Byzantium

The chicken Cesar are to die for and the lychee martinis as well. I went to this restaurant lots of times and every time I had a very good time. I went for my birthday — where I also got a tiara, and for casual dining with friends.
The space is decorated very well and the staff is friendly, the atmosphere is energetic and fun but also relaxing of you just want to have a bite with your partner. The cool thing about this restaurant is that it turns into a club after 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays, with deejay and cool house music and it gets always packed — sometimes there is a line -.
It also nice that the front of the place as a huge glass wall so you can seat and just watch people walking by on church street on the weekend can be very entertaining.
I do recommend this place, you won’t be disappointed.

I have been here dancing before (always a fantastic time!), but came here for the first time to eat a couple of weeks ago with a large group.
I started with the Caesar salad. The presentation was unique. The salad was tasty with the roasted garlic, but I have had better Caesar’s before. For dinner I had the lamb burger. It was pretty delicious. The fries were great too (though I would have liked to have had the option to have the garlic or dill fries — the burger only comes with regular fries).
I was impressed with the menu choices ranging from lamb burgers, to kangaroo to pizza. The pizza looked a bit small for the price, however.
The service was great. Our server was attentive and friendly.
Side note: 9pm on a Friday night is perfect for a big group dinner if you want it to bleed into the dance portion of the night!

I came here with a couple of my girlfriends for Summerlicious. Wow, what an experience. Their menu was excellent and had a lot of different options. That was the reason we chose this place to begin with; $ 25 and you get to choose from 5 – 6 items for appetizer and entrée.
I personally had the quinoa salad and fish tacos. That salad was delicious but I kind of wanted to try the Salad of Legends which my friend ordered. It looked like a miniature tower of lettuce wrapped in some sort of biscuit like material. Fascinating. There were also items like mussels and poutine which I have no doubt would also be excellent. The fish tacos were really big and quite good. Most of my friends ordered the famous lamb burger. If you are looking to stuff yourself, that is the dish to get. They do NOT back away from large portions and you will leave feeling that you definitely ate your money’s worth. My friends weren’t even able to finish theirs.
Dessert was one of my absolute favourite things. I got the strawberry mousse and it was so light and airy. Perfect way to finish off a meal where I was already so full from everything else. My friends had the chocolate cake. While delicious and rich, it was a little too heavy and too much after such a filling entrée.
Of course, who can leave Byzantium without trying one of their famous martinis. They have one of the most elaborate alcohol menus I’ve ever seen. I ordered the «One Night Stand», a mixture of raspberry vodka and crème de cacao. It really did smell like raspberries and chocolate but it was strong enough to give you a real kick. My friend ordered something a bit smoother, the «Black Orchid». It had lemon juice or something in it and was very delicious.
Final words: this is really a great place to go. The food is absolutely amazing. Décor was very modern and romantic. It was a real treat for both the palate and the eyes (the waiters are quite dashing and so helpful). I will definitely want to come back.

Guys!!! Ceazer salad, carppachio and steak with madagaska pepercorn souce (mb I wrote a wrong name of souce) was delicious!!!
Very nice atmosphere. Quiet and cozy. The service was not intrusive. The waiter brought the wrong drinks, but it was not too bad. We shared an appetizer and each ate steak. We drank two martinis and the bill was $ 150)
It was good) Thanks.

After a lot of debate on which restaurant to try for summerlicious, we finally narrowed our option down to Byzantium. Especially cos they were atleast a little favourable to vegetarians.
For starters, we ordered the zucchini fritters, grilled vegetable stack and the calamari. The fritters were the indisputable winner in a very close match. The stack was actually grilled and not charcoaled and the Sauce helped escalate the flavour. The calamari was great too.
For the main course, i had the tikka salmon fillet, cooked medium well. The salmon could have used some more seasoning for me, but the crispy onions and sauce brought it together. My friends ordered the stuffed peppers and the Panko chicken schnitzel, both of which were delicious. The salmon was probably the best.
For dessert, only 3 words — KEY LIME PIE.
All in all, a great summerlicious and dining experience. No complaints at all. You will not be disappointed.
Shout out to our wonderful server, Kyle.

