cleaver

cool little location. great drinks!! servers are friendly, knowledgeable and fun. food is decent. small plates, good to share. some things we ordered were a bit small considering the price. would gobackfor the drinks! large cocktail selection, and everything we had was pretty good.

tldr; we were asked to leave after spending 2 hours and $120 there and telling the waitress that we want to order more, because they had to sit the next reservation.

i can safely say that i've never been treated with such disrespect before. they're actually the united airlines of restaurants. 

my friend and i finally made plans to go for drinks, i reserved a table at cleaver. when we showed up, i was unpleasantly surprised with how little space there was between us and tables around – it felt like we were all sitting at the same table. between the two of us, we had 6 drinks and 3 appetizers. we noticed that the waitress came up to us a little too often, but an overly attentive staff is hardly something i'd ever complain about. she proceeded with taking away our appies before they were finished. then she asked if we would like to order something else or just get the bill. we said we'd like another round of cocktails and the bill. she camebacka minute later saying that she can't bring us drinks, and that we had to leave, because the next reservation showed up and was waiting at the door. at that time, there were two empty tables just around ours; yet, they insisted that we leave. 

overall, the food and drinks were absolutely nothing to write home about. the business lives on the gimmicky cocktails and the fact that they make customers leave, so they can sit more people and make more money.

this is an absolutely beautiful restaurant tucked neatly on 17th ave, with the most crafty cocktails and entertaining bar staff! the food was delicious, and they almost take the crown for best caesar stack in town! (tommyfields still has my heart for their caesar meal!) i'll definitely be goingbackto cleaver.

first time: decent and not expensive spot on 17th. we went there for a quick late bite and were pleasantly surprised. complimentary popcorn was a nice touch to begin with, our server offered heater option for patio, which helped too.

food was well prepared and presented, we shared steak salad and crab slider. all tasted quite well though just a touch too salty. server gave us enough attention without being annoying. not bad for the first visit, will bebackagain.

if you’re a party of 2 people and you’re looking to feel rushed, unwelcome and pressured to order, eat and get the heck out of there in an hour or less, this is the place for you! after 2 such episodes in a row, although i enjoy the food, and would probably like some of the cocktails if there was time for that and some wine with dinner, i will not bebackat cleaver, nor will i recommend to anyone i know. they have zero interest in your overall experience.

i don’t know why cleaver is only rated 4.1/5 on google - it’s one of my favourite restaurants in the city. i come here a lot .... maybe once per week or every second week. i come here on dates, i come here with groups of friends, even with my adventurous 70 year old dad. i’ve never had bad service once - not sure if camilo still works here but he used to greet me with a hug each time i came in.

cocktails are amazing, original and fun. whole menu is great, i’ve tried everything save for a couple of items and never once had any complaints.

while i do enjoy the duck, lamb, and tempura fish and chips sliders, i think the rest of the menu is where they shine. the bone marrow with the whiskey luge is delicious, creative and a fun experience i’ve never seen anywhere else. arguably the best mac and cheese in the city. wonderful bucatini and a beef tartare that can stand up nicely to my ultimate favourite at the living room.

every time i come here it’s a wonderful experience - food, drinks and service.

for anyone out there who has had less than a wonderful time, i urge you to gobackand engage with your server - ask them about the new cocktails, ask what they recommend, joke around with them. it will surely become a favourite restaurant for you in no time

went to cleaver for the first time weekend, was seated at the bar, which was great because we got to watch all of the cocktails being made, they all look delicious, there was three of us, i tried three sliders, the matcha mushroom (which was my favourite), the crab slider and the tempura fish and chips slider, my friend had one of the pizzettes, which was delicious and my other friend had the mac and cheese, which i didn't get a picture of, she said it was the best mac and cheese she'd ever had, we also tried a bunch of the cocktails, everyone was excellent, my favourite were the original sin and the turning japanese. it was a small restaurant with only 50 seats, but it had a cool vibe, and all of the staff was so friendly. i can't wait to gobackabd try more.

my boyfriend and i love comingbackhere! we went for brunch this weekend and got the lobster bennie, blueberry pancakes and the staff hash. we had an awesome server and it was overall an amazing experience!

