Chez Piggy Restaurant

A bit bored of Pan Chancho, my bf and I went to Chez Piggy one sunny summer morning (this was a few months back and I’m just… nostalgic about summer mornings on this very cold day). Definitely was busy that morning but we were seated pretty much almost immediately on the second floor. It was busy that morning because of Easter.
We ended up ordering the smoked salmon benedict and him, the huevos rancheros. I honestly thought their benny was actually much better than Pan Chancho and it was actually my first time having huevos rancheros and it was interesting. I’m not a huge fan of beans and Mexican food so I’m probably not the best critic for that dish.
Overall, it’s a cute little spot to go to and it definitely has that YGK charm that you don’t get in Toronto. Will definitely stop by if we ever stop by in Kingston again :).

Perfect meals. We had duck wings as an appetizer. I had the ostrich as a main course and my sweetheart had the lamb.

First time. We were visiting from Toronto. Husband had the salmon special and mussels. Ask for extra bread. You will need it for the sauce. You won’t want to leave any of it behind. Humus app was great and tasted like it had just been freshly made. Aside from the great apps and main the service was amazing. Special shout out to the hostess on tonight. Thank you!!!

LOVE THIS PLACE!!! Came here 20 years ago and had to come back. I was not dissapointed. Had the Bone Marrow and Steak dinner. Wonderful wine and sat out in the courtyard on a beautiful night. The waitress was winderful and the place was perfect. Will be back for sure…

Chez Piggy is one of the consistently better restaurants in Kingston, and has been for quite a while. Their affiliation with Pan Chanco Bakery means that they also have a good selection of gluten free options available.
We started with the Coast to Coast seafood platter, which contained a selection of east and west coast fresh oysters, smoked salmon, steamed crab legs, cooked shrimp, marintaed mussels and cooked scallops. Everything was very good quality and tasted great, especially the scallop — perfectly cooked!
For the mains, we had the duck confit and the mint & garlic crusted lamb. Both were wonderful. The confit was simple, rich and very nicely done, and the risotto was really nice as well. The lamb was deliciously flavoured by the crust and both came with a really nice couscous.
The wine selection is small but well thought out and includes many really good options.
This place came close to 5 stars but just fell a little short because although the service was knowledgeable and friendly, it was very slow. Also, although the dishes were properly cooked and nicely presented, they could have used a little more flavour and flair.
That said, there is a very good chance I will return the next time I am in Kingston because the food really is good.

I’ve visited Chez piggy a number of times, and the food has been excellent every time. However, I was prompted to write this review after dining there this past week. Although the duck confit was tasty, the fat seemed to overwhelm the dish. Despite this flaw, everything else was superb. What brought the restaurant down was the fact that I found 3 hairs in my food. It made the whole experience significantly less enjoyable, and certainly demeans the good food that the kitchen is producing. But, all in all, I will returning.

Traditionally the top restaurant in Kingston, though I would say is in the top 5 now with several newcomers. Quiet atmosphere. Traditional food.

We thoroughly enjoyed everything at Chez Piggy. It was very busy all night for dinner — great to see a local restaurant doing so well. We wandered in mid afternoon to make a reservation and Zoe at the front desk was very accommodating. When we came back later for dinner we were seated immediately on the second floor, even though we were an hour early.
We opted for the Table d’Hote which was a salad (delicious), lamb shank with gnocchi and root vegetables and a dessert. We also ordered a New Zealand sauvignon blanc (Appleby Lane) from their private stock. The meal was incredible and the portion sizes were more than adequate (despite other reviews to the contrary).
The service was extraordinary and our waitress was a delight. I would highly recommend Chez Piggy.

We traveled all through Ontario and Quebec. This was far and away the best meal we had en vacances and it was our very first meal. It just couldn’t be beat. We are hoping to stop there on our way back home to the States. Five stars for sure. It’s a can’t miss!!!