Came here again for Summerlicious and sadly it wasn’t as appealing as the first time.
It was pretty empty when we arrived. After being seated, we were given water… Which had fruit flies in them. I had one in my water and my boyfriend had one in his — we were pretty sure they were from the pitcher and didn’t fly into our water while we waited. The server also kept coming back with water and spilled it a couple times on my boyfriends side of the table, also hitting his plate. We noticed that he was a lot less attentive and, erm, nice to us compared to another table.
I got the mussels, ribs and key lime pie.
Mussels were good and came with a tomato sauce. The ribs were really disappointing — they were fall off the bone but really fatty. The sweet potato spears were not fully cooked as they had a bit of a crunch — not like a crispy crunch, but a raw sweet potato crunch — and the summer slaw was pretty much purple cabbage with vinegar. The homemade key lime pie was good and tart.
The boyfriend got the poutine, chicken schnitzel and strawberry mousse. The poutine was okay, the fries weren’t crispy though. The chicken schnitzel was the star of the night — covered in a mushroom sauté which tasted more like gravy on a bed of mashed potatos, asparagus and broccoli. The chicken, although panko crusted, wasn’t crispy either. Maybe it’s just me, but I expect my deep fried foods to be crispy. The strawberry mousse tasted like whipped cream with a bit of strawberry, the flavour wasn’t really prominent.
Don’t think I’ll be coming back anytime soon.

Love the atmosphere of this place! My table of 4 was seated at their patio located at the back of the restaurant. It was extremely cozy, with pillows on the seats and surrounded by Christmas lights hanging along the trees. The patio is quite small, around 5 tables if I remember correctly.
I had their Caesar salad and fish tacos. The Caesar salad caught me by surprise initially. I’ve never seen it plated as such! It looked like a sculpture. A little hard to eat initially, but tasted amazing. The fish tacos came with 2 pieces. The Caesar salad had filled me already so I saved to second taco for takeout. Their food was amazing.
Our server also gave our table a free martini. Shoutout to him — this dining experience couldn’t have been better.

Amazing atmosphere the live jazz is great .Good food nice staff always there to serve you. Great for any nice evening.

Became a bit of a regular for the Sunday prime rib. Not the best in the city but acceptable for $ 17.95. Service sucks, only one waiter really seems to know his position well. If you must go here, look for the ginger, he is amazing, the rest will rush you out even though the place is always empty. In what seems to be an effort to reinvent themselves they now have a noisy 3 piece band on Sundays. Totally not suited to the place, the acoustics suck making the music sound more like noise. As a result we have decided to try to find new Prime Rib spot. If you know any, let us know!
If Byzantium would like to increase business they should start with improving service and quality… and get rid of the amateur bands. This place is not suitable for live music.

In terms of service, it was pretty good. The server we had was actually the manager and he was quite friendly. However, sometimes that’s not enough. The food at Byzantium was lacking. Disappointing even.
Prior to dinner, they gave us a bread basket with flat bread and other things. The flat bread and hummus may have been the highlight of the dinner. That says a lot.
We all had the poutine for our starters and it was not bad. It tasted pretty good despite looking kinda blah. It could use more cheese though!
For the main, the group (except for the bf and myself) ordered the lamb but according to my friend the main dish «got progressively worse. It was not worth the effort». According to another friend, it was «aiite».
But I have to say, despite my friends’ comments, I think my pasta of the day (bowtie pasta with chicken) was worse. The chicken surprisingly didn’t taste dry and was not too bad but the sauce and the entire dish was just bland.
THe bf was a rebel and ordered the macaroni and cheese from the regular menu. It was the best dish of the night, I think, despite looking like death. And it smelled kinda weird too but… it tasted better than it looks.
For dessert, I got the chocolate cake. The presentation was worse than grocery store-​bought cake. It tasted on par with store-​bought cake. And that stick of chocolate it came with? What even is it? Does not taste like what I thought it would be. It looks like a wafer with chocolate hazelnut inside? Nope. Nope.
I tried the keylime pie and it tasted like lemonade to me. I don’t eat keylime pie so I cannot judge. To quote my friend, «It ended on a sour note».
Would I come back again for food? Most likely not.
I believe there’s a DJ after a certain time. I still wouldn’t come back for that. Their women’s bathroom smells horrid! I gagged several times.

Food was very good and very fast to the table. I had a complaint with their sea bass in the puff pastry. I couldn’t cut, never mind chew the crust. But the rest was very flavourful. The turkey burger, Beet salad, pizza and other plain beef burger was very good. I sampled a little of each. And those who ordered it were pleased as well. Service was friendly but a little slow in asking for our orders. But once they were placed the good came quite quickly and well presented. Ambiance was dark and not to be confused with any prejudice or bias. but this est. is located in the heart of Wellesley and Church. So it could get a little loud close to the bar. For the most part we were pleased with the service and hospitality.

