Luma

Engaged in their WinterLicious menu based on the hotel concierge recommendation. Luma knows how to deliver the service, atmosphere and cuisine! My meal consisted of sweetbreads (trying them for the first time), braised short rib and a cinnamon pavlova for dessert. Each course was perfectly paced, well executed.
Sweetbreads were delicately fried. They were described as an ‘exceptional chicken nugget’ which got my attention but you wanna know something? They tasted as described! The short rib was fork tender and the pavlova was generous and sweet as only meringue can be.
An exceptional evening with hat tip to Danielle for the excellent service!

Me and a few friends went to try out the menu during the Icelandic event. For a set price we were given a 4 course menu. If I had to describe in one word the taste of all the dishes it would have to be ‘Rich’. From the started to the dessert, all had this rich taste to it. It would’ve been great if there was something lighter in taste that came along just to balance it out. Don’t get me wrong, it was delicious and was filling.
If I had to rank the meals it would have to be 1) Risotto 2) Seaweed salad 3) dessert 4) lamb. I have had lamb before but the meat tasted so gamey. The risotto with langoustine was the star of my meal followed by the seaweed. Sometimes I felt I wanted more in terms of portion size but the richness of the taste always reminds me that what was served was enough.
On a side note I had an Icelandic mojito as it was very fruity (berry flavored) and what was entertaining was that it came with dry ice and so it had this bubbling effect.
As expected, the staff, the service, and the cleanliness is on par with what is to be expected from a restaurant with a good reputation. I started my experience with Luma with the Icelandic menu (and would recommend people to try it as well) but I will definitely come back to try their regular menu

I wasn’t hungry when I arrived, but I still had a great meal.
I came for a little meet-​and-​greet dinner with my wife’s coworkers and their clients. Since I had already topped myself off an hour earlier (Due to the 3 hour difference from California, I was starving by 5pm.), I came ready to drink.
The ambience was quite lovely. Modern lines and lots of slick, shiny things and mirrors. Since it was a work event, I kicked back and enjoyed their wine list. Taking advantage of the location, I worked over the Canadian pinot noirs off Niagara-​by-​the-​Lake and found them surprisingly robust and comparable to our Santa Lucia Highlands. My companions focused on their favorite treat, the Duckhorn cab sauvignon, which is a solid if routine choice for Bay Area locals.
I got the lightest entrée they had, a grilled octopus. It paired well with the pinot. Between the six of us, we polished off 3 bottles and a round of cocktails. I think the total with included gratuity came to about $ 1000 Canadian or a little over $ 700 US, a pretty good deal for a very cool hangout.

Ambiance/​décor-​5
Service-​3
Food-​4
Strikeouts-​1/​3
The one and only strikeout was the music. We came to Luma for the yearly «evening at Iceland» with the guest chefs cooking Icelandic dishes. This event comes with live music and group tables (randomly sat with a bunch of people). The problem is that we were situated right in from of the speakers and the guitarist, it was impossible to talk to anyone but the person next to us, making conversation difficult. There should not have been a table here, for this type of event. We did not have a choice of seating, it was already pre-​arranged.
The décor was very modern with dim lightning as expected with an upscale location like Luma. My only gripe here is the Lightning as it’s quite difficult to take good foodie picsXD
Can’t say much about service since it was a pre set dinner for everyone. The problem here from a perfect rating is that our table was always served last and the advertised h’orderves were only a messily one helping of each type (2 types for the whole 45 minutes coming early).
Foodie time! It was a total of 4 main courses.
Icelandic Cod
Langoustine Risotto
Icelandic lamb
Icelandic Skyr
The cod wasn’t anything special, but it was delicious and was very refreshing for a starter. It was a very good mixture of the seaweed salad and other cuisines mixed in with cod which is the Icelandic staple.
The langoustine risotto was to die for! Every bite of this dish was so rich with flavour. This was definitely the best dish I’ve had for risotto period. It felt like eating a buttered lobster to perfection but better!
I’m not even going to say much about the lamb, it wasn’t quite a lamb chop or lamb meat you would expect. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great.
The dessert was okay too. A sorbert and a cream cheese mousse. Definitely a very interesting combination. Left me wanting a bit more, second to the risotto.
I’m not really a wine person, but even I could tell the wine pairings were below par.
Overall, I enjoyed the food at night, mainly because the risotto shined like a dynamite. A special mention to their bread and butter which tasted like eating popcorn without the pop! I would probably go again next year with more people if possible. *drools*.

