Saint-Amour (Le), Quebec City

The service at the Saint Amour is nothing short of appalling and I would not recommend it to anyone. I trained as a chef in Europe and worked in a 3 star restaurant in Paris and I have eaten in many of the finest gastronomic restaurants. It is simply not enough to have great food, the service is a huge part of the dining experience. The food was excellent (except for the coffee, which was burnt), carefully prepared from fresh local ingredients and beautifully presented. The food was "fine dining" and the service was "brasserie". The waiters were quite loud and they rushed around so fast, I was certain they would collide with one another. At one point, they all began to move tables around, trying different configurations, this went on for almost 10 minutes (the first time, it happened again a few minutes later) like a noisy game of musical tables - in the middle of the dinner service! It was downright nerve wracking. My dining companion and I ordered the 10 course tasting menu. Despite the frezied high speed movement of the waitstaff, the timing of our courses was uneven at best, we waited the longest for our cheese course and we finally had to ask for our dessert course. We were there for more than 4 hours and that was only because we rushed the last course by asking for our check along with it! It was not a relaxing meal at all. The table next to us waited more than an HOUR for their main courses after 3 of 7 of them recieved the wrong first courses. Their main courses arrived as we were leaving at 11:45! Disappointing!