Byzantium has been one of my favourite spots for years now, mostly because of their awesome staff, great cocktails and extensive beer menu. I also love how it’s a restaurant/​bar by day, and night club by night with live music and a DJ.
The cocktails and martinis here are absolutely amazing (although you definitely pay for it) and the beers are always great too. The few times I have eaten here, I have thoroughly enjoyed the food. The steak frites and chicken caesar salad are particularly tasty.
Be sure to ask for Kent at the bar, he makes an excellent mojito and is super friendly and thoroughly professional. There is a small back patio out the back, but to be honest I have never been out there so can’t pass judgement on it.
If you are in the area and want a great cocktail, martini or a cold beer, Byzantium is THE place to be. The only drawback during the summer months is the lack of a patio, but the front of the restaurant does open to give you the «open air» feeling.

Since we were close by and the hotel staff suggested a visit with high praise, we decided to grab dinner here on our last night (Sunday). ¹⁄₃ of the table full but we were prompted with «Do you have reservations?» questions and frowns. Told only the front section would be our choice, which was fine as tourists in today, it’s a people watching view of those on Church St.
First — the good. Decent food, nicely portioned. Not OMG food, not great food — just OK/​decent, average food — we’ve had worse, but we expected better.
But the service did us in. Our waiter was entertaining specific tables, and judging by the talk, they were his friends. We were seated, and after a longer then reasonable time took a drink order. Once again, a longer period of time before drinks arrived — we had to wait for the show at the table beside us between him and that table of close guests. As the drinks arrived, we asked to order — which appeared to shock him, as he replied «Are you BOTH ready to order? Do you each KNOW what you want? Server came with food, but we never saw the waiter at our table again until we had to wave him down for the check.

Came here for summerlicious and it was soo good!
I had poutine, lamb burger and key lime pie and it was delicious. The poutine had the best cheese curds and the fries were made with some oil that made it really crispy and flavourful. The lamb burger was pretty unique and it came dressed with goat cheese and onion rings. It was amazing; beats any burger at the Works. I was so full by dessert and the key lime pie was pretty good too. But the highlight was definitely the poutine and lamb burger.
The service was really good, and the servers always smiled and were pretty attentive even with how busy it was.
Great place to go for summerlicious!

Let’s be honest, it’s pretty easy and common for restaurants to f*ck up Winterlicious, but Byzantium nailed it for me. For a $ 25 dinner, we had lots of choices for each of the three courses.
I had the creamy mussels, supreme of capon (aka chicken) with apple bread stuffing, and chocolate cake. All DELICIOUS. This was my first time trying mussels after like a 10-​year hiatus, and they were SO GOOD… The soupy marinade they came with was exquisite. The chicken was flavourful and moist, as was the chocolate cake.
My friend who is deathly allergic to nuts was also able to join us for dessert, which is rare… She was stoked. Service was lovely and attentive. The bartenders were friendly and hot (although, judging by the neighbourhood, they probably didn’t even glance my way). The martinis were exciting.
Great experience… Thanks Byzantium :)

Came here for Winterlicious 2014.
Aside from service, which was actually great, the food and drinks were a long meeehhhhhh for me. The plates weren’t overall memorable, but they weren’t horrible either. And my martini tasted watered down. However, Byzantium had great atmosphere, it was busy, had sexy mood lighting and there was an uplifting energy to the place.
We decided to order the $ 3.00 bread basket, and you know what, it was a damn good bread basket. Tasty flat bread, and insanely fresh herbed bread. The hummus it came with was rank though, that shiz was definitely fermented. Shaking my head at you hummus. My boyfriend still ate it all though because he has a stomach of steel…
My appetizer was the PEI mussel pot with smoked bacon. The bacon seemed like an afterthought? Just sprinkled in amongst the shells? The mussels didn’t have any smokey flavour which is what I was expecting… Womp Womp. My pot was also ¹⁄₃ empty mussel shells, with one completely closed shell. Like, come on dudes, that shit shouldn’t be in there! And my last mussel was sandy as heck! Nu uhhhh! Get dat sand out.
If there’s anything Byzantium can do right, it’s their proteins. Want a nice over priced plate of fluff sides but with GREAT PROTEIN? THEN COME HERE. I got the Capon Supreme (A capon is a rooster that’s been castrated to make their meat taste better? Aye Carumba.) But that piece of Capon was cluckin’ good. It came to our table piping hot. Their take on a traditional stuffing had a great rosemary flavour and although slightly mushy, it worked. My capon came with some forgettable hash and steamed veggies. The red sauce was so subtle that it barely made any impact on the flavour profiles when I had it with anything.
My boyfriend went with the trio of mousse, which was great and the highlight of the meal. And for a change up, I went for the key lime pie. I’m actually not a huge fan of key lime pie, but for what it was, it was pretty nice — good flakey crust and distinct creamy lime punch.
At the end of the day, it was a nice date and I got to hold my lovers hand under the light of the ~battery powered candle~
And the food didn’t make me ralph.
You did okay Byzantium, you did okay.

