Faloneys Of Ancaster

This was the BEST meal I have had in a long time!!!! I recently visited Faloney's with some friends after reading a review in the Hamilton Spectator. I had heard good things about the food before but never made the the trip up to Ancaster to check it out. I am glad I did. The steak was unbelievable!! My friends also enjoyed their entrees. I tried a couple of ribs... they were amazing! The patio is beautiful! Probably on of the nicest patios in the Hamilton area. The staff was knowledgeable and very polite. The service was quick however the place wasn't overly busy at the time. All in all I don't have any complaints with this place, I will definitely be back soon! Very affordable and very good quality!

Steer clear of Faloneys!
I don't know where to begin. My family went there for dinner Saturday night for a relative's birthday. First, management hires airhead teenagers instead of a properly trained professional waiting staff. I've had better waitresses at Dennys. They didn't know anything about the food, including mispronouncing names, and took way too long in between check-ups.
Now, for a place in Ancaster putting on such an production of class and quality, they should at least require a dress code. This place does not at all, as there was a little league Soccer team in a adjacent room, running around and making noise... most of them still in full unifrom. This is not "fine dining" in any stretch of the imagination. I was half expecting for costumed Disney characters to start a sing along.
The food took at least an hour to get there, which is odd as a few people ordered the same dish. A lot of the food appeared in stages, so some people were just starting to eat as others were finishing their meals. The food was decent, not nearly as good as I was expecting, and the portions were TINY. Seriously small. Top it off with an astronomical bill, and you have one very UNsatisfied customer. I would have rather gone to a burger joint and been mugged on the way out... at least someone who needs it would be getting my money instead of a facade of a fine establishment. Utterly pathetic!
Also previous review states that a manager is ALSO an executive chef! I never write restaurant reviews, but the people must know!

When I entered the restaurant I was greeted with an up and down and Can I help you? Instead of the cursory "Welcome and how may I be of service" anyway...maybe it sounds corny but i like to feel like my business is worth the effort!

Personal Pet Peeve here but is immediate water and bread a thing of the past I guess the wait staff were too busy playing TV trivia

After I was sat an amuse bouche of over salted stale house made chips is what was presented to me I should have taken heed! First impressions are everything!

I had selected for my appetizer the Corn & Vegetable Fritter. It sounded interesting and was supported by the waiter's "Good Choice" Where's the corn? There was a lot of filler and onion and pepper but no corn or sweet corn flavour. At least the aioli was good.

For my entree I had spied an unusual dish so well described that it peeked my interest, the Perloo. A great concept, excellent flavour profile, too bad the rice was under cooked, and the vegetables were raw (onions, carrots, peppers) and there was supposed to be shrimp in the dish. I think I counted maybe 5 small pieces of cut up shrimp in the whole dish!

No table cloths, a cavernous dining room, poor food styling, and presentation certainly doesn't add to the confusion coming from the kitchen.

To appease me, though I wasn't showing any outward signs of displeasure, every comment I made was constructive, I was informed that my dessert would be FREE!! If I chose to partake

So I decided on the WARM Local Apple Pie with MELTED cheddar. Like a cherry on top of my disastrous dining experience, the dessert was at the very least a disappointment, the pie was ice cold and cheese still as hard as the day it left the dairy.

I asked for a menu to check, maybe i had read it wrong, but sadly what was advertised was not on my plate!

When my pie returned it was glowing, obviously it had been placed in a microwave and heated. It was poorer for the effort, not only was it too hot the nuking effectively made the crust soggy!

The manager, whom I later find out was the Executive Chef, Daniel Neamtu, was very apologetic and asked for my patience while all the bugs were worked out I assured him I only wanted them to succeed

But if I was attempting to re-launch a restaurant menu...I would have all hands on deck! Managers, Assistant Managers, Owners etc...Why is the Chef hovering around the Dining Room and Bar, in a shirt and tie, when his menu is being botched in the kitchen!

I do give everything a fair shake, and I will dine again at Faloney's but work out the bugs before you serve them to the unsuspecting public
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One last thing don't let every one from bar backs to servers to guys hanging out at the bar adjust the lighting levels or the type of music...!