I’ve heard a lot of good things about this restaurant and I had to go try it. We sat outside and the atmosphere was really nice and soothing. Two little birds kept flying around and everyone seemed to enjoy their song.
The waiters were nice, but they seemed a little cold and distant. Their chairs outside weren’t very comfortables, since they were made of metal (no cushions).
I ordered the duck leg and my mother ordered the avocado soup.
She was not too impressed. It was decent, but it didn’t have anything special. My duck was also decent. It was tender and it had the right flavour, but there weren’t any surprising and enjoyable flavours or textures.
The portions are too small and way overpriced. It also takes a long time for the food to arrive.
When it came time for desserts, i got a crème brûlée. It was superb!
The presentation was always impeccable, but it did not make up for the lack of taste.
I will probably not go back.

Friends of mine recommended this place a lot, so my bf and I gave it a try. We sat outside where the atmosphere is very nice. I was really looking forward to this place. It was a let-​down.
It was really busy, so the 10 minutes it took for my drink to be made is understandable… ish.
We ordered the table d’hote special which consisted of a salad, beef tenderloin and a choice of dessert.
The salad was great. Very tasty. No complaints.
The meat was way overdone. I ordered it medium, and it was more than well-​done. I really didn’t feel like waiting another 25 minutes for a replacement so I ate it. It really needed seasoning, as did the mashed potatoes. Or at least gravy, or something! Very bland meal. The only thing good on the plate were the roasted red peppers (they were actually very delicious, unfortunately there were very few of them).
Dessert was nice. Brownies and caramel sauce. Nothing too fancy but still good.
Our biggest complaint is the fact that at the end of the meal we were over-​charged. Our bill listed an «included tax» of $ 33 on top of the regular total and regular tax. After a 10 minute wait to inquire about this while paying the bill (another annoyance: no portable debit/​credit machines; you have to go inside and pay at the desk… what year is it, anyway?!), the woman we asked had no idea where this «included tax» portion came from and removed it from our total. Apparently our server entered something incorrectly on the machine. So pay attention to your bill.
I ended up getting sick that night. My bf did not. So I am unsure as to what actually made me sick. It doesn’t matter though; I’m not going back.

Such a neat little place! The service was wonderful and I love how they have merchandise you can actually purchase! They have t shirts and some really cool looking pigs items. They also have a outdoor patio. Which I wish I sat outside, it was such a gorgeous day too! They have pink trees outside with little tables all around. It looks like they to the scene from the secret garden!
The food was delicious, although I do wish the portion was bigger !! That and maybe I’m a big eater myself I love to have a bigger portion.
The wine menu was great. I had white wine.
Overall, great experience here I would love to come back !!!

Boo to the curmudgeons. Chez Piggy is all it’s reputation says it is.
The service was pleasant and helpful.
The wine list was nice
The limited menu, a personal preference, was well written and spot on.
I had the new Jerk Chicken. It was Jamaican spicy (HOT), perfectly cooked and well paired with the rice and beans and Pineapple, and yogurt sauce.
My wife wasn’t hungry, but polished off her mushroom ravioli. Great presentation, and delicious sauce. She raved.
Great place. Beautiful décor. Put it on your list.

Food was good. Service was okay. The atmosphere is nice/​interesting.
Nothing to write home about.

Chez Piggy is a local classic. Now, if you are a local, like me, you’ve probably heard both pros and cons for the place — some favor, some stay away. I guess it’s kind of an acquired taste for some.
For me — I’m in favor of the Pig, although it’s more of a treat than a regular place to dine. Most often I’ve been in for work-​related lunches, which suits me just fine. The servers are really lovely and can be quite attentive.
Most recently I had the steak frites and I really enjoyed them. There are lots of goodies on the menu, but the descriptions are short; if you have a dietary restriction of any kind, it’s best to clarify the details of the dish just to be safe.

Great atmosphere, good food, bad service. 4 of us came for dinner as we have always enjoyed the location and the historic building. The experience was made unpleasant by a waitress who appeared to not want to work, not want to further explain specials and hovered over us to keep us moving (as they had another sitting following us). A shame as the food was very good and it could have been a very enjoyable evening.

We heard from several of the locals that this was the place to go for a great dining experience. They were right.
The stone interior is lovely and the service was top-​notch.
My wife and I were very happy with the chicken and steak main courses. The Nova Scotia oysters we started off with were great.
Definitely would come back again.

