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Bar Kismet

4.5 (48 reviews)
Closed 5:00 pm - 12:00 am (Next day)

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PEI oysters
Natalie C.

My review is solely on the food and not drinks, therefore some might not consider this as a "full experience". We ordered oysters, chicken mousse pate and carrot with crab meat to start. I ordered halibut cheek as my main, as this is something I never seen in Toronto. My mom ordered the cod fish. The oysters were from PEI, fresh but not super plump. Overall, they tasted pretty good. The chicken pate was presented beautifully - piped on a slice of sourdough! The flavouring was on point. The balsamic vinegar glaze added a nice finish to it. All components of the grilled carrot with crab meat served on the bernaise sauce complemented each other very well. The main dishes were overly salty, especially the halibut cheeks. I think they salted the halibut too early amd therefore the salt drew out the water content of the protein. This caused the fish to be on the hard/firm side and therefore the fish lost the slightly buttery texture. It was my first time eating raw snow pea shoots - it was tossed in olive oil, coarse sea salt and a hint of lemon juice. The cod itself was not overly salted, however the salsa verde was very salty. The good thing is that the verde could be easily brushed. The potato cake/hash brown was good. Overall, I'm a bit disappointed with the flavoring of the food, but the ingredients are fresh.

Carrots and Crab
Christopher C.

Relaxed vibe, local feel with adventurous food and drink. Worth a trip but be prepared not to like everything. The menu is small too so would not recommend for vegetarians or picky eaters.

Raw oysters served with horseradish and onion vinegar sauce
Josiah K.

This tuna tartare had a very unique delivery system. The seasoning on the top allowed me to mix it on my own and allowing it to maintain an excellent texture. The tuna tasted fresh and was overall an excellent part of the meal. The fries reminded me of Hickory Sticks due to the thin texture and was such a refreshing touch to the generic side of fries. Crispy, savoury, yet not dry. The gnocchi was my main dish and was one of the best I ever had. The pasta itself was silky and enveloped the sauce almost perfectly. The burnt walnuts added an extra level of flavour and allowed for a richer and nuttier taste to the dish. The raw oysters were the showstopper of the night. Not only did the oysters taste fresh out of the ocean, but it also came with horseradish to cleanse the pallet and onion infused vinegar to complement the appetizer. As far as service goes, my table's server went above and beyond to cater to our needs. We mentioned that we were visiting from out of town and he provided excellent recommendations. Even when I stepped away from my table, my server folded my napkin again when he saw it was in disarray. Towards the end of the meal, we struck up an excellent conversation about the history of the restaurant. The overall experience at the restaurant was wonderful. It had a very cozy yet classy feeling to the whole place. 5 stars for this wonderful restaurant.

Bread
Dominic D.

Over our Halifax holidays we've focused on food and drink, and this place was tied for top of the list. Overall an amazing dinner, great ambiance, and good service. Highly recommend everything we tried, and would return again if we could. Food: We started with Raw Oysters (small dish but packs a delicious punch; toppers are flavourful and overpower the oyster itself; still recommend), bread (standard but well priced; few "dipping" dishes), and Tuba Tartare (toppings are potent and you mix them in to your liking, including an aioli with matches the skinny fries it's served with; recommend). The mains were Carrots, Crab and Bernaise (strongly recommend; best dish of our trip; not as sweet as expected, but so so good) and Grilled Perch (strongly recommend; umami, with possibly pickled celery giving sour notes to compliment a minty/cilantro chimichurri on the perch). Dessert was strawberry rhubarb eclair (simple but creamy and delicious). In general I will say celery and salt are common ingredients, but I loved it. Drinks: We love complex drinks, so while all were delicious, our favourite were Approaching ease (tangerine sweetness to offset herbal feature of gentian and fur) and Pinkshinyultrablast (favourite of the night). Others were Badge of Honour, Mint Condition (least complex, but good to balance heavier Bitter Optimist), Bitter Optimist (old fashioned style; cherry came through at the end), and King of Impracticality (clarified drink; dessert drink that's coconut forward).

Daniel A.

An unforgettable meal that matches up to its hype. Bar Kismet is a culinary hotspot with a variety of unique dishes to choose from. The tuna tartare is to die for, and I don't typically enjoy raw fish/meat. The chorizo stuffed squid was incentive and delicious. Unfortunately, the rapini orechiette was bland and priced 2x what it should have been - though beyond this, everything else was spot on!

Bar Kismet.

Excellent service, great ambience. Cocktails were different and really good. The food! Just wonderful. Great flavours. The Big Salad was a revelation. Great scallops, oysters. A real treat. They went out of their way to make us welcome. Highly recommended.

Cranberry cake & creme anglais
Jason T.

