Online commenting sections can be terrible places. And they can be especially vicious for restaurants. The tiniest infraction can lead to a terrible review on websites that other eaters trust to help guide their dining-related decisions.

Edulis, often regarded as one of the best restaurants in the city, recently received an unfavourable review via the reservation service Bookenda, as the CBC reports.

Instead of ignoring it, Edulis chef and co-owner Tobey Nemeth responded to it in a lengthy message that she posted to Instagram. Nemeth was particularly hurt by the reviewer's line, "Restaurants in Toronto don't stay at the top forever. I will not feel sorry for them when their time runs out."

Nemeth responded to it by writing, "Wow. This is one of the cruelest and most vicious things anyone has ever said to us." She later explains the restaurant's run by a team of five staff and that she and her husband are often on site working 15 to 16 hour days; Edulis, she writes, is their life.

Read the exchange below.

This restaurant business can be hard. Having a very hard time today. Sometimes it feels as restaurant owners/chefs we do not have a voice when people write cruel things about us. This is my response to one of the most vicious reviews by a guest at Edulis. Can't shake the terrible feeling it left me with. Sometimes you just want to throw in the towel. It feels like the only thing that would give people like this satisfaction would be to see you go out of business. Perhaps for these online reviewers it's too easy to forget there are human beings behind every experience. Human beings that are - despite every effort to try to have a thick skin - deeply hurt by negative comments. This affects the psyche of our entire staff. I would also like to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to all the beautiful people who have taken time out of their busy lives to write us kind and beautiful things. Who make our day with their pleasure and positivity. Who literally make us light up when you walk in our dining room. You, also, have no idea how much this means to us.

A photo posted by EDULIS RESTAURANT (@edulisrestaurant) on Nov 12, 2016 at 10:07am PST

Photo via @edulisrestaurant.