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Macaroni Bar
Category: Nightlife Dance Clubs Dance Clubs [Edit]
4448 St LaurentMontréal, QC H2W 1Z5
(514) 287-0287
- Price Range:
-
$$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- Yes
- Music:
- DJ
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
- Smoking:
- Outdoor Area/ Patio Only
- Good For Dancing:
- Yes
9 reviews for Macaroni Bar
9 reviews in English
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Review from Dean A.
Montréal, QC
12/31/2011
First of all, Macaroni is trying to cultivate an image - a supper club where image comes first (more on that later), and food is an afterthought.
That being said, their objectives fail on both accounts - the food is actually much better than you would think and the image they're trying to create falls totally flat. Classic.
In any case, I'll start with the ambience. It's fairly open and the decor is based on black/white contrasting color schemes. When the lights dim, it looks pretty good, albeit a bit plasticky, which may or may not be the point. To the side of the place, there's a large terrace, which is really nice in the summer. The service itself is hit or miss. Depends totally on who's waitressing that night, how good of a mood everyone's in, and how busy it is. Wild swings in service quality is the hallmark of a waitstaff that's hired for looks over experience, and it shows at Macaroni.
The food is standard 2009-2011 Montreal copycat bistro fare. I can't even remember what's on the menu, but I bet I'm probably dead-on if I randomly guess braised-lamb ravioli, lobster taco or maybe lobster rolls, probably a macaroni-cheese dish with a twist (like a thin layer of foie gras on it), etc...etc... The food is fairly well done (suprisingly) and the presentation is excellent. I've never had a poorly done dish there - in fact, I would say they're as good as any quality Plateau resto that does nothing but pride themselves on their chef and the food.
Unfortunately, as others have mentioned, the scene they're desperately trying to create ranges from casual and acceptable to outright idiotic. I've seen lineups nearly going around to block to get in on weekends, and the bouncer is tragically bad at picking quality patrons. The girls range from barely legal scene-whores that have to pool everyone's allowance to buy a bottle, to ageing cougars stuffing their flabby bodies in Betsy Johnson dresses, desperately clinging to whatever semblance of youth they have left. As for the guys, forget it - fauxhawks galore, externally stitched dress shirts with double-button cuffs, jeans with patterns on them, TW Steel watches - a total mess.
You know what? This review seems harsh, but I actually kind of like the place.
Your best bet, if you're looking to actually eat, is to go on a weeknight (like Monday or Tuesday) and enjoy the excellent food. Skip the weekend. -
Review from Erik M.
12/2/2011
Horrible pasta, horrible service, and a bouncer for food!?!
Its not the type of supper club! I am insulted that they could call this macaroni.
It taste like plastic, and its not a fun place to party. Going for your b-day? Well forget it! Its not worth the time to call to make a reservation, because they will make you wait outside even with a reservation.
No Management skills, no customer service skills. -
Review from Eleni D.
Toronto, ON
6/7/2011
Tagliatone con funghi was superb, as was the S'mores dessert. Service attentive and friendly during dinner on the patio. Be forewarned: this place is Bachelorette Party Central.
The restaurant gets very crowded after dinner (basically, it turns into a club), at which point servers attending to bottle service patrons become aggressive and pushy as they maneuver through the thick crowd. We get it - you have to do your job, but we didn't come to get shoved around either. I guess that's why everyone ends up dancing on the tables, to avoid the mosh-pit.
The outdoor patio had a more casual-yet-trendy vibe, but noise by-laws mean the music can't be played on the patio after a certain hour. -
Review from Christie M.
Montréal, QC
5/5/2011
I don't understand why people don't like this place other than attitude - what do you expect for a place trying to be a swanky hip place? First time I ate there, a girlfriend and I walked in without a reservation. After an eye-roll from the hostesses (all wearing an interesting 6" heel and mini skirt not really attired to service any food), they found us a small table giving us a 3 hour time window to finish. I guess you better be prepared to expect people taking this restaurant and making it a "to be seen" night scene.
The hostesses try to act a little snotty about reservations, but once you get over the initial scene, things only got better.
The waiter made up for the non-polite hostess. Our waiter smiled the entire time and made sure to service our every need in a timely fashion. He was so excited about the dishes, had tried a majority of them, and gave great advice. I LOVED loved the gnocchi poutine - something unusual for a Montrealer having tried every fry variety of the dish. The gnocchi oozed as if a crunchy ball of melty cheese instead of a dumpling. And the sauce is not your average gravy. Besides the appetizer, the other dishes were good too - nothing out of this world, but great tasting and satisfying. And unlike a lot of places, the serving size was ample for most dinner plates and had great presentations. I don't know if maybe there's variability in the service, but both times I ate there, I had a great time. I would for sure go back there and hopefully you enjoy it just as much! -
Review from Dorise G.
