Norma Ridley Members' Lounge

For Family Day, I decided to grab a Museum + Arts Pass (MAP) from my local library and take the family to the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)! If you don't know, the MAP is available for anyone with a library card to borrow, and it allows up to two adults and up to five children admission into several different attractions throughout the city. This post isn't actually an unpaid advertisement for the library, however; I also met up with my best friend, who has an AGO membership, and she recommended having lunch in the exclusive members' lounge.

Restaurant: Norma Ridley Members' Lounge
Location: Downtown Core
Meal: Lunch
Day: Monday
Son's Age: 10 months

Given how crowded the AGO was for Family Day, the members' lounge was a nice reprieve from all the chaos. They don't take lunch reservations; however someone in the party must have an AGO membership. The lounge used to primarily serve tea and coffee, but they now offer food as well.

Accessibility: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
To be honest, I didn't ask for a high chair, so I don't know if they have any. There is plenty of room for strollers, though, and all the chairs are comfortable bench seats, so my husband and I seated our son between us, while my best friend and her husband did the same with their daughter.

The lounge somehow succeeds in being both cozy and roomy, which is very relaxing. There is no washroom located inside the lounge, but most of the washrooms throughout the AGO have change tables and are also wheelchair accessible, so strollers don't present a problem. I know the public café in the AGO has high chairs so I can't imagine it being an issue in the lounge if you really need to strap your kid in, but the tables are quite low so I suspect you are better off keeping your child in the stroller.

Service: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The server was pleasant and didn't seem to mind that my best friend's toddler was running around. I had no trouble getting some hot water for my son's food, either.

Service was pretty quick as well, as we didn't wait long when we added to our food order since my son turned out to be particularly ravenous that day.

Food: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The menu is quite simple, which isn't a bad thing, especially since this is more of a lounge than a restaurant. I ordered the eggs benedict.

Their version offers a choice of smoked salmon or portobello mushroom (I chose the salmon), served on a brioche bun with truffle hollandaise sauce and market greens. The dish was delicious but unremarkable and easily forgettable. My husband ordered the crab and shrimp niçoise salad. 

This was a Dungeness crab and shrimp cake, fingerling potatoes, French beans, olives, smoked tomato dressing, radishes, lemon and dill aioli, and market greens. I'm usually not a fan of Niçoise salad and I'm definitely not a fan of olives, but all the flavours really complemented each other and the dish was delicate and delicious. I would highly recommend ordering this one. In addition to our mains, we also ordered a starter of flatbread and dip after baby finished his food and was still hungry. I didn't take a photo of this, but it was served with roasted squash hummus and house made chips. My baby certainly enjoyed it and the portion was generous, but it wasn't particularly outstanding.

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
This is a nice relaxing lounge to escape to when you are visiting the AGO. The service is great and it seems baby friendly enough. If you have a membership or you are with someone who does, it's worth checking out (plus it's way better than caféAGO - just saying).