Zawedeh Lebanese Fine Dining

Was craving middle eastern food and went in despite the poor ratings. Should have listened, my sish kababs were cold and the appetizer was served at the same time as the main course. Wait staff are nice enough

went in for dinner tonight on the early side. Wanted to grab some take out and have a drink. Wine wasn’t great, but the conversation with the bar tender was. Still, they didn’t have falafel (really??). Got fatoush, kebbeh, and hummus. Hummus was pretty good, but associate pitas were yesterday’s — stale and fairly nasty. Fatoush heavily overly dressed with vinaigrette, to the point where it really wasn’t edible. Kebbeh was heavily spiced (almost too much)… Wouldn’t recommend this, at least until later in the evening when the food is actually turning over. No falafel? Really???

Zawedeh is an utter disgrace to Lebanese cuisine and does it absolutely no justice and is indeed a disservice. Zawedeh purports to be a fine dining establishment … this, my dear friends, they are not. If this is fine dining then I must be the bloody Queen of England with a clitoral hood piercing! Far from it and sadly mistaken. The only fine dining factor that strikes me about this place is their exorbitant pricing. You will not, I repeat, you will not get any value for dollar at this place.
Their Fattoush salad was amateurish rubbish at best. How on God’s green earth does one fuck up a salad?
The houmous was corned with salt. I have never encountered a hummus that I didn’t like until tonight. I swear to whatever higher power there is that may or may not exist … I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they simply went down to the Métro Market and picked up a case of houmous and threw a shit tonne of iodised salt and maybe some proprietary rat urine in there to call it their own. Seriously, how do you fuck up houmous?
The next nasty item I ate were these weird egg roll looking things with some kind of overly salty cheese inside. They tasted mediocre at best… and that’s me being generous and not saying that it was a complete waste of an opportunity to vomit all over their dinnerware. You know that vomit taste in your mouth that lingers after you’ve had a good vom? Yeah, that’s the taste of a five star meal compared to this filthy cheese brine.
What really pissed me off even more was one man’s insistence that I try these crunchy pita chips that they were obviously trying to rid themselves of. Those are salty too. They put that shit on everything. I asked for some fresh pita and was met with a begrudging nod. I’ve never been to a real restaurant that got their pita bread packaged from the supermarket because that’s exactly what this place was like. Stale overcooked pita with their proprietary trademark excess salt on top.
Lastly and definitely my least favourite was the strawberry cheesecake. It was frozen solid and was probably about a week and a half old served with a mouldy strawberry on the side.
Also, the waitstaff are treated so horribly and with such disdain by the higher ups at this place.
So the moral of the story is if you don’t want to be served shitty Lebanese food for obviously too much money then stay the fuck away from Zawedeh.
Instead of this place go elsewhere. Please go elsewhere. The best Lebanese fine dining to be found in the city is Restaurant Daou on Faillon or Marcel-​Laurin. They have been around for forty years and they know what they’re doing. Also try La Sirèné de La Mer near Jean-​Talon and Restaurant Ezo on Acadie.
Happy eating. Cheers!

My Montréal office was located right across the street from this restaurant, so naturally whenever I had business in Montréal, this was our obvious choice to catch a bite during lunch time.
Being married to a beautiful Lebanese woman and having grown up among some of the best Lebanese hosts in the world, I am a bit acquainted with their cuisine and enjoy every bit of it. Zawedeh is certainly a place to satisfy a good craving.
I have always enjoyed their Tabbouleh quite a bit and the Shish Kebab and Kafta are usually up to par.
Wash everything down with a good coffee and a finger licking good desert and you are good to go.

A friend of mine works at McGill and goes here a lot for lunch. As it’s right across from my hotel we met here for dinner. The décor is quite formal but it’s still pretty relaxed and not over priced. We started with an order of Baba Ghanouj which was good although slightly less flavourful than I’ve had in the past. My friend was raving about their Taboulé though. We followed this with the Sélection de Grillades Pour 2 which is a selection of Kafta, Shish Taouk, Shish Kabab, Kibbé Pistaches with rice and grilled vegetables. The meat was quite tasty and tender and the vegetables were nicely cooked. We ordered draught beer — it’s a limited selection of two types of Sleeman’s and their bottled beer list is a bit pedestrian. The waiter was very pleasant but when he took away my friend’s empty glass he missed the opportunity to upsell her on a second. Luckily for her she was thirsty enough that we called out to him as he walked away. The washroom is part of the hotel and downstairs — you need to get a key.