"Always Excellent, Year after Year!" I have eaten at Shakespeare's once a year for a business Christmas lunch for the last several years. And year after year, the food service and ambiance are all excellent. Chef Franco who has been at the helm for 42 years, knows a thing or two about steaks. For anyone who thinks the prices are too high, you must be still longing for the Ponderosa restaurants to come back. A great 12 ounce NY will cost $28-$40 in most good steak restaurants and a filet can be as high as $40-$45. What's most important however is that you are happy you spent that kind of money when you're eating your steak.And at Shakespeare, you will feel that it was money well spent. The steaks are always cooked exactly as you order them and very flavorful. They also has a nice selection of seafood and the waiter brings out a sample tray of the various kinds of fish they have. Although I have never had the seafood, it always looks amazing. The service is also excellent. The waiters are passionate about their work and are very attentive and always within a glance away. The ambiance is warm and "pub-like" and unlike most modern restaurants, they still use crisp white table cloths. While there may be other restaurants around, I doubt any of them have been at it for 42 years. read more

Shakespeare's Steak & Seafood - Candy bowl at the end of the meal - Seafood Near Me - Hamilton, Ontario

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I'm convinced it's the best steak house in Ontario period the best service beautiful restaurant great ppl family run great drinks great food not even the steak but the steak are by far greatest outside of Vegas love eating there read more

Service was great. Lovely wait staff. Medium steak was cooked blue rare with cold centre and by the time it came back the meal was complete and we asked them to wrap it up. Same filet just recooked to well done. Missed the mark twice. read more

Best steak house in Hamilton hands down . Period dot . Leo is fantastic, along with his family and staff , always look forward to a night here . read more

The Rib Eye cut was phenomenal and the restaurant ambiance paired perfectly. A classic to say the least. The decor is a throwback to the good ol days of dining that compels you and your guests to actually engage in a thriving conversation without the need to constantly check your phone. The wait staff are personable, friendly, efficient and very knowledgeable on the finer things in life. We booked a large table for a bachelor party and the restaurant closing time was 10oclock. To my surprise without rushing the meal in any way, Shakespeare's allowed us to stay, drink, laugh and enjoy ourselves an additional 2 hours til midnight! Leo thank you for your hospitality. I can't wait to return. Take the drive out to Hamilton fellow Yelpers you will not regret it. read more

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Went for business lunch, EXCELLENT! The restaurant, the staff, Franco all did a great job in welcoming a party of 4 as if we were family. Three of us had different types of meat, all prepared as ordered, one guest had fish same experience. My first time to Shakespeare's and it won't be my last. Thanks for the lunch and looking forward to my next meal at Shakespeare's. read more

We were invited out to dinner with a friend. We haven['t been there is years. We started with garlic bread and a tray of olives and pickles. We shared arugula salad with walnuts and it was delicious. Our friend had the same as us. He had onion soup, which was delicious. I order the salmon, with a baked potato and carrots and asparagus. My husband had a 12 oz steak, which he said was the best steak he has ever tasted. He also had a baked potato, loaded and veggies. Our friend had bison steak with grilled shrimp and lobster tales. He had a nice red wine. For dessert i had chocolate cake which was delicious, my husband had cheese cake, again delicious and our friend has creme brule, and cappachino. I had tea and my husband had coffee. Gino our server was fantastic. He pretty much gave us the entire menu, memorized. We were given a tiny sealed container for candies when finished. 5 out of 5 stars. The service was quick and very good as well. read more

Love this place. Took my 92yr old Nan and we were treated like royalty, seated right by the fireplace on a cold day and given an oversized glass of candy to tempt us after our meal. Food was outstanding, we even had the owner & chef come to our table to ensure we were happy. Will certainly be returning to Shakespeare's! read more

Wow. Exceeded expectations. Equal or better to the steakhouses I've been to in Manhattan.

This is an old school steak house ... for starters we had soup and the calamari, they were good. As entrees - 1 special veal chop and 1 special beef tenderloin on the bone which were on the specials list. Both are very large portions, good choice of sides. It irritates me when restaurants don't give you the price of the specials - I just want to know, menu items are priced! My sister had the steak with crab and said it was quite good. I had the ribs and would not recommend them (very chewy, I prefer more well done and fall off the bone). Service was good. We all said OK but not great, expensive. read more

Celiac review: we went to Shakespeares for a birthday dinner and had a great time. The service is top notch, and very helpful when I asked about GF options. I ordered the shrimp cocktail as an app and then the shrimp with rice, white wine and garlic and both were delicious! My husband ordered the dinner special of French onion soup, steak and tiramisu and he said it was excellent. read more