Great Food!!!! I recently had to entertain some clients and decided to take them to Faloney's of Ancaster. I live in Hamilton and have heard good things about this place. I wasn't aware that they had recently made some changes to the place as well as the menu. I have never been to Faloney's before so I am not exactly sure what it was like before but this visit was outstanding. The atmosphere is very nice, very classy, but not to formal or stuck up. The food was delicious!! I love BBQ and authentic smokehouse, which is hard to find in southern Ontario. This place had great smoked ribs and one of the best steaks I have ever had in my life. Normally i would not waste my time with a review but this steak was phenomenal. My friends had ribs, one had the chicken and the others all had steak. We split a super sampler for a starter. The prices where vary reasonable. Similar to what you would find at chains like Montanas or Jackastors. However the food and atmosphere trumps those places without a doubt. As for my clients they loved it. Any member of our party would definitely go back.

My girlfriend suggested Faloney's after a friend of hers recommend it. We had herd they changed their menu and it was less pricey. I have been to this establishment once and thought the steak was excellent however the prices were a little steep. After hearing they had made some renovations to the place and did a total overhaul to the menu I was somewhat excited to see and taste the changes. I was pleasantly surprised! The place still has a great atmosphere and it is a little less formal than before. They have also decked the bar out with HD TV's which was nice because my girlfriend and I wanted to watch curling. The food was excellent. They had the best smoked ribs I have had in a long time and my girlfriend enjoyed the Soldaats chicken. I think this change is a move in the right direction for Faloney's given the economy. My girlfriend and I live in Ancaster and we will definitely be going back soon.

well i was here once before and was forced into changed my review. big mistake. i went back to try again and it was worse if that was possible. the bar staff should be fired as a whole, the wait times made me want to leave and i almost walked on the bill.
STAY AWAY

Well...I've broken my credo of never endeavouring to write a restaurant review...this must be done. In all good conscience I have to tell my fellow residents of Ancaster to steer well and truly clear of Faloney's. My husband and I are, admittedly, patrons of some of the best restaurants in Toronto and have travelled extensively throughout Europe and further afield. We love good food and know good food. THIS is NOT good food. To start with, no fine dining restaurant should have a 16 yr old girl dressed as though she just left school greeting and seating people. She made no effort to welcome us nor did she offer to take our coats or pull out my seat. The wine list is overpriced and harbours odd selections. My husband is Australian and a former restauranteur in Sydney....he is well versed in Australian (and European) wine and could not recognize one selection of their Australian offerings. The Canadian choices didn't at all do justice to what we have to offer either.The stemware was cheap and heavy and certainly did not belong side a menu that offers many wines over the $200 price point. It was like drinking out of a beer stein....I won't bother to critique the menu itself because it was truly quite forgettable; instead I'll focus on the appalling food that we ordered. The lobster bisque was flavourless - requiring an unfortuneate amount of salt to supply any favour at all. It was brought to the table barely luke warm and returned to the kitchen promptly. The server handled this graciously enough, as she should. Interestingly, they chose to re-warm it in either a microwave or possibly under a salamander...but didn't bother to even attempt to hide that from us by changing bowls....it was returned to the table in a scaldingly hot bowl! We decided to have the mixed sharing platter also which was laughable at best. It included some small cauliflower florets that I think we supposed to be Indian-inspired but had a decidedly flat, dirty taste about them. The red-wine based smoked salmon was tasteless, the boccincini I think was doused with some awful tasting caraway marinade and the lemon artichokes were so overpoweringly lemony that they were unpalatable. The bread and olives were just fine. Interstingly, they did supply us with a bread basket of fresh bread but also brought out an amuse bouche that was just another crostini with cannellini bean hummous. Enough bread do we think? Between courses they again attempted their hand at fine dining by offering a sorbet to cleanse the palate. My lip and tongue stuck to the spoon as these were pre-prepared and stored in the freezer. Please....and the sorbet was some cheap artifical strawberry concoction that should be found at the local fair. Both being lovers of duck and pappardelli we chose what we hoped to be a lovely slow-cooked pasta dish with duck confit..oh yes...wrong again. I must admit I was tempted to actually ask the server what this meat or pseudo meat was that they were masquarading as duck actually was. It didn't have the colour, texture, aroma or taste of any duck, regardless of species, that we've ever eaten. It looked more like canned tuna although it didn't taste of tuna. Has this cook, I dare not call them chef, ever actually eaten duck confit? I don't know if I should bother to elaborate on just how disappointed we were. The portions were overly large...again ...not fine dining. Maybe we landed in some American chain restaurant whose focus is quantity over quality. We took a few bites and decided to ask to have it wrapped up to take home so as not to offend the server. It landed in our garbage can when we arrived home. I don't think even our local deer would have enjoyed it. My husband checked out the bar and noted that it really just wreaked of an owner who no longer takes pride in his establishment...boxes strewn about etc....The bathrooms were nice. Again, they attempted to mimic fine dining establishments by supplying hand lotion, cotton swabs, mouth wash etc. Nice touch. Overall this was truyly disappointing. We live in Ancaster and strive to support local businesses whenever possible but will not return to Faloney's...ever. Word of mouth travels fast. I'm surprised they've managed to survive for 4 years. In these tough economic times when people will be more careful with their disposable income, Faloney's better rethink what it is they think they're doing if they want to survive. Don't waste your hard earned money. Rousseau's is a much better choice.

