Big Fish & Open Range - Renfrew

Always a great meal. Seafoods are well prepared and sauces and aides are amazing. Gluten-free foods are not marked however most everything can be modified to meet celiac needs. The restaurant is extremely celiac aware and knowledgeable. I'm always confident. There is not a dedicated fryer.

UPDATED 2024-09-05: Updated at our personal discretion. The owner's response (see below) was cordial and professional. We appreciate the acknowledgement and the commitment to review these concerns. We will give them another try in the future. ORIGINAL 2024-09-04: Right away, upon arrival, the hostess who sat us was quite rude when we asked about sitting at a different table due to mobility concerns with a member of our party. From there it didn't get any better. My partner is Celiac and requires gluten free. We called before attending and they said they could easily accommodate us. We informed our server of my partner's gluten allergy right away. The server was very unsure of what was or could be made gluten free and didn't make any effort to check with the kitchen. We specifically asked if a certain appetizer we wanted to share was gluten free to which she said 'yes' and even confirmed that would at most be slight cross contamination which we were okay with. When the dish arrived it was clearly breaded. When we asked the manager if the breading was gluten free, he seemed annoyed and said that it wasn't. When we told him that the server informed us that it was, he confirmed that it wasn't gluten free and asked if we still wanted it. We declined since it was intended to share. The server came over and told us she thought that my partner wasn't having the appetizer, despite the fact it was my partner who ordered it. This clearly was just an attempt to cover up the mistake rather than offer an apology. Even after that, the server kept forgetting which one of us had the allergy and tried to give my gluten dish to my partner with the allergy. She was also inattentive and often asked the same questions over and over as if she either forgot or wasn't paying attention to the answers. The mains were slow to come out and many other tables got their food before we did despite ordering afterwards. If that wasn't enough they originally tried to charge us for the appetizer even though we sent it back as it would have made my partner sick. If this had been over a preference I don't think we would have been as upset but the lackadaisical handling of an allergy by a top rated local spot known for being accomodating was disappointing. Outside of the allergy concerns, my dish was only 'satisfactory' as it was quite bland with some of the seafood tasting old. Hopefully they just had a bad night since they came highly recommended but until they train up their staff on allergies, we won't be back.