Essence - The Westin Calgary

Excellent Mother’s Day brunch!

I ordered a steak for medium cooked. However, I was given a well done one being over cooked. The waiter left the table after giving me the credit card machine, so I had to cut the customer copy myself. The place is quite, which could be the best thing of this restaurant.

The service and food are excellent, and the dining room is quiet, even when it’s busy. Great place to get away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Calgary and have a nice meal.

Food and service was very good. Always a good place for lunch if you want to visit as noise level is low.

Breakfast options are great and it's a nice venue. However, the price point is still fairly high.

I took my friend here for lunch on her birthday. They do not have much vegetarian options;however, they were able to make their seasonal pasta vegetarian and it was very good. My friend had ordered pasta as well but with chicken; however, the server mixed up our order and brought her vegetarian pasta as well. She ended up ordering chicken on the side. Anyways, we both enjoyed our lunch. I had requested them to arrange a dessert tray for my friend with a birthday message on it and I was very impressed with the arrangement they had. TOTALLY LOVED IT!! Overall, I would definitely recommend essence for any special occasion :-).

Don't get me wrong - nothing was bad by any means - but in my opinion Charcut has better "in and out lunch". This is simply based on the relatively long wait to take our order, the server not knowing what the in and out lunch options were, the awkwardness of eating the sandwich, and the fact that the cookies were over-baked (hard). On the other hand, the server was very friendly, the food was tasty, the setting was comfortable, and it still felt like solid value for the money.

Essence is a hidden gem in downtown Calgary. The food is terrific, really great quality! I'm always surprised that the Keg is completely full, yet Essence (right next door) is 1/2 empty! I prefer Essence as you can hear the conversation. Service, food, it's all excellent!

Line up at entrance and no one came to see us for 5 min. Must have been a busy morning.

Essence in The Westin Calgary is a gem. Our lunch was very good food at reasonable prices without the noise level of many downtown restaurants. We were a table of friends enjoying good food, a beer and lively conversation.

This was my first time visiting Essence for lunch. I was meeting a counterpart in business and we both enjoyed our lunches. Food was delicious - portions were large. Server was fantastic - very helpful and personable and gave us some great recommendations for our food choices. Will definitely be back.

The staff was super friendly and always happy to help with items that had run out at the buffet. Decent brunch. The kids loved the orange juice machine that squeezes real oranges right in front of you.

We went for Mother’s day and the staff was professional and the food tasted fresh even though it was buffet. The prime rib was amazing and they even cooked a piece alittle more for me. I will defiantly be back

Everything was fine, but our sever was less than adequate.

Good quality, good service but avoid sandwiches and the bread which is strange and tough, and is charged for as an appetizer. Impossible to eat as part of a sandwich .

Nice quiet atmosphere and close to the office works well for business lunches

Despite the over-priced menu, the food is of good quality, and the location is very convenient for downtown meetings.

Great place to habe a conversation during a meal.

like eating in a noisy high school cafeteria except worse food, had buffet breakfast,soggy French toast, cold scrambled eggs. Absolutely abysmal. Westin Hotel should be ashamed of themselves. also $102 for buffet breakfast for three, worst food value in downtown Calgary.

My friend and I had the Cobb salad and it was huge. My other friend had the steak sandwich and found the bread to be very hard. We had a great waiter but I found the ambience to be lacking .

Lunch meeting for business. Not too noisy so easy to have a conversation. Really good food for the price.

We went for the Mother's Day brunch and overall the food was very good. The prime rib was excellent and cooked perfectly. They have a good variety of food to satisfy everyone and the service was awesome. The only complaint would be that there was no general dessert table with small cakes/desserts, only the Moms and kids were treated to dessert which was disappointing.

Reasonable variety of food in good condition for a buffet brunch. The price seemed a bit high but understandable since it was Mother's Day.

Food was good, but way over priced for the brunch buffet

Food was straight forward and nice selection of good, quality ingredients (kennebec potatoes, Alberta bison, etc). A bit limited menu but each of our plates were well done. It's a institutional in decorating style with the metal and fabric chairs. Very "hotel" but nicely old school with cloth napkins and plenty of glassware and cutlery. They do great food... decor could get a refresh to draw a bigger audience.
Server was very attentive and helpful with handling allergen information.

Food is fresh. Easy to book a table.

Excellent Food, just don't like curd cheese mixed with plain potato but the steak was delicious! Thank you!

Very good. Will definitely return. food portions were good as was the quality.

Good breakfast

I felt like I just flew three hours in business class, services was great, some interesting food but not well executed (was it was in a warmer for hours), yes I know they are busy on Mother's Day but no reason to have the permanent buffet line Zig real close to a pillar this was compounded by really tight quarters Lighting was like you would expect all of the long-haul business class flight no shadows and a unusual colour . Brunch was 45 here versus 75 at the Palliser - should have booked at the Palliser.

Restaurant was dead, I believe there were two other tables, yet we waited forever to be served and even longer until we received our water prior to our order being taken. The food was good, but a little overpriced for how basic the menu is. On the plus side, food came out pretty quick (we just ordered soup and sandwiches) and it was tasty (though a little salty).

We were shocked at the prices. Felt $14 for a glass of wine at lunch to be pretty pricey

Essence at Westin is a perfect spot for business meetings. Staff are very friendly and accommodating to our need. I called the day before to inquire if I could pre-order our meals as we only have an hour to spend for lunch. We decided not to pre-order and to just come early. We ordered right away and they prepared our meals in no time.

service is fantastic, and the breakfast buffet has excellent variety of fresh food choices and an omelet bar .

The staff are professional, the restaurant is quiet and the food is good. It's easy to get and most times you don't need a reservation.

The food was standard, the service was excellent. We were in and out in less than an hour. No complaints at all.

Service was good, portions were ridiculously small, food was cold, two of the three meals were under cooked, Tuna meals were fishy, food did not appear fresh, soup was look warm at best, I was starved, had to go to the Keg after the meal for an appetizer to fill up! couldn't afford it after paying the bill!!

This restaurant was booked for client lunch meeting. The wait staff were excellent and professional and efforts were made to get our order in ahead of a much bigger table of about 20. The food was also very good. The ambience was ok as most tables were just placed in a large open space. Overall more than suitable for the occasion.

The welcome was warm. the food good and the atmosphere condusive to good conversation with my guest.

I made reservation but definitely didn't need to as the person said ok when I told her I had a reservation. No name needed. IT was nearly empty. I am lactose intolerant and the server couldn't understand what it was. The food was ok at the end but the service was awful. We were 4 and 3 had the brunch and liked it. I had to ask her twice for a menu as she still couldn't get why I couldn't take the brunch. Not friendly and definitely no smile!