A Cambridge landmark, this lively restaurant offers both inventive and traditional cooking, delivered in a casual yet elegant atmosphere. The restaurant's ambiance is comfortable and appealing, providing quality food, at the right price in an unpretentious way. Located on Hespeler Road, 2 sets of lights south of the 401, beside the Travelodge Hotel.
Food: continental cuisine, seasonal features, fresh fish, pastas, vegetarian friendly.
Features: premium beers on tap, wide scotch selection, extensive wine list.
Outside Dining on Southside Patio.
Private room for up to seventy guests.
Open year round.more...See more text
We visited on Sunday for brunch and to celebrate a birthday. We have been here before and loved it so decided to take our out of town guests here to celebrate. They were so impressed with the Blackshop. We had intimate seating for the 6 of us. Several in our group ordered the eggs benedict and they were delicious! Eggs were perfectly poached. There was live music which we really enjoyed. The volume was just right. We will be back again soon!
Last night I ordered their special; grouper. The dish cost $46 so I was hesitant. However, my husband talked me into it. The grouper was overcooked, and the barley was under-cooked.None of the flavours meshed. The worst meal Ive ever had at a restaurant. In fairness, I have always enjoyed my dunners there.
bf took me there for 30th just two of us for dinner. similar to the keg set up. dark with upscale modern decor. we sat inside, but the covered patio looked really nice
service good. server attentive but not disturbing.
bf ordered- fried calamari he loved them he ate entire plate to himself. his he the special as entre pasta with been shrimp and veggies. it was like the pasta version of surf and turf. he really enjoyed it but i thought the shrimps looked really small.
i ordered- sushi special- rice over cooked, only 6 pieces, but was at decent attempt at it. that's what you get for ordering sushi at this type of restaurant.
for an entree i had the most amazing beef tenderloin. i kid you not it melted in my mouth. full of flavour, juicy, beefy and just amazing. i would go back just for the tenderloin. a perfect cut dressed with fingerling potatoes and veggies. i also had it with a side of mushrooms. the sides were as expected, but the beef tenderloin was great. way better than the keg (which has gone downhill fast)
drinks- bf had beer- maybe sleemans? and i had Pinot Gregorio for California- great
good food we will return. exceeded my expectations- at least the beef tenderloin. so full we did not order dessert
My first visit to the Blackshop was for my husbands annual work party. We were a party of about 50 people.
The service was fantastic, I felt like my glass was never empty, there was always someone waiting in the wings to swoop down and attend to my every need. The dinner we had that night was a chicken dish with whipped potatoes and seasonal vegetable. The starter was a beautiful salad with fresh bacon and parmesean shavings. I left feeling very satisfied,every bite was a delight.
I have since been back and I have samples many of the menu items and every time I go I seem to leave with a New Favorite. The service never fails, from the moment you arrive there is someone there to attend to your every needs.
I don't know if it was the Live Jazz Trio, the melt in your mouth cooked to perfection foods or the wonderful wine, but every meal is a memorable one, I can taste it right now!
I have been to Blackshop a few times now. I am impressed with the food and the service. Wine service is great and food is wondeful. I recommend this place to all of my friends and everyone is impressed.
I hadn't been to the new location - it's funny, this is one of the best restaurants in the area, yet I rarely think to go there. The food is superb, the service is outstanding and the new location is modern yet comfortable. It's almost forgettable in its excellence, if that makes sense, but unfairly so. I'm sorry that I waited so long to revisit - I won't make that mistake again.
I went to Blackshop! on a Saturday night for my work holiday dinner. The restaurant wall facing Hespeler Road is quite deceiving, as the main entrance on the side is relatively much more extravagant. Our large group of 20 were seated in a separate room, however, I did see that the regular seating area appeared very modern. We were waited on hand-and-foot by two great servers. They were very friendly and knowledgeable about the dishes and wine list.
I chose the the Beef Tenderloin as my entrée from the set group menu. It was cooked perfectly as my per specific request of "mostly cooked with a slight hint of pink in the middle". This was by far one of the best steaks I have ever had - beats The Keg and Ruth's Chris any day. The steak came with asparagus, roasted potatoes, root vegetables, and a unique cooked red cabbage. I have never eaten this sort of red cabbage as a side - it was slightly caramelized and tangy and this matched the beef extremely well. My friend had the Baked Atlantic Salmon, which too was cooked to melt-in-your-mouth perfection. The salmon came with a "lobster and brie mashed with tobiko caviar and lemon beurre blanc" - need I say more - it raised the fish to perfection.
I have driven by this restaurant many a times and had never tried it, however, this experience has definitely turned me into a fan.
Great food and the daily specials are fantastic. Everything from the beef, to fish and even the burger are spot on! On business, I ate there 3 wks in a row.
We were celebrating an anniversary and we had a table of 18 people. First of all the decor is beautiful and the service is excellent. The two waitresses were very attentive and there was not a moment where we waited to long or our wine glasses were left unfilled. The food was also excellent we all ordered different meals and we ate everything. The steak tartar was delicious and the steak feature was also very good. Overall we had a great time and we will be back!!!
I was there for a business dinner last night and want to voice my concerns. First of all, we waited 20 minutes to order a drink so were not impressed off the bat with the service. However my main concern was the food. I ordered the veal and was surprised and confused when it came and it was white. I eat veal often when out and have never seen veal meat white. I took a bite and it didn’t taste like veal to me either and I suspected that maybe my order had been confused with something or someone else’s as it seemed to me that I had been served pork. I am not a fan of pork. I had my husband taste it and he agreed. We called over the waiter who then argued with me that it was in fact veal and that I was wrong. I found this to be very embarrassing especially in front of a group of people my husband was doing business with. Several minutes later a man whom I assume was the manager on duty, came to the table to again tell me that I was wrong. He then offered to get me something else but at that point the rest of the table was almost finished their meals and I didn’t want to wait for anything else to be made. I’m not saying that I am an expert, I could be wrong, but it looked and tasted like pork to me. Either way, I don’t think it is very good customer service to argue with someone at a table full of people. I was so embarrassed!
I left there hungry, embarrassed and positive that I will never eat at this establishment again.
I had visited the restaurant several times before the move and this was the first time at the new location. I feel that the move may have been a step backwards.
The old space had so much more character, and the staff seemed happier and provided better service.
The seafood in the paella was overcooked and tough and the pork was dry. The sides seemed to work alright but it feels like the creativity goes beyond what the cooks can handle.
I am sad to see this great Cambridge restaurant falling from graces.
Up and down for consistency. They have a young cooking staff that is allowed to venture out but they need a certain degree of oversight.
An example I had was a trout fillet served with a dill pickle salsa over a smoked potatