We had a fantastic meal at R&D: delicious dishes served in a great setting. We didn't try the self-proclaimed "best [Peking] duck in the city", but we're mightily tempted to come back for it!

I had a good experience. The food and service was great

Fabulous. Innovative menu and superb flavour and presentation. Great friendly service. Love the decor too.
Will go back again and again.

Beautiful design in the heart of Chinatown supercool

I really enjoyed that it wasn't basic Chinese-restaurant food. It was pretty hip (and noisy), but then again, my visit was on a Friday evening.

The food was nothing to go crazy over; just fancy descriptions and not much to support it. The server was good but each dish was brought out independently, forcing us to wait a while for the entire order to be fulfilled.

NOthing but great things to say. They are doing it right

Super delicious food, great service and vibe. Will definitely be returning.

Good overall, very limited options for vegans or vegetarians though.

Great place and a delicious modern twist on Chinese food. The duck is something you must try if you come here!

As fans of MasterChef TV show, we went to taste and experience food of superior quality, taste and finesse - and we found exactly that. Never had food so brilliantly prepared, multiple layers of flavour just explodes in the mouth. Nice and cozy restaurant with great service. It was an honour to meet MC Canada season 1 winner Chef Eric.

We went here for a Valentine’s Day date and ordered the duck in advance because we had to see if it really was the best duck in the city. Can’t say I was disappointed. The ambience helped contribute to a wonderful night with a great playlist and great lighting. We only had the duck and sake flights which were both delicious in their own right. We will definitely be back to try out the rest of the menu.

Fantastic food and service, would definitely come back

The food was delicious and came out really fast, maybe too fast? They arrived before our drinks. Our waitress was very kind and attentive.

Great first experience. My girlfriend gave me a special gift after taking her here. Will do again.

It was great spot. Service was awesome. Ray the server was cool. Food and choices are pretty tasty.

Recommended drink: the passion fruit cocktail
Recommended food: the beef spring rolls.
We went there on Valentine’s Day and while the service was good we felt like they were trying to rush us a bit.
Perhaps it would be better on a less busy evening.

We have been to R&D many times now and my wife and I always look forward to the next time. The food, the atmosphere are great and the staff are very friendly.

I felt that the service was not that great because we reserved a table for 8:30pm and ended up being seated around 9 and it seemed like the waiter paid more attention to others. But once we were seated, what I liked was he would ask us how we were doing once we got the food. I went for winterlicious and felt the food quality was ok. Not bad but not great (possibly let down by my high expectations). I would recommend going to experience it but most likely will not go more than once.

Winterlicious 2020. Been to R&D a few times and like most of their dishes but the quality during Winterlicious was abysmal. Despite offering only the condensed Winterlicious menu and the dishes being just smaller versions of the regular menu, the execution of the food was poor. The fusion concepts were badly thought out and detracted from the enjoyment of the ingredients.

Our visit was during Wintherlicious.
The starter was fine but both main and dessert was a little disappointing - grainy cheesecake for instance.
The service was off, even though our waitress was smiling and nice, she was super confused, didn’t understand our order and brought the wrong main for me. We couldn’t help ourselves from laughing a little bit about how off it was, so in that sense it was entertaining as well.

Great Asian fusion menu. Fantastic atmosphere and great service. Will definitely be back!

Winterlicious had a very nice menu, the steamed bao and torched salmon were great starters for a heavier main course. The dessert was fantastic as well.

Terrible service. Server was rude, forgot many dishes and drinks and still had a terrible attitude instead of apologizing for his mistakes throughout the night. He was disrespectful to many of us and ruined our experience.

This was not my first visit but it is definitely my last

Went for Winterlicious and left full and happy! The Golden Hour cocktail had a pleasant quick and was nice and fruity. The meal options kept true to the authentic Chinese flavour yet unique with modern twists. My favourite this hands down was the Pandan Cheesecake. Perfect blend of Pandan and coconut flavour. Please add it to main menu!!
Our server was the best, so polite and friendly. Would recommend!

From the moment we walked out experience was exceptional.

From the friendliness of the service to the quality of the food we thoroughly enjoyed our evening.

The spring rolls were amazing.

We will be back(again).

Came here for Winterlicious. The food was so delicious and the portions size were great! We also ordered the additional daan tat and gotta say that dish did not taste very good. The desserts were also not that great ... Other than that the baos were delicious, and the mains were amazing!

Food tastes amazing. Love the creations and combinations of all ingredients Awesome experience overall ! Definitely gonna visit again.

DON'T go here for Winterlicious!

I went with my girlfriend for Winterlicious, and had an absolutely terrible experience. For appetizers, I went with the pork belly, and she got the HK street food. The bork pelly was mediocre (something I could easily get anywhere in chinatown, not an appetizer for the price I was paying), but the street food was abysmal; a terrible, gelatinous texture in a brown slimy sauce.

