. The portion of the food is tony. Over priced
–for the oyster special, the oyster are small and not fresh. If you are only going there for oyster, you will also suffer the bad service. The manger was really rude
–for their regulate menu, it’s over priced. you can definitely getting better French cuisine with less money and better tasting. Even in the neighbour (Yorkville)
–will never go again, only if it’s free

1.5 stars
Had the chance to check this place out on a Sunday for a birthday brunch with a group of 10.
Service was great. Our waitress showed no signs of impatience despite a few people showing up late (almost 20 minutes after the reserved time). She was really attentive and accommodating. She really did take that extra step which I will explain in a bit.
The food, however, was a write-​off.
I ordered the Salmon Eggs Benedict ($ 16) and couldn’t help but notice how stingy the portions were. Two eggs situated on salmon and HALF a piece of toast (which I swear is Wonderbread) with potatoes on the side. The eggs were completely overcooked! The yolk was firm and no longer runny… can’t consider that to be poached eggs anymore. My friend also ordered the same thing and only one egg was poached correctly with the other overcooked as well. How do you mess up on eggs during brunch? This is not to mention the salmon and hollandaise sauce was way too salty. Terrible.
I did voice my concern about the eggs to our waitress to which she quickly took back to the kitchen and served me new ones. I also really appreciated that she brought out an EXTRA egg for my friend as she had overheard our discussion that one was overcooked. Hence, the full star for service. At the end of the day, the dish served at its best is still subpar and an utter disappointment.
A few of us got the Pancakes ($ 15) to share because it sounded delicious and somehow, this was more terrible than my eggs benedict. Didn’t look appetizing at all. The pancakes were large and SO thick, which wouldn’t have been an issue but it was really dry and tough. The batter tasted like it came from a pre-​packaged pancake mix (i.e.: Betty Crocker) and they were actually crispy. border-​line deep fried… Pretty much tasted like everything a pancake should NOT be.
Another thing I wanted to mention (although I did not try) was the Hamburger ($ 19). My friend had requested for medium upon ordering but the burger came out extremely rare. The meat was bright pink, possibly the rarest burger I’ve ever seen. Smh.
The additional half-​star was for the nice, classy ambiance but that is to be expected for a restaurant located in Yorkville.
Overall, the food was memorably bad and I will not return nor would I recommend this to anyone. At least not for brunch.

We were there on a Tues night for an Eventbrite event. It was my female friend and I. My friend ordered red wine by the glass and enjoyed their selection. We split a mulles et frites (mussels & fries) and they were delicious with a small amount of onions sautéed butter. And the establishment let us switch the fries for a house salad.
The service was great once we were able to find someone to serve us given it was a busy event. But once we had a waitress she was very attentive!
I would definitely go back for the food, atmosphere and service. They have a patio in the summer too.

The décor is nice the service was good. Everything else meh.
Had the seafood tower the shrimp was mushy. The tar tar tasted super fishy. And it was overpriced! I had way better with lots more stuff for half the price ridiculous.
We had a few more things that not even worth mentioning. Over all the food is just meh.
Cool place to come for drinks and chill but that bout it. 2.5 star out of 5

We came as a party of around 14 people on a Thursday night at 7:30pm. We ended up staying until 10:30, all because of the slow service. We were seated quickly and had a prix fixe menu option since we had decided on that when doing the reservations. I had a beet salad, trout, and lemon tart. The salad was refreshing but to be honest, not that tasty, since it was too sweet and too much vinegar at times. Trout was nothing special, just a piece of grilled fish on a bed of kale and mushrooms. The sauce and kale/​mushrooms were amazing and cooked to perfection though. In terms of dessert, I’m usually a huge fan of tarts, but their «lemon tarts» was a slice of a lemon meringue pie without the top.
And the other thing is that service was very, very slow. It took them nearly 30 minutes before placing our order and there was also so much time inbetween the courses.

I just got home from one of the most terrible dining experiences of my life. This was my third time at La Société and despite two prior and pleasant experiences, I am so baffled by the amount of disrespect I experienced from our waiter and, subsequently, from the manager that I will most certainly never return.
Things started off terribly when my friend and I, while awaiting two other dining guests, kept getting bombarded by the waiter forcing us to purchase a drink. We told him we were interested in the Cava but were awaiting our other friends. He proceeded to push an entire bottle of Cava on us, saying that he thought we would really enjoy it. We thanked him and asked him to give us some time until our friends arrived. He came back not once but twice pushing the Cava bottle on us again and after our third time asking him to wait for our friends, he responded «OK, I will put it on ice for you».
When our friends arrived, we ordered the Cava and decided to skip appetizers and go straight to mains. One of my friends asked the waiter if he recommended the steak tartare or the gnocchi. He abruptly answered «the tartare, but let me get you guys a plate of gnocchi!» with so much pressure and awkwardness that none of us felt comfortable enough to say no.
Our meals were fine and normally I would rate this place much higher but the subsequent experience of getting the bill was so horrendous that I could never justify anything more than 1 star. We asked that he split the entirety of the bill by 4 and give me 2 of the bills to take care of. He was so incompetent and came back, rudely, saying he was unable to split the bottle of Cava. When we offered to do the math and have him simply charge specific amounts on our respective credit cards, he jetted off in an attempt to fix the bills, only to return and, once again, have incorrect bills. Finally we had to teach him how to insert the proper amounts correctly, at which point he started to become extremely jumpy and even stated «I have 10 other tables right now, we’re going to have to do this my way». I was so offended by his treatment towards us.
To make matters worse, my credit card didn’t seem to be working properly and instead of gently trying it again or communicating with me about it, he kept aggressively shoving it in and out of the machine and quickly stated «do you have another one?». My friend ended up covering my bill as there was no opportunity to see why the card wasn’t working.
When I came home, I was so taken aback by this horrible experience that I contacted the manager, Chris. I explained all the upselling and rude behaviour and he assured me that this would be escalated. I sensed a hint of insincerity in his voice though. He offered to «give us the red carpet treatment» the next time we go but failed to get my phone number. I will never be going back to this restaurant again.