in order not to be disappointed on a friday evening, and to ensure my husband had a great birthday treat, i made a reservation for cleaver through open table 1 week ahead of time. i confirmed with open table the day before that i was going to be there for my 7pm table. we arrive at 7pm and clearly there was not a table available for us - the place was buzzing! the hostess had a few conversations with some guy and after 10 mins of waiting by the door we were brought some 'complimentary' prosecco. it was good but didn't help with the wait. we were finally seated at 7:35pm a full 35 minutes later than expected. as we sat they gave us a complimentary appetizer to ease the pain of having to wait for our 'reserved' table. another 15 minutes went by as we yet again waited for our server to introduce them self [which they never did]. we ordered food and watched as the table next to us left for the evening, squeezing themselves through the very narrow table gaps! the staff were very busy and the food goingbackand forth looked great, unfortunately none of it came our way. the table next to us was occupied again and they placed their order. our appetizer eventually arrived and coincided with next doors table's appetizer too! the food was delicious but at this point we had been in the restaurant for over an hour. next to come was our main course. another 30 minutes later mine arrived all by itself. being the polite person i am i didn't want to dig in until my 3 other table companions had theirs. i gave up after 5 minutes as my pasta was going to be cold. uncomfortably i started on my food! two dinners arrived about 10 after mine and again was delivered along with the table next to us. my husband who ordered the 'coke & fries' arrived last. not quite sure how or why all our food options weren't delivered at the same time, as they managed to deliver everything at once for the table next to us [trust me you are so close to the other diners you can’t help but notice]. one of our orders included a side of tempura kale, this did not arrive until after the main course was finished, and i mean quite a while after! at this point the table next to us had finished and paid and were about the leave!! so this prompted a conversation with our server - he was polite but when asked why we waited so long for everything when the table next to us arrived after us, eat their complete meals before us and left before us, his response was that they cook each food individually to avoid it hanging around under a heat lamp, and the 'erratic' way in which our meals arrived is the way they do it at cleaver!!!

so if you want to wait over 2 hours for a table you have reserved and have food arrive at completely different times to the people you are eating with then cleaver is the place for you. cleaver will not be the place for me, as unfortunately the service and/or the kitchen table priority is not acceptable :(

been here a bunch of times. had the worst experience ever this weekend. ordered 2 cheese burger sliders and they brought 1 cheese burger and 1 chipotle chicken. we ended up munching a bit of both. the server (a bearded guy) was being an ass. told that that he would charge us for the wrong order since we took a bite of that one. even got charge for still water!!! very pushy servers. they just keep bugging you to check if your done a million times and very upfront (that too not in a nice way) like they want you to clear off the minute your done. although the ambience is great, i wouldn't consider goingbacksince the experience ruined our evening.

i honestly went into this meal expecting to be unimpressed. cleaver was picked by another couple as the spot for our double date night and after reading a lot of the reviews i expected the food to be meh, the restaurant to be overcrowded, and the service to be rushed. i was completely 100% wrong! i'm so glad we decided to go because we ended up having such a delicious meal with really great service!

we had a reservation for 4 at 7:30 on friday night and we were seated promptly. although the restaurant is not very big, we didn't feel that our table was squished too close to the table beside us. we started looking at the drink menu and got a tiny bit overwhelmed! there were just so many different cocktails to choose from and they all had unusual names so you had to read the entire description of each drink to figure out what it was. i personally don't really have patience for that and prefer drink menus to be grouped a bit more into categories to make it appear less daunting, however the other three people in my party had fun choosing a few different drinks to try! i asked our server if i could just have a spicy caesar (my fave) and she was super nice about it even though it was considered "off menu", my fiancé had mighty craic, the others had randy granny and dose of original sin and everyone enjoyed their drinks (my caesar was fantastic).

we started with the pork and chorizo sausage rolls and they were amaaaaazing!!! seriously so good, i could have eaten them as my main and been perfectly satisfied. everyone agreed they were the highlight for sure. then we had the baked breads with chicken drippings and bacon butter. the bread was great, nice and warm. dipping it in the chicken drippings was sooo good! we tried spreading the bacon butter on as well and it just tasted like butter, didn't notice the bacon. next each couple chose 1 slider to share. we got the lamb, our friends got the chipotle cheeseburger. the lamb was delicious!! i think it was a lamb meatball, and it was cooked medium rare (which is fine by me) and it had mint leaves on it instead of just having mint sauce and it was soooo good! if you like the combo of mint and lamb you should definitely try this. our friends said theirs was really good too.

for our second round of drinks i got another caesar, my fiancé got turning japanese (which was pretty good), my friend got culture shock which was like a raspberry mojito and she said it was good, her husband got farewell to sober which was supposed to be white rum, maraschino, lime, grapefruit and while he was expecting it to be rum mixed in assorted juices it was actually more like rum with a few garnished so he said it just tasted like straight rum and wasn't enjoyable at all (she tasted it and agreed).

