cleaver

clear disregard for their customers!. the management at thisrestauranthas no interest in their customers and should not be in the hospitality industry. after we told our server that we were not satisfied with the tuna sandwiches, as well as the fries we were told "that if you told us earlier we could have done something about it." when we further enquired if there was anything that could be done to compensate our poor experience were later told that "our manager is picky about how much you eat before you does that kind of stuff." we will not be returning and i do not recommend thisrestaurantat all - there are far better options on 17th avenue with management that understands that their customers are the backbone of their business!

came here with a friend for #abburgerfest after seeing their burger on instagram.

reservation process: there was almost no information on the restaurant's actual website other than the address and the phone number, and a link to make reservations which led to a 404 link the first 5 times i tried it! there was also no available menu, so other than the instagram photo from their account, we were flying blind after we made the reservation. 

restaurant decor:
we nearly missed our reservation because therestaurantdoesn't have a visible printed name on its storefront, just a cleaver. clever, but not so easy to find on busy 17th ave! for reference, it's right next to gravity pope. the doors were oddly skinny (i confess i am not tiny, but my dining friend is, and we both had trouble with the doors) so if you have mobility issues - send someone ahead to pull the doors open for you. the inside of therestaurantis very rustic, with a lot of wood and iron features - it's very dimly lit (and we were there for brunch). you can choose to sit in a booth/table combo, or along a bar at the kitchen - we had a table.

food:
the burger was fantastic, but not quite the burger in the picture. we were started off with a complementary mini loaf of bread with butter and homemade jam, and then moved on to the burger. the burger was nice and juicy (and messy) and didn't come with any sides, so we added the duck-fat fried fries. these were perfect, nice and crispy, and the shaved parmesan on top was a great touch.

service:our server was really nice and explained the menu well. very attentive for the most part, though it did get a bit awkward when he asked us what other restaurants we liked - we ended up with a fairly sizeable rant on notable. 

overall:
a good experience, though they don't make substitutions (not sure if they'd accommodate for allergies, but the menu suggests no), and the wholerestaurantseems to thrive on mystery - but the food was delicious, and i will be back.

this is an absolutely beautifulrestauranttucked 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 going back to cleaver.

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 go back and engage with your server - ask them about the new cocktails, ask what they recommend, joke around with them. it will surely become a favouriterestaurantfor 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 smallrestaurantwith only 50 seats, but it had a cool vibe, and all of the staff was so friendly. i can't wait to go back abd try more.

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 going back and 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 therestaurantfor 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 :(

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, therestaurantto 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 therestaurantis 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 laid back but 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!

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 therestaurantexperience a 2. i might come back at happy hour as that seems to be the best value. perhaps they can win me over next time.

was very disappointed. we have been to cleaver several times before but it was our first time being served by bri and she made our experience very poor. first, she came up to our table and demanded that we move tables to accommodate a large party that had walked in, we obliged but she was very rude and abrupt when telling us to move, again telling, not asking...after we had made a reservation and had been at that table for around an hour already. when we did move she continued to have an attitude, slamming drinks down, throwing our bills at us etc. when taking payments she did not interact with us but flirted with the table behind us and did not offer copies of our receipts. the food was good and in the times we have come to cleaver before we have enjoyed our experience. also, it is important to mention that therestaurantdid take care of a round of drinks due to them moving us (did not lead with this though, only when we didn't seem thrilled was it offered) but it wasn't enough to salvage our server bri's rudeness. will think twice before coming back.

november 2017 

stopped in for brunch with some girlfriends and we ordered:

drinks: 
1) pitcher of sangria $20
-they only had red wine sangria but that wasn't a problem for us. 

2) mimosa $7
-the other girls really enjoyed being able to select different fruits (grapefruit and pineapple). both said their drinks were delicious.

food:
1) s'mores & nutella french toast with maple syrup and strawberries $15
-4 slices of french toast completely smothered in nutella and maple syrup.  there's toasted marshmallows on the top and some strawberries on the side, but almost like an after thought. the dish was still delicious, but at the same time, when you smother something in nutella, it's pretty much guaranteed to be delicious so then the question becomes, was each slice worth $3-$4? 