La-​OK
The restaurant boasts a lot of high end qualities but its faults to me out weigh what it trying to be achieved here. The food was good but not great.
The French Onion Soup was REALLY rich (which I understand isn’t unheard of in French cuisine but I really found it hard to eat at the end of the day). I had the pan seared trout which made up for it.
I was having difficulty determining if the restaurant was trying to be a high end diner or a fancy, yet casual french restaurant setting.
I did however have some of the BEST Gin and Tonics in the city, so there is that :)
Service was way slow but it was a busy day when we went so I’ll give them a bit of a break on that but it left a bad taste in my mouth.
The food is OK but it isn’t where I thought it would be.

Nope.
The place is extremely overpriced and the food is not very good. We were here end of June and paid $ 60 per person for not very memorable food.
The waitress tried very hard to keep up with our group of 15, but none of the other employees seemed to want to help her out until they were giving us our bills. Go somewhere else if you’re with a group because they force you to order from a prix fixe menu that will not taste very good or fill you up, clearly ripping you off.

The place has a very Parisian feel to it and the service is good but the food isn’t the greatest.
I had the Cobb salad for which they used a spring salad mix from the supermarket as the base and some of the greens were wilted and tasted off.
3.5 stars for the ambiance and 2.5 for food so I averaged it at 3.

We stopped in here for a late breakfast on Saturday morning and ordered coffee, and a Mamosa.
We ordered waffles with fruit and lobster eggs Benny. The staff was very nice very pleasant and very efficient our meal came out extremely quickly.
Debra had ordered the waffles and it looked to me like it was just a regular waffle out of a toaster, (not an ice crafted fluffy waffle), with some raspberries popped on top it didn’t look anything special — very underwhelming… I don’t think it was very good because she didn’t eat much of it. And the Lobster Eggs Benny (which I had high expectations for), had some nice pieces of lobster but I didn’t like the potatoes that were covered in some kind of a sticky sauce I don’t know what it was but it wasn’t very unpleasant and these soft poached eggs sat on top of the potatoes in a very kind of an awkward looking dish. The hollandaise sauce was nice on the eggs and the were poached perfectly but the potatoes were a bit of a mess !
I’ve been here many times and had many things on the menu and I think this is probably the most disappointing meal to date.

Le societe is solidly.average. The service is good and the food is average. The décor is Parisian bistro and the patio in the summer time is beautiful.
I eat here about 2 – 3 times a year and given my gluten free needs, I often pay more for the safer options and can’t try many of the options that others enjoy so my review could be skewed. That said, I never have any complaints about my meal aside from the price. Especially after having been in Paris recent where they took my gf needs very seriously yet I never felt like I was giving up on selection or flavour and the prices were often less or equal to le societe. It’s Bloor street, the crowd isn’t terrible and I’ll keep going back.

Came here with some friends for brunch — I had this place bookmarked for so long so I was excited to try their Summerlicious menu.
When we got seated, the waitress informed us that they did not offer Summerlicious during brunch. When I made the reservation, it was through the Summerlicious website, so it was frustrating the staff had no idea.
Looking past that, they had a good selection on their regular brunch menu. I ordered their lobster eggs benedict ($ 21) and the boyfriend had the steak & eggs ($ 34).
Food arrived fairly fast, and we were not impressed by the portion size. My lobster Benedict had a few pieces of lobster and instead of English muffin, you’re given white toast. I’ve definitely had better and left with a full stomach. The steak was good but lacked flavor.
I get that we are paying a premium to eat on Bloor Street but this place is definitely over-​rated with stingy portions. The manager that came to apologize for the Summerlicious confusion was also unprofessional and you can tell from his attitude that he wasn’t sincere. Honestly, if this place is too snooty for Summerlicious, why offer it and treat customers with such a snobby attitude?

Came in for lunch for winterlicoius 2015.
Very courteous staff and wonderful décor. The ceiling certainly adds a nice touch to the atmosphere and the bistro style tables were an excellent layout. The noise level was ridiculously loud. It was a little annoying at first, but after a while it settled down as we reached the tail end of the lunch hour.
I had the oysters as the appetizer which were neatly presented but nothing too extravagant. The duck confit however was very good, although just a tad on the dry side.
Main course was very disappointing. We were unable to order the salmon since they ran out and had to settle for the pan seared chicken. While cooked and presented well, the taste got boring after a couple of bites. The potatoes made for a good side, but I was fed up with the chicken very quickly.
Dessert did make up for the rest of the meal which was the warm chocolate cake. A great pair with the ice cream.
I would consider returning during non-​winterlicious times, and explore some of the other adventures in their cuisine.