Mar 15, 2016
Last Spring, Win Butler and Régine Chassagne of indie rock group Arcade Fire announced their plans to open a restaurant serving Haitian street food with the backdrop of a contemporary and charming ambience. The bandmates and couple received the help of successful Toronto restaurateur Jen Agg and her artist husband, Roland Jean. The restaurant is called Agrikol, meaning “agricultural” in Haitian Creole. Since opening, however, their restaurant has garnered some less than enthusiastic Yelp reviews.
Customer Ahn N. commented that the food all “fell flat,” describing the rice as “overcooked, watery and pasty” and the meat as flavorless and stingy in portion size. She continued: “Did i mention that by the time the waitress had came to our table to take our order, we had waited 1 hour for her? We were drunk before even ordering our food.” In a final grim conclusion, she said “I came for the food but left hungry. Not a well 175$ spent!”
In her review, customer Einrika S. took issue with both quality and quantity at Agrikol. She reports the restaurant did not have Haitian staple griole and even disastrously ran out of rice. “It took us 2h to get our food, one of the reason being that they ran out of rice...Again a haitian restaurant without rice or griot is like a sushi place only serving seaweed salad and tempura shrimp…”
Nearly every review complained about the long wait for a table, leaving customers to wait in the literally freezing Montreal streets. They all conceded, however, that the friendly service was excellent and the ambience was impeccable. Agrikol is still very new, but that excuse will soon expire and the restaurant will have to get it together. Arcade Fire’s Win Butler and Régine Chassagne need to “Wake Up,” be “Ready to Start,” or stick to music-making.
IMAGE: Montreal Eater