my second visit to Faloney's of Ancaster. after my first steak some 6 months ago my friend and i decided Faloney's after all it was my bithday, i was anticipating the same melt in your mouth, tease the palet steak...a couple of drinks prior to the entre' along with pizza style bruschetta, the meal came....not the same steak i remembered i would have been better off at the Keg they are very consistant and have never been dissapointed. service was good but how could it not be, there was only 6 patrons. the bill was extremly high for the rather raunchy cut. we won't be back Mark & Victoria

I was surfing this site to read the reviews. Seriously I can not believe some of these writers.
Our experience at Faloney's has always been great, even on their busiest evenings with the restaurant full & patio packed because of the live entertainment our food has always been wonderful. The service has always been good. The servers have personality the food is unlike anywhere else in the area. The steak is 'mouth watering' to the fullest. The jumbo shrimp...are huge!
Each to their own I suppose..
I would recommend this restaurant to all my friends..well I already have and we are impressed & will keep coming back!

When we arrived, we were waiting at the door, because the staff was congregated around the bar, giggling and laughing. One turned around to see us, but then turned her back and started laughing with the other staff again. When we finally did get seated, the menus were greasy and sticky, and the food was overpriced. It took forever for our server to return and take our order, and when she did, she was rude and snappy and unknowledgeable; she could not recommend a wine for our meals. The glasses for our cocktails had fingerprints all over them, and one even arrived with lipstick marks on it. That was disgusting, but unfortunately one of the better aspects of my evening. The mussels were rubbery and smelled odd, the crab cakes were flavourless lumps, the bruschetta was like a pizza, and the tomatoes tasted old and rotten. The shrimp cocktail tasted like it was boiled in dishwater. When our entrees finally arrived, about an hour after we finished our appetizers, we got served some disgusting slop that masqueraded as food, given to us quite rudely. The veal was tough and chewy, like some leather sole off a shoe. The sauce from the seafood pasta tasted like it came out of a can, which I'm sure it did, and the seafood itself was rubbery and dry. The stuffed chicken was stuffed with more chicken, as my server told me, and it tasted like garbage. The steak was salty, because it had on it some disgusting concoction called "Faloney's spice," which the owner kept bragging about (for no good reason), instead of asking us about our terrible dining experience. The lobster tails, when they finally arrived about ten minutes after all our other food, were undercooked, and had to be sent back. The waitress glared at us as she picked them up, and then slammed them onto the table when she returned them. Then she stormed off. The sea bass was, compared to the rest of the meal, half-decent, but it was overpriced for such a small portion. Some slices of cake tasted decent, but others were old and stale, and not worth being $10 each! Whoever says that Faloney's provides a good dining experience is either lying, because they're a friend of the owner, or has never experienced REAL fine dining before.