2) breakfast poutine, house bacon, cheese curds, fried egg, spring onion and hollandaise $12
-this was actually perfect for the one friend who didn't feel like brunch food and got fries.  it is literally a giant bowl of fries with an egg on top. 

3) full irish, bacon, sausage, black & white pudding, mushroom, tomato, eggs and brown bread $20 
-this was quite a bit of food and my friend was a bit disappointed as she realized after this dish that she is not a fan of black and white pudding. that being said, if you are, this would be the right meal for you! 

4) buffalo chicken, hot sauce, celeric slaw bennies $15
-not overly spicy and delicious

service was amazing - the hostess provided regular updates as to when we might be seated; our server was friendly, came back to check on us frequently. 

overall it was a good brunch but i would reserve my visits to cleaver for their happy hours. 

february 2017:

this review rating is specific to their happy hour.

after salivating over cleaver’s instagram posts about their happy hour sliders, i finally found a chance to try it out.  i’m not sure why this place isn’t busy before 7pm because their happy hour specials are amazing - $3 sliders and $5 drinks (which includes any of their cocktail creation that are regularly priced from $11+). 

we ordered the following sliders which each came out as a fairly good portion :

chicken (buttermilk fried chicken) – it doesn’t have it in the description, but this was actually a bit spicy but still good

lamb – also spicy although they did specify there’s harissa (north african hot chili pepper paste) but so much so that it over powered the flavor of the lamb

duck – disappointing as it was a bit dry but i did let it sit there for a few minutes as i ate other things

soft shell crab – amazing! if you love seafood, then you won’t be disappointed with the crab legs sticking out of the bun.

sides:

double dipped duck fat fries with truffle and parmesan $10 – you can’t go wrong with these fries

drinks:

sticky wicket – spiced vodka, st. germain, yuzu, peach, orange blossom, topped with prosseco and a torched marshmallow…. yes, you read correctly, a torched marshmallow

therestaurantis fairly small with both open kitchen and bar – both are fun to watch.  in the summer there’s a small patio right on 17th so that could be fun to sit out on during a warm day. 

would definitely recommend going for their happy hour (sunday to thursdays before 7pm and after 9pm)!

 

well we're do i start. the food is ok nothing special the prices are waaaay to much to the food you get.
and the best part you are limited in time so eat fast.
we were told to not to worry we still have 30 minutes to finish our dinner i have never been inrestaurantthat would limit me in time
so i would say i would not be back or recommend this place

extremely over priced for what is basically pub food and the 15$ cocktails were nothing special. also have never been to arestaurantwhere they charge you for tap water. won't recommend and won't be going back.

thisrestauranthas a great atmosphere, great drinks, and great food. the popcorn at the beginning is fantastic, and the dessert is amazing. the tempura kale is a must!!

i went to cleaver with 3 girlfriends and though i wanted to like this restaurant, i didn't like it as much as i'd hoped. i did like the décor and the environment, it's a smallerrestaurantso it has an intimate feel and is really cozy, and our server amy was really nice and helpful in recommendations. it was the food that disappointed me, or rather, the lack thereof? cleaver is a tapas stylerestaurantso things are meant to be shared, but i mean...i don't know how you can share it when the portions are oh so very tiny. i ordered the duck fat fries with truffle parmesan, which was the only decent sized dish i feel. they were very tasty too! i also ordered the grilled cheese with tomato dip, which was made with a piece of kale and gruyere, though good, very small. my girlfriends ordered the beef cheek ravioli, kale salad, beef tartare and a few others to share, and i don't think they managed to get more than a bite or two of each, and the prices did not reflect the portion sizes, they were still priced in the mid-high range. though the food was decent, i am not sure i will return.

i couldn't have been happier with my experience at cleaver.  i went in with a group of 16 people for my husband's birthday.  they gave exceptional service from the moment i called to make the reservation.  they were very accommodating without having any ridiculous rules regarding large groups as some restaurants have. 

our server recommended having the kitchen come up with a few different things for the table to share.  everything was amazing!  i especially recommend the beef tartare, kale tempura and the delicious butters they provide with their bread.  the entire group was very imposed with the dinner.  therestaurantis very cozy and welcoming as well.