First night out in Halifax and Bar Kismet was one to remember. Ambience is cozy with lots of cute plants. Service was quick and attentive. But the food... I can only say WOW. We ordered everything to be shared (seems like this is how it was meant to be). Started off with two smaller dishes. The tonnato melt and the tuna tartare. I could not put down my fork for the tartare. We then got a bigger dish. The halibut with corn and chanterelles. I wanted to lick the sauce off the plate. We then got some dessert (a cranberry cake and a fruit galette/tart). We also decided to try some of their semi soft cheese with the dessert. If you're hesitating about getting the cheese, I would just say get it. It's well worth it. Overall an amazing experience and we will be back the next time we're in Halifax.

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9 years ago

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7 years ago

Just amazing. Food, service, and ambience were exactly what I wanted and more. So happy to have found this place.

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The Narrows - Narrows house

The Narrows

5.0(1 review)
0.2 kmNorth End

I can't believe The Narrows Public House isn't here in Yelp, and I may regret adding it. This place…read moreis a special dining experience. Even though we knew about where it was, we walked right past the beautiful two-story historic house initially. We knew by taking a look at the website they do not accept reservations, which was fine with us. We were, however, going on a Friday night. On walking into the main entry, that space was packed wall-to-wall. Within a few short minutes, one of the staff greeted us. They don't exactly have a formal wait list here, from what I could tell. The staff member offered us the drinks menu and asked if we'd like to order something while we waited on a table. We ordered up a couple of pints, then looked around for some open space to stand. They have two standing bar rails, one in the main area near the bar itself and another one in the middle dining area. This place has about the most creative layout of booths and tables I've ever seen. They do have an outdoor patio out back, but we didn't take a look at that. They have quite a few very comfy two-person booths around the interior. It appeared the way the wait list worked was that they either have a phenomenal memory, or they actually use the bar tab you open to work like a wait list. It seems to really be more about how many you have in your party, and the exact size of any tables/booths that open up. We might have waited about 30 minutes or so for our table for two up in the front of the main dining room. Every single person on the wait staff here is amazing. Let me just get that out of the way. The beer list is great, loaded up with so many good local and Nova Scotia craft beer options. The food menu is what really makes this place special, though. We were on vacation, so we may have a tendency for our eyes to be bigger than our stomachs can handle. There was just so many amazing looking dishes. We started out with a pickle jar, fried taters, and the tomatoes appetizers. I have to say, and my wife agrees, the tomatoes dish was the best of everything we had. Its made up of sliced cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, shallots, capers, and garlic chips. All that is sitting on top of creme fraiche. By the time you're finishing the dish, you start thinking about a straw to finish up that creme fraiche. Good grief, that was so good. Don't pass on the fried taters, though. Those seemed to be mashed potatoes formed into rectangular big fries, cooked almost like panko and served with horseradish sour cream. After all that, we could only muster splitting the deli style chop salad with cold water shrimp on it. Our great waitress talked us into an order of the brown bread, a very soft kind of Irish soda bread I believe. That bread just melts in your mouth. If you decide to venture out to The Narrows, you're in for a total experience. You'll feel like you stepped back in time to a real British pub... the house must be from somewhere around the mid 1800s. Every room is warm and cozy, with beautiful woodwork and curious antiques in all sorts of nooks and crannies. You may have quite a long wait depending on the size of your party and how busy the place is, but trust me... its worth every minute.

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The Narrows - Narrows drink menu

Narrows drink menu

The Narrows - Narrows sign out front

Narrows sign out front

The Narrows - Narrows dinner menu

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Narrows dinner menu

Charlie's Club

Charlie's Club

4.2(9 reviews)
1.0 kmNorth End
$

Charlie's is a pretty chill place to go hang out and have a few beers…read more The crowd can be a little rough around the edges but I guess the university throngs have pretty much pushed the average drinking man out of every other bar in Halifax. Pool tables are a nice addition... I wasn't really sure what the $2 cover was going towards besides upkeep? A grungy/funky spot in the North End that's for sure!

This is not a tourist bar, unless you are a linoleum architecture tourist, or a $2.75 tequila shot…read moretourist, or a tourist of watching tight knit groups of locals sit around in circular formation. Charlie's is where you go when you want to go to Cheers. (Not the Cheers on Grafton St., the Cheers on TV according to your 6 y/o mind, which is really just the the theme song, fuzzy visuals, and conflating real life people with Cliff and/or Rhea Pearlman.) In short, it's where you go when you come home nostalgic and want to see all your old friends, enthusiastically buy each other drinks like it's a genuine gift, dance to one of those weird new electric blue jukeboxes, shout and pontificate around a pool table, and generally have a back slappin, squeezey hugging, chortling little time. The decor is like any affordable house, only the door has a key code and a woman sits at a table with a guest book when you come in. This does not make you feel cool, but it does make you feel like life is funny. The bartender is so used to over-friendly drunk patrons that nothing can melt him. I imagine that deep in his core is something more kind than anything I have ever known, but it is too precious to be shared. The last time I came here, someone apologized for asking me to dance when I turned him down. Apologized. For my rejecting him. A dark little mineshaft to the salt of the earth this place is, lemme tell ya.

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Charlie's Club
Charlie's Club
Charlie's Club

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Bar Kismet - bars - Updated May 2026

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