I can here twice for the Taste of Iceland (Nov. 13^th and 14^th, 13^th for my best friend’s birthday dinner, 14^th for my dear friend’s going-​away dinner). I’ll recount the events separately.
Nov. 13^th:
The wine pairings were great.
The first course: Icelandic cod with dill mayo, seaweed salad, and salmon roe. The Flatrock Twisted Riesling/​Gewürztraminer/​Chardonnay was lively and highlighted the dill.
The second course: langoustine risotto with shellfish sauce and fennel salad. The shellfish sauce was divine! The risotto was perfectly cooked — I like mine with a bit of texture to it. The wine pairing for this was genius, it was the Cannonball Chardonnay, the hint of vanilla in it really emphasized the fennel.
For the third course, which was the Icelandic lamb with small potatoes, creamed mushrooms, with port and garlic confit, the wine was the scene-​stealer (Penfolds ‘Bin 2′ Shiraz/​Mourvèdre), it was so flamboyant that the lamb wasn’t as showcased. Also, I found my lamb was a tad well-​done for me. However, I am picky about how my meat is done.
Finally dessert: the Icelandic skyr with sorbet, caramelized white chocolate, cream cheese mousse, raspberries. I made the mistake of eating all the white chocolate instead of sampling it — the sweetness was too much for me, so I didn’t take a wine pairing for this course.
Nov 14^th:
My friend absolutely loved it. He said it was the perfect night before he flew tomorrow. There were two main differences this night in comparison to last night.
The third course: the lamb was perfectly medium, it was so soft and buttery. They ran out of the ‘Bin 2′ so they used the ‘Bin 5′ and I loved this pairing! It was subtle and worked in harmony with the lamb.
Dessert: I took bits of the caramelized white chocolate and sorbet instead of huge scoops of it with my skyr and mousse, which made all the difference. The sweetness of the chocolate and sorbet contrasted with the mild and subtle taste of the skyr and mousse. And the wine, it was so lovely. On its own, it was a nice ice wine (Cave Spring ‘Indian Summer’ Select Late Harvest Riesling) but with the dessert, it took on a spicy taste — it was quite unbelievable!
Also, the servers for both nights were gracious, charming, and courteous.
All in all, I’ll make this place my normal go-​to spot when I’m in the area. And I’ll definitely be a regular for all future Taste of Iceland events!

It’s an easy to find but harder to enter locations as it is situated on the second floor of the TIFF Bell Box. Service was attentive and very friendly.
I ordered the chicken liver parfait, fish cake, and the stone fruit cobbler for dessert. The appetizer and entrees were great in terms of colour, texture, flavours. Dessert was pretty standard, although still a treat to end the meal with!
It definitely is a Summerlicious location to check out, especially with the $ 23 price tag. I will be returning :)

Came here for $ 23 lunch Summerlicious and this is what I ordered:
CHILLED GOLDEN TOMATO SOUP smashed avocado, sweet pepper relish
This was super spicy. I liked the tomatoes, they were sweet and balanced it out. Could not finish this.
VEGETABLE GUMBO warm cornbread
Mine tasted a little smoky, I think it might have been slightly burnt. Gumbo also on the spicy side. The cornbread was really sweet.
STONE FRUIT COBBLER vanilla ice cream
Pretty standard. Too much fruit. Ice cream portion is very tiny.