for our main we got the cock for 2 which was an entire roasted chicken with stuffing, bread sauce and duck fat fries. i don't know about you but i've never been able to eat half a chicken before so it should probably be called cock for 4. it was a pretty big chicken too and we ended up with about 1/3 of the chicken leftover. first off i'll say that the chicken was fantastic! super moist and very flavourful! the fries were fine, i only had a few and they weren't anything spectacular. i forgot to try the stuffing and the bread sauce so i can't really comment on that part. the only problem i had with this dish (and the reason i'm giving cleaver 4.5 instead of 5) is that when the chicken comes out it's plated in the "beer can chicken" style where it's whole and standing upright, and after you take in the fancy presentation (it even has its feet still attached) you realize that it came with a giant knife and a roast fork and you have to cut it yourself. it was a bit awkward and slightly messy trying to cut this thing into pieces and we ended up using one of our dinner plates as a platter for the chicken pieces and there were fries all over the place because the chicken kept spinning around its plate while we were trying to cut it and the roast fork was a bit difficult to use so we ended up using our hands a bit. thankfully this was a casual meal with good friends so we just laughed about it, but if it was a first date or a meal with a client or something it would be a bit awkward. and besides the awkwardness it just felt like we had to work for our meal and i got out for dinner so that i don't have to do any work! i get that presentation is important but maybe after they brought it out whole for us to look at they could give us the choice of "butcher diy" or having it cut for us. or just plate a big pile of chicken parts surrounded by fries?

i almost forgot, we also got the mac and cheese as our side and it was really good. not the best i've ever had but definitely satisfying!

our server, who i believe is named grace, was awesome! she was very casual and laidbackbut was very knowledgeable and gave great recommendations. our order was timed perfectly and the entire night flowed very smoothly!

overall our meal was fantastic! we did order a little bit too much, in hindsight we probably should have gotten the 1/2 cock instead of the cock for 2, but everything was delicious so it didn't matter. the price was a bit on the high side (our bill was split by couple so each couple paid for their own drinks and all the food was split) and our bill was around 96.00 before tip, and i assume our friends' bill was pretty close to that as well. if you consider how many drinks we had (2 per person) then it makes sense though and we're not really bothered by the price. we are definitely looking forward to returning to cleaver!

i think that the food was good but extremely pricey for the portions you get. spent about $100 for two people and was still a bit hungry walking out. ended up getting three sliders, grilled cheese and two raviolis along with three drinks total. overall, i would definitely comebackwhen i'm willing to spend some money haha 😅

brunch last sunday at clever was really good.  my wife and i both started with a caesar.  we ordered the version with the crazy amount of garnishes.  it came complete with fried chicken, a slider, waffle, bacon and a corn dog.  all were great and the caesar tasty.  after our appetizer we shared the brisket benny.  it was really tasty.  the little bit of bbq sauce gave it a nice sweetness that matched really well with the eggs and hollandaise.  i did find the service to be a bit weak.  we had to ask for napkins, plates, flatware and remind our server about missing drink orders.  regardless, the food quality, comfortable out door seating and ability to make a reservation for brunch will lead mebackto cleaver the next time i am in calgary.

we went to cleaver for the first time this weekend and made a reso for my birthday. when we arrived, we were taken to two seats... at the bar - not what we were expecting. i'm not against sitting at the bar when a resto is busy. but since we had made dinner plans for a special occasion, it killed our mood a bit and felt that cleaver should have told us this when we made the reso.

food-wise, we liked our dishes albeit a little pricey. the seared tuna is flavourful but very small plate with the smallest lettuce wraps to use. the kale salad with chicken was spot on, very well done. the polenta chips were amazing! duck slider was ok.

overall, the service was fine with food being served fairly quickly. but we felt a bit rushed as it seemed like the priority was to turn over seats as quickly as possible. i'd give the food a 4 but the restaurant experience a 2. i might comebackat happy hour as that seems to be the best value. perhaps they can win me over next time.

couldn't wait to try this place after seeing all of their mesmerizing posts on instagram. made it just in one for their happy hour before 7pm and the place was packed. very lively and lots of energy. my main goal was to stuff as many $3 sliders as i could and i achieved that goal.

having tried most of the sliders my favourites were the lamb, chipotle beef, fried chicken but each of em tasted very unique and delicious. you can tell a lot of detail and care was put into each slider.

i also indulged in their tinker one cheeesecake which was fantastic and their raspberry brownie which looked great but honestly wasn't anything special.

i would love to comebackand sample some other options off their menu but their happy hour alone is worth it ! $3 sliders and $5 any drink is unreal for what you get .

check it out!