I consider my parents to be complete steak-snobs and one day we decided to venture to Shakespeare's in Hamilton to try it out. It's a halfway point between me and them and the ONLY way that you could possibly convince me to set foot in Hamilton. Normally for steak we head to Zorro's by the airport or Ruth Chris's downtown, both are great, mind you, but they lack in certain things (I will review those later :-)). We're greeted promptly when we walk in and we're seated by our extremely personable server. We order drinks, chocolate martinis (me and mom) and the black russian (dad). No scrimping with the alcohol here. Our pickle tray and garlic bread arrive next. How I love garlic bread!!!!! Fantastic!!!! Oodles of garlic and not so overtoasted that it shreds the top of your mouth to bits. Here's the next big test, how will the Caesar salad taste? Personally, for me, a good Caesar contains so much garlic it burns your mouth and you taste it for a week and it should have lots of creamy dressing. I gave this salad a 10 out of 10 and even my hard-to-impress parents were in awe. Mom and I order filet mignon and dad orders the prime rib (of course) and all are done perfectly, you could probably have cut your meat with a butter knife. At this point we're feel like we would have to roll out and I am secretly wishing I had a pair of drawstring pants. We still couldn't resist a glance at the dessert menu. Twist our arm will you? Mom and I split the chocolate mousse and dad, he goes for the apple beignets. Can you spell h-e-a-v-e-n? We were thrilled with out experience and have been several times and I am happy that this place has managed to stay around considering the whole downtown is a ghost town. One thing that I don't quite understand about steak and seafood restaurants? Why always male servers only? read more

I'll cut to the chase, this restaurant is great! Noticing it isn't 5 star? I try to compare each genre of restaurant with others that I consider to be in the same genre. We showed up at the restaurant without reservations, which is typical (I'm not the reservation type), and we were greeted with open arms. We were immediately seated in at a nice table by the window. I found the servers to be all very attentive, although I would have enjoyed another round of the garlic bread...had it been offered (even though I don't need it). The decor is a bit retro bordering out of date. The food: My dining companion and I both ordered the filet mignon...very unusual, most of the time we order different entrees so that we can try different things. We really enjoyed the filet, it was very tender. In addition to the filet, we were served mixed vegetables (steamed baby carrots, broccoli, and asparagus) along with our choice of starch (baked potato, home fries, or rice). My dinner companion chose the baked potato and I chose the home fries. We were both served the baked potato. I pointed out the error in serving and was quickly served the home fries. The filet was very tender, served as ordered, and quite remarkable for its taste. The vegetables were good but a bit over steamed for my taste, they were; however, perfect for my dinner companion's taste. The baked potato was...well, a baked potato, you can't really do much with a baked potato...other than screw it up. Then there were the home fries. The home fries were a bit unusual, they were a bit saucy and had a dose of red and green peppers. On the whole, I enjoyed them, not so for my companion. Finally there was desert! We chose to share the cold chocolate moose and i found it to be a delightful capstone to a wonderful dinner. As for wine, after looking at the wine list we decided that the best course of action would be to share a half carafe of Santa Carolina Merlot. As an aside, why is it that Canadian restaurants insist on populating their wine lists with wines that are both pedestrian and over priced? I am remarking upon this because, I have really not found an interesting wine list in a Canadian restaurant to date. Oh, and what's with all the one way streets in Hamilton...yikes!!!! read more

Best steak and seafood restaurant around. The food is amazing and the staff is excellent. For a nice night out...this is the spot!

Went for our anniversary. Very disappointed. King crab was frezer burnt. I should have complained but my wife looked happy so I ate it to not spoil our dinner. Beyond that the other items underwhelming including service read more

I love steak and when i saw this on yelp, i told myself i needed to try this place. First impression this place looks fancy. The customer service was awesome. The bad news was the food. I ordered calamari and prime rib. First off the calamari was soaked with oil, i know it was fried calamari but the plate was filled with oil which doesn't look appealing. For the prime rib, i asked for medium rare, but it was cooked medium well. The meat wasn't as tender as i thought it would be and it didn't have much flavor to it. read more

The one Hamilton restaurant I crave when traveling out of country. Reliably excellent.

