Beautiful spot in the north end! It has a romantic type vibe to it and is the perfect date night spot! The carrots and crab and tuna tartare we both excellent dishes with a variety of ingredients. This place did have a lot of unique dishes to try and experience, however it is more of seafood centred place and there weren’t as many vegetarian options available. The staff were attentive and accommodating to our needs and made an effort to make us feel welcome. We will definitely be back!
Very small restaurant, with only few people working, very warm comfy vibe, almost like a family style but with delicate decors. The food is remarkable, I especially enjoyed the crab&carrot dish, 10/10 recommend. Another couple highlights on the food are: the sour cream with horseradish that presented in the grilled mackerel dish, and the handmade fresh pasta. Unfortunately didn’t get to try the drinks but will definitely be back for the drinks.
I have to mention that our server Gabe was attentive, knowledgeable, sophisticated, friendly, and professional. He is able to tell me all the ingredients from the sour cream and make essential recommendations which we ended up really liking.
10/10 recommend, since we almost had everything on the menu, I’m excited to see what the new menu will bring to the table.
The food was very delicious, would highly recommend if you’re in the area. One thing to nitpick was the tuna tartare - the fries seemed out of place and something crunchier & larger like toasted sourdough would’ve fit the dish better. On the other hand, the squash crown and scallops were amazing, I would highly recommend it to anyone who comes to Bar Kismet. It was a lively atmosphere, but there were times it got slightly loud.
We went on a weekday (Thursday), right at opening (5pm) and able to get table for 2 for 2 hours. Walk ins seem very limited and reservations are recommended. All of the dishes (carrots, grilled mackerel, olives, ahi tuna, scallops) especially the scallops- were incredible. Service and atmosphere were also lovely.
First and foremost, this is a classy bar with amazing food. When judged as such, it excels in most everything. The cocktails are unique and interesting, the spirit list is among the best in the country, service is amiable, and the food is absolutely delectable. However, we specifically came because of it being selected as a top 15 restaurant in Canada. With this in mind, there were a few shortcomings hence the four star review. Our cutlery was never changed out, you're only slotted two hours (even if you're spending), there is no espresso machine, and they don't take Amex. These might be small things for most or even petty to others, but in my mind if you're trying to compete with the best in the country then every box needs to be checked. I'd certainly recommend Bar Kismet to friends and come back for sure, but I am making this review with the #12 selection in mind and for that, I cannot give five stars faithfully.
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Decided to book our final meal while on vacation here, and it did not disappoint!
Drinks:
If you love cocktails, you'll love this place. The are always rotating what's on the menu so there is always something new to try. We tried 4 of the cocktails and liked them all. My only critique is that the key lime and peele drink was labeled as a Bourbon sour, but did not have an egg white foam on top which would have made it look like the meringue on a key lime pie!
Service:
We were sat at a table inside, but asked to go out on the patio and they accommodated. Our sever was attentive and our water was always refilled. They were able to direct us on what drinks we'd like based on our taste preferences and answered our questions about the food menu.
Food:
If you aren't a fan of seafood, there will be less food options for you, but what they did have was really good. Our favorite bites were the duck egg, the marinated goat cheese, and the agnolotti pasta. So good. We have the cilantro sucks gene, and they put the salsa verde that came on the side so we could try it and see if it tasted soapy. They also coursed out or food well, so we weren't overwhelmed with all of our dishes at once. My main critique for the food is that the bread you can order is just bread. No butter. Butter would have been nice!
If you are a foodie, you must eat here. This was our second time at Bar Kismet and we were blown away yet again. You can (and we did) spend a whole 2+ hour dinner just talking about the food: The unique combination of flavours and textures, the plating, and even the creative cocktail names. Menu is adjusted every week - Fun to eat at a place where the chef and bartenders are clearly enjoying the creation of new items. Attentive service, great atmosphere.
Also, although the reservation is for a 2 hour slot, we were not asked to leave after 2 hours (we were finishing up our desert at that time, left when we were done). A previous review noted this as a downside to the restaurant, but my take is that this is just written in case they did need to ask a lingering table to head out if they were all finished. (It is a business, after all!)
The gnocchi and leek salad stole my heart! Dillion was such a great host/baretender and made the best suggestions for our night. I was happy we were able to get a reso, since my last visit we were not able to get a table. Love the atmosphere and the greenery surrounding the restaurant.
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I thought FOR SURE that this place would disappoint me because… how could it be THAT good? Well it just is.
I asked my waiter for the wackiest cocktail on the menu and he recommended For Whom The Bell Sotols without hesitating. I was skeptical because I saw another review saying to avoid that drink specifically…. Well I need to stop reading reviews before going to restaurants (and so do you!!) because I ordered it and I LOVED it.
The food was incredible. We ordered 5 dishes and there wasn’t a single dud (except 1 actually… which I will mention later). Our favourite was the carrots, crab and béarnaise.
Atmosphere is super cozy and not too loud.
Our waiter was super attentive, it’s like he could read my mind when I wanted another drink or we were ready to order desserts.
Speaking of desserts… maybe don’t order the maple pie if you have any crown/implant/root canals as it was INCREDIBLY sticky and might just rip it out. It almost felt like we were eating semi-dried glucose syrup which is not the most appealing experience, texturally.
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One of Halifax’ s best restaurant.
I really enjoyed my dinner. The restaurant is very cozy and pretty. Service was very good during our meal. We ate as starters the radicchio and the arancini. Very good quality, fresh ingredients, perfect portions. The three wines we tried were also excellent. As main courses we took gnocchi and ragù pasta. We thought the chef was Italian but she comes from Montreal. Congratulations the dinner was overall excellent. On a sad note, we had a reservation for two and we tried to call the restaurant to add a third person. Nobody replied, so we tried Instagram. No responses. That was quite inconvenient so we stayed positive and went there anyway with the third person hoping it would be possible to add an extra chair. When we arrived there, the response was a firm “no”, because it was full. However, the table next to us had an extra chair it could have been easily used to accommodate us. I was quite disappointed, especially because we tried to contact them several times and it was impossible to reach out.
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