Our main course was poke bowl. Again, no complaints, its just something I could have gotten elsewhere for $11; tuna, avacado, rice, etc. The horror came when we ordered dessert. I had the absolutely disgusting "Pandan Cheesecake"; served in a plastic cup, looking and TASTING like toothpaste, smelling like cheap icing, it was an atrocious end to a mediocre meal. I couldn't believe how a chef could put something so cheap and unappetizing together.

The total came to $75 for the kind of food you can get far better elsewhere in chinatown for <$20, and a dessert you can recreate by eating a pint of toothpaste. Please, if you're looking for a good time during Winterlicious, do not go here.

I went to R&D on a Saturday for Winterlicious 2020. We were a party of two and seated even though we were 30 minutes early for our reservation.

For appetizer we ordered the Hong Kong style street food and torched salmon. The Hong Kong style street food was very forgettable. Being from Hong Kong myself at a supposedly more innovative restaurant, I would have expected it to be slightly elevated but the fish balls, cheung fun and tofu were not that interesting and vastly subpar from an actual street food vendor. The curry flavour was plain, the food was cold and not spicy at all.

For mains, we had a brisket noodle and the 3 cup chicken. I was especially excited for the chicken as it's one of my favourite Taiwanese dishes. It tastes nothing like what it was supposed to. The sauce was generic and had no hints of sesame oil or basil leaves which are the foundation to flavours of the dish. The brisket noodles were tasty but the portion small compared to other noodle dishes you might get a few doors down.

The pandan cheesecake and tres leches desserts tasted very sweet and artificial.

Overall, I was very disappointed with my meal. The service was also mediocre, the server interrupted us while we were mid bite and picked up our dish before we done. I would expect the timing to be a lot better especially since the restaurant was not that full. $85 after tax and tips could get you at least three vastly superior meals for two at any other restaurant in the area.

Great ambiance. Fabulous space. Eclectically decorated. Awesome food. Attentive wait staff.

I really wanted to go to this restaurant and Winterlicious seemed like a great opportunity to see what R&D was all about. They sat us at the worse tables, everybody who came for winterlicious menu were sat close to the door where it was very cold. They moved us to another table. I ordered soup, it was salty, ordered noodles and beef as well, it was tasteless and for dessert the tres leches, it was okay! I am sorry but I wouldn't eat at this place again! There are better places in Toronto with better service and food.

We ended up sitting at the counter and it was a pretty cool experience. I was a fan of Eric’s from his Master Chef Canada days, so to see him behind the counter cooking in the open kitchen was pretty cool. He was so friendly and nice, chatting with us about our plans and he gave us his recommendations from the menu. We had CSB (char siu bao), salmon sashimi, a chopped veggie slaw and fried chicken. All of the food was great. The other kitchen staff were awesome. I’ll definitely be back. Great service and delicious food 👌🏼

The food and drinks were great!
The service was not the best felt kind of awkward. Server also seemed confused the whole time. I expected the ambiance to be more intimate but felt too much like they wanted you in and out as quickly as possible. Felt like we were being rushed. Very unfortunate because I would like to come back for the food but didn’t have an overall welcoming and warm feeling.

We arrived ten minutes earlier than our reservation. We were immediately warned by our waiter that there is another reservation at our table in two hours just so we know to be done before they arrive. Our waiter talked fast providing the menu choices. We asked for more time to decide. He came back in a few minutes and stood at our table making sure we ordered right away. We felt quite rushed to order and didn't feel we had enough time to make the right decision. The order arrived in less than 10 minutes which is great but the waiter came by several times during our meal giving us the feeling we were on the clock. After our desert we were out one hour before the next reservation leaving ample time for the other reservation. The food was okay but we felt rushed and pressured to finish. We don't think being rushed was justified or appropriate. Probably a side affect of them being understaffed. Looked like they only had one waiter for the entire restaurant.

The peking duck was outstanding! Dare I say better than we had when we lived jn Beijing!

Our waiter was extremely condescending. Basically ruined the entire meal. Food was okay.

Extremely good and innovative chinese/asian cuisine

This is now my third time at this restaurant to try the duck and once again I was told they are sold out. If an item is so good and popular then perhaps you should have more of it.
Other than that the food was great as always.

Excellent food and really wonderful staff! Everyone was so friendly and attentive! We had organized a preset menu as we were a large group and Austin was so accommodating to all our dietary restrictions! Eric the chef came out to meet us at the end of our meal and was so personable and wonderful to talk to! He is very passionate about his work! We really enjoyed our meal and will definitely be back! Thanks team R&D!