My boyfriend took me here for a belated-​birthday dinner when I came to visit him from the States. I don’t think he’s been there in years, so we both were approaching Chez Piggy with fresh eyes. My first impression was good; the restaurant has a warm, rustic feel to it. It’s super cute and comfortable inside. We had a reservation, so we were welcomed and seated straightaway.
Our server brought us bread and our drinks pretty quickly. My dark and stormy was deliciously gingery — maybe a little too strong for some, but I thought it was pretty perfect. Along with the normal soft french loaf, our bread basket came with this awesome sliced bread that was flavored with Indian spices. I would have eaten a basket of just that bread in a second. Delicious. (Or I was just super hungry. Totally possible.)
Our entrées were underwhelming. I had the hanger steak, which was served with Chinese broccoli and crispy rice cakes. The crispy rice cakes and kailaan were tasty, but the steak (while well-​prepared) was nothing special. What really got me was the ludicrous amount of wasabi that came on the side of the dish. I thought it was wayyy too much for the plate. Frankly, I question whether or not the wasabi worked at all with other flavors. My boyfriend had the ostrich. Like my hanger steak, it was just ok. I remember very little about it, which is never a good sign.
The food wasn’t BAD. I don’t want to give you that impression. However, it was nowhere near good enough to justify the prices that they’re charging. I think I pretty much agree with other reviewers — it’s not so much Chez Piggy that’s the issue, but the quality of the food in Kingston more broadly. Three stars.

The atmosphere was fantastic — to get to the restaurant, you walk through a corridor, by old brick buildings, into a central and well-​decorated courtyard, where the outdoor patio resides. We were led inside and seated upstairs. The interior itself was very well decorated, but definitely whimsical — there was, for example, an unnervingly life-​like cat statue perched on the window behind us. Sometimes I could swear I felt it staring at me.
The wine they featured was a red wine with blueberry elements, light bodied, with no finish. While I cannot evaluate wine to save my life, I had a man with me I consider an expert in the matter, and his summary of the wine was «pleasant initially, but dies too quickly and leaves you dis-​satisfied». So much so that after sampling, we requested a different wine altogether. We concluded that they had an abundance of this wine and were trying to get rid of it fast, and I get that from a business perspective, but it makes for a poor dining experience and this nagged at me.
The food itself was very nice, though it gets major fail points on the presentation. We ordered the blue cheese steak with blue potatoes. We got an ideally cooked steak with a slab of blue cheese/​butter (I’m still not sure) on top, and the potatoes hidden underneath the steak. Why? Presentation is about showing off your dish, not hiding half of it. The soup starter was very good, and the bread was nice and varied, but this nagged at me.
The service was never explicitly bad, but there were a few exchanges that had me lifting my eye-​brows. The waitress seemed quite put-​out when we asked for a different wine, for example, and several mannerisms in her body language had me wondering if she was frustrated with us. Given that we had given her minimal difficulty, that really isn’t acceptable, and allows me to see how some of the poorer experiences mentioned by the others may have come to pass.
Perhaps it is an odd juxtaposition of the restaurant itself — offering a formal menu and atmosphere with casual food and staff. In some cases, like the wine and presentation, it felt like the person designing it just «didn’t get» the fancy dining experience. If Chez Piggy turns up the quality of service and turns down the prices, then this could become a fantastic way for students to get introduced to formal dining in a non-​threatening atmosphere.

We had heard great things about this restaurant and came all the way from New York to check it out.
It is tucked away behind beautiful old brick buildings in a quaint courtyard. The outdoor patio was hopping and very inviting. We were seated upstairs where the tables were set very creatively– and the walls were adorned with old pictures of the restaurant & catering business. It was nice– but not fine dining, which was OK by me.
The food was very good. I ordered a chilled avocado soup & shrimp salad with sunflower seeds and their homemade vinaigrette. The food which my family ordered– namely, their seared scallop salad, was also very tasty.
All in all, here are the ratings:
Ambiance: ⁴⁄₅ pigs
Service: ⁵⁄₅ pigs
Food: ⁴⁄₅ pigs
Price: ³⁄₅ pigs
I’ll give it 4 pigs & I’d come back. That is, if I’m ever in Canada again.