7/7/2009
So a group of 6 of us (3 men, 3 women) came to this club dressed to the nines at 2am ready to throw down.
perhaps this would be my american self talking, but in my experience, when you wait in line to go to a bar, they let you into the bar in the order of your arrival.
the way the bouncer was monitoring who did and did not get in was absolutely absurd. of course the single ladies got to go in relatively quickly, a lot of handshaking and name dropping, but there would be droves of people exiting so you knew it had nothing to do with capacity, just the bouncer being douchey. especially since some of the people exiting were not dressed even close to nicely. it's not like we were dressed like shlubs, we were just clearly out of towners with an even ratio of men to women.
the club looked like it would probably have been fun, but frankly, who wants to deal with any of that shaz. i'd take a pass on this place and hit up a venue that wasn't so full of plastic people.Listed in: Montreal: America's french…
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Review from Brandon B.
Montréal, QC
7/21/2009
Don't you just hate it when people tell you how good a restaurant is, and how you really have to go check it out, and then when you finally decide to give it a try, you discover it's absolute crap? Ya, that was my experience with Macaroni Bar.
It was a Friday night, and 10 friends and I headed out to this restaurant to celebrate my birthday. The place is very modern and well decorated, with a very nice bar; this is definitely your typical St-Laurent Supper Club. The food however, leaves much to be desired.
We all ordered appetizers, and I believe the only decent appetizer were the Tuna Bombs. Nearly all of us ordered a pasta for our main course. With about 5 or 6 different pastas to sample at the table, they were all actually terrible. So bland and tasteless, it was almost like eating cardboard. Not to mention that some people's noodles were overcooked. It was a few forkfulls into the Penne Arrabiata when one of my friends discovered some hard, wood-like foreign element in her pasta. This piece of wood was disovered after biting into it. My very favorite though, was sampling the veal ravioli - I swear I thought I was eating dog food!
With the evening going so horribly wrong, I had been drinking vodka for most of the evening, and when I decided to switch to white wine, I ordered a bottle and it ended up being served to me at room temperature. We complained to the manager about the quality of the food, and the piss-temperature wine, and all he had to say was, "That's what the ice bucket is for. The wine came out of our refrigerated wine cellar." Well, somebody clearly forgot to plug in the damn refrigeration unit! He offered to replace our meals, but we all agreed that the food was terrible, and did not want to sample anything further.
We spoke to some other people who had dined there that night, and they said their food was fine. None of them ordered pasta though, so who knows, maybe some of the food is half-decent, but seriously, if you call your restaurant Macaroni Bar, I would expect you to be able to boil some noodles properly and whip up a half-decent sauce! -
Review from Mich A.
Lourdes-de-Joliette, QC
5/17/2010
I went there with 10 people to celebrate my big 3. Food was good. Nothing sensational but good. Waiters were great. Amazing service for dinner.
Around midnight, another 15 people came to join us. Bouncer made them wait way too long, about 45 minutes and the place was half empty... so they just left. Instead, he would let other people go in right in front of their eyes. Go figure: the place offers valet services and is filled with skanky girls. We heard it was a classy place but i would say it looked more as a cracked house with all those yukky girls... So they lost a lot of sales that night because we were planning to really enjoy ourselves. Very disappointed, and they litteraly ruined my birthday. Who would have thought that i was gonna cry of anger on my birthday day? REALLY HOPING THEY ARE GOING TO FIRE THE BOUNCER/DOORMAN!!! DONT GO PEOPLE! Not worth it. -
Review from Pritha C.
8/12/2011
I went here on Saturday 8/6/11 for dinner and some dancing. I think we were a bit too early for the dancing but we had a nice dinner at the outside bar. We had a bottle of wine, the pancetta pizza and gnocchi poutine. The only bad part about this place was that they said there were no tables inside- but there def were empty seats. I assume this has to do with wait staff - and they did seat us outside which was very nice- but it would have been nice to stay inside in the AC as well. I want more poutine!
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Review from Philip Q.
Oakville, ON
12/3/2009
We went for drinks and dinner on a Thursday evening. The staff were very helpful and the food was excellent. Innovative appetizers and very large portions for the entrees.