While on my Canadian adventure, my good friend David suggested that we come to Byzantium for dinner. So here I was with David and his partner not really knowing how to cope this crazy culture shock of Canada. I mean no one was checking my I.D. Wait, drinking age is 19 here, not 21. I got it.
I ordered «The best meatballs in town.» Which kind of cracked me up because they really were pretty dang good. I am assuming that they were the best meatballs in town. After dinner, we took a walk through the gay street, or church street. We came back to Byzantium in about 2 hours and in my shock, discovered that it was a dance club! A really fun dance club at that. The music selection here WAS AMAZING. I am talking about remixes of Ke$ha, Selena, Lady Gaga, and just about any artist a gay man could ask for. The highlight of my night was soon to come. I ran into Ryan Gosling! As a American, I had the time of my life here. Canadian men are hot and would not stop buying me drinks (hmmmmm) PLUS I got to grind on Ryan Gosling for one hot minute.
If you come to Byzantium, come here for the food or come here to dance after hours. Either way, you win.

Summerlicious review!
Short Version: Great drinks on the pricey side. Summerlicious menu has a lot of options; everything is good, but nothing really stands out. Waiters are all studs. Solid choice, but there are definitely better restaurants to spend your money on for Summerlicious.
Long Version: They seem to have the open patio on the front reserved for summerlicious, and the regular patrons in the back. Service was slow, but that’s definitely understandable with the large crowds.
We picked Byzantium because of the extensive martini menu, and they had so many options to chose from in their fixed price menu. The patio area was nice, but there were a lot of flies flying in and out, and it was really annoying to have to constantly be shooing them away.
First of all — charging for bread? Really? My Canadian friend said that it’s more common in Canada than in the US, but whenever restaurants do that it just strikes me as incredibly cheap. Our first round of bread came over topped with a long, curly hair. We flagged our waiter down and he promptly brought us another batch. Bread came with this delicious hummus — it really had a kick to it; the bread itself was stone cold though.
I got the poutine, which was pretty good. The best part were the cheese curds — massive, soft and chewy, I definitely felt like I was going to get lactose intolerant eating them. The gravy was very unimpressive — very reminiscent of the gravy from Smoke’s Poutinerie, and the fries were thin cut and equally un-​outstanding. The PEI mussels came in a creamy white sauce that was delicious when we dipped the bread into it. Mussels themselves were a little small. The beet salad was … beety. Couldn’t get into it but the friend who ordered it really enjoyed it.
I ordered the BBQ ribs; we also had the chicken and waffles, and the vegetarian moussaka at our table. The ribs came with a pretty good BBQ sauce, but the meat was very dry. Came with some sweet potato wedges that were delicious! The moussaka looked delicious — large pile of steamed veggies and a cube of potato. The chicken and waffles were a little weak — the fried chicken had an overly thick crust; it came with a sweet gravy (instead of gravy and syrup separately) that tasted a little off.
Dessert was good — we ordered one of each of the three options. The chocolate cake was definitely the best of the three.
Great selection of wine. I got a glass of Zinfandel from California that was surprisingly good. As always, martinis are a must. Prices aren’t listed but range from 9 – 12 $, a bit on the pricey side. They’re pretty huge and so yummy!

I first ate there 15 years ago and it’s the same owners and same fabulous food. Relatively speaking the prices have not gone up that much. I have eaten here over the years and the food is done to perfection and delicious. The servers are lovely. The martinis are to die for! This is the place that got me hooked on roasted garlic mashed potatoes!

Yet another great $ 25 Summerlicious deals. I’m finding some of the $ 25 ‘licious venues beat the pants off the $ 45 high end white linen joints everyone bum rushes.
I went with the super lovely Tara G, per her suggestion. Unilocal lists it as a gay bar but it’s more of a martini bar in the gay district. I was dressed to impressed Miss Tara but kind of appreciated the gay maitre d’ complimenting me on my outfit. I’ll take it where I can get it.
Hit of the night, after the martinis, was the lamb burger. It was amazingly juicy. For $ 25 it came with onion rings, fries, and some salad. It was a full meal in itself. I also had the shrimp cocktail to start and the keylime pie to close. Both okay but I would be back for the lamb burger here at any price.
Service was initially a bit slow. Took a while after being seated for our waiter to take our orders but once over that hump, it was a smooth evening.
The front of the house makes the restaurant look deceptively small. The back portion goes on, Tardis fashion, for quite some time.