No restaurant in the Tiff Building/​Tower/​Condo is good. The canteen downstairs was bad, and unfortunately, Luma was equally disappointing. One would hope that an O&B restaurant, coupled with its attachment to a Tiff building, would spur good Canadian cuisine. But, nope. I think the restaurant was really just piggy-​backing on the location and name of «Tiff» without much thought to anything else.
Having said that, I did read other reviews for Luma and most people have really enjoyed the food. So, was it the time of day we went (Saturday night at 10pm?) Or was it just a bad night? Who knows.
My fiancé and I went out with 15 guests who had come from Montréal and so we decided on a central location. The interior is nice: lots of amber lighting, modern, glass, etc… No complaints there. Service was spot on: waters filled, made sure our wine glasses were never kept empty, etc… No complaints there.
But the food, oh the food!
Everyone around the table had an average to less-​then-​mediocre experience. Short ribs were dry. Not fallin-​of-​the-​bone-​melt-​in-​your-​mouth kind. It seemed that this short rib was just a left-​over for the day. My gnocchi wasn’t traditional Italian style, but rather, tasted more like fried dumplings. I don’t like cucumbers with my gnocchi. Another friend had the fish which was dry. The accompanying quinoa was even dryer. Other friends had salads (can’t go wrong with leaves) and the mushroom soup was overly salty.
So. In essence, I (and none of these people) will be coming back again to Luma.
I find with O&B, it’s either a hit or miss and Luma is a definite miss. My fiancé and I thought it was just the end of the night so we felt like we got the left-​over food and tired cook staff. But, is that any excuse? Luma wasn’t cheap so a restaurant should be providing great food any time of day. Either way, what a shame.

We went on Saturday night for dinner and the reception was very extremely friendly and I liked that they had a complimentary coat check. We had made a reservation and asked for a window table but when we got there the window tables were full. But some folks who arrived after us got seated at a window table so… we didn’t let it bother us.
The service was very friendly and courteous without being overdone.
The food was delicious; the gnocchi was melt-​in-​your-​mouth soft and the seared scallops would have made Chef Ramsey proud. The kamut rice was rather chewy so I wouldn’t get that again but the cauliflower and other flavours in the scallop dish were fantastic. The bread was served with hummus, which was very fresh. The endive salad was an extremely healthy mix of dried fruit and nuts and was very tasty. They were out of a few things, including mint, so I don’t know what happened but what we did have was very good. I love that their ginger lemonade is organic, worth the $ 7.
It turns out we both read the dessert menu wrong; it looked like the description for 3 of the 4 desserts was just flavoured ice cream so we didn’t end up getting any, but after seeing the photos here I realise that they were a dessert plus ice cream! Oh well, we were stuffed anyway.
It has a nice classy atmosphere, so I would probably go back for a special occasion.

One of the best winterlicious places (and restaurants) in general. It’s classy enough to take a date to, but you can go wearing jeans and still feel super pampered.
The atmosphere is very open concept and the windows face down on king street perfect for people watching. The décor is beautiful and the lights aren’t too dim where you can actually see who you’re having dinner with.
I went for lunch with my boyfriend and it was one of the best.
Apps: Shrimp cocktail was on point; it was a good serving and tasted amazing.
Mains: Lamb Meatballs: absolutely loved it. It was filling and the sauce was so good I wanted to lick it all off the plate.
Dessert: Sorbet: not too sweet, and of course presented beautifully.
Goat Cheese Pastry: this thing came from heaven. It was like sweet and savoury all in your mouth in the perfect combination and you couldn’t get enough of it.
To top it off, our server was wonderful, and drinks wonderful as well (the two things that REALLY matter right?) I would definitely come again on a non-​winterlicious lunch/​dinner.

About a 4. I thought the service was 5/​5, food prob. 3.5÷5.
As noted by some, the restaurant was on the 2^nd floor of TIFF. Parking on weekends wasn’t bad at all… for $ 5 (entrance to the west of the TIFF building). The restaurant wasn’t too busy and when we got there, we got to experience their A+ service, from hanging our coats, greeting & seating us right away. They made sure everything was always «to our liking».
We had…
WILD SOCKEYE SALMON — butternut squash, brussels sprouts, beets and sea buckthorn
STEAK FRITES 8oz flat iron, five onion gravy, northern woods mushrooms and truffle parmesan fries
The Salmon was cooked to perfection. I liked how the outside was nice and crunchy but inside was just perfect and moist. Didn’t look like they seasoned it very much. The veggies blended very well with it.
Steak Frites was nice! Hubby found the medium rare a little too rare (imho it was perfect). The waitress was very nice and offered (a few times) to have to bring it back to the kitchen & have it cooked a little longer. When they brought it back out again, we ended up getting a whole new dish (with more fries). All nice and hot again: D The fries were awesome… but imho a little too much salt. But it was crazy good… likely my fav fries after McD’s.
Ambience and décor was very nice, chic and modern. Prices are high for me… but typical for downtown Toronto.