In our opinion, this is the best fine dining restaurant in the Hamilton area. The service is great, and the food is always fantastic. We have dined at Shakespeare's at least twenty times and they have never disappointed us. Their garlic bread is out of this world and one could make a delicious meal out of that alone. My husband and I always order the Filet Mignon and they cook it to perfection (and anyone that knows me also knows that I am very fussy on how my steak is cooked) but they always manage to get it just right. The ambience and food is beyond compare and you really do get your money's worth at this establishment. read more

The Food? Pretty fantastic. We sampled a number of things from the menu (Steak, fish, chicken, lamb, lobster bisque) and the items were prepared flawlessly. I recommend the filet mingon. The service? NOT SO FLAWLESS. Our server was a DOUCHE BAG. Really. We almost walked out of there before ordering the wine because after we ordered our meal the server walked away and THREW down the menus with a bang. He interrupted my mother while she was explaining how she wanted her meat prepared, and was impatient with our party on the whole. We got the unmistakable impression that he was shuffling us out of the place as quick as he could. Never before have I dropped over $300 on a meal and been treated in such a rude and uncivilized manner. In sum, the food was great yet the server needed to be talked to. He seemed to forget he was in Hamtilton, not some world class dining city where pretentiousness and rudeness can be chalked up to the "charm" of high class dining. Our night was saved ouly by our indefatigable positivity and the fact that a different waiter intervened at the end of our meal with genuine considerateness and care. I reccommend Shakespeare's only if you're willing to be patronized by the help. HIT AND MISS. read more

We booked reservations here, yesterday evening, for dinner. Glad we did.. I've been wanting to come here and I finally did. The name of the restaurant said it all for me and the experience was very nice. The customer service was fun, funny and odd but very good. Me and my friend, trully enjoyed ourselves. We had a long chat about baseball and random stuff, with one of our waiters. The first waiter said "The food is good here, except for the customer service"...... ????? Why would you tell a young lady that? I found it a bit offensive at first but at the end of the night, we enjoyed our food and the customer service all together.. (that waiter never came back to our table, we ended up having 2 others). The Mexican waiter was very nice and courteous, when we left him and the other waiter, followed us out to the door, while chatting and saying goodbye. So that was that, anyways.. let's talk about the food! Here is what we ordered: Scallops with Bacon wrapped around it - It was good and salty.. a bit chewy but I'd gladly order them again. Oysters - I had these all to myself and they were Delicious. I recommend if you like oysters. Filet Mignon with rice and veggies - It was good and of course, very tender but it didn't wow me.. I found it average? I would order it again but I would also try other menu items. Pina Colada - It was good but I didn't care for it, so it wasn't that great but you can really taste the coconut, which was nice. Strawberry Margarita - I really like this drink and if I ever come here in the future, I'm definitely going for this one. It was made perfectly. I recommend this restaurant, I like it. The atmosphere is very relaxing and it has art and photos. I loved the dimmed lighting, even though it is a bit dark.. it sets the mode. read more

When entering the restaurant we were a little confused about the decor but the Shakespeare theme is kind of fun... I guess. Immediately after being seated, a plate of pickles, olives and feta cheese and garlic bread were served. Good but nothing special. We ordered the soup of the day and Caprese salad. Both good but again, nothing extraordinary. For the main we ordered a medium-rare 24 oz. prime rib steak. It came to the table medium (no red in sight) pink throughout. It was juicy and fairly tasty. We loved our waiter, Fraser who helped two young cool cats pick some wine and was very well versed in all menu items. Overall this restaurant was pretty good, Fraser was the main reason we would come back. Some of the other wait staff were not as friendly, perhaps because we were the youngest people in the restaurant. This place is pricy, but has some value as portions are decently sized, and premium items are served. read more

OMG , best steakhouse ever!! Been several times and always had the best service. Best steak and lovely time. Would recommend it.

Very good fine dining in Hamilton. The garlic bread is fantastic. Got the caprese salad, which was great. The buffalo filet was very decent. It tasted very similar to steak. I loved the apple beignets for dessert. Wow! read more

This our go to place for special occasions. Have been several times and always impressed with the service - would recommend reservations for Friday or Saturday evenings. As mentioned, decor is not contemporary - just what you'd expect from a old style steak house. Extensive wine list. Staff are knowledgeable about the list and can make recommendations for wine and food - I never feel like they are trying to sell me anything -they are truly trying to match my preferences with their food and drink options. Steak is so much better than the Keg, et al. read more

Went with a party of six for a holiday dinner. Service was good, but food was just ok. One of our party was served meat that smelled "off". By the time his dinner was recooked, everyone else had finished eating so he asked for his to go. Aside from the waiter returning 4 times to ask if we were happy, nothing was done to rectify the situation. He was still charged full price. We all left full but not satisfied. The meal wasn't worth the price. None of us will be returning. read more

Our waiter was great! The server was extremely short on manners matching his stature! The thick black hair on my food was horrific. I excepted their excuses and I wasn't charged for my fillet mignon though my nephew's spoiled dinner was worth $160. I paid being the only one left that could show some class. If you believe this is classy dining than you've been fooled! Shamespeares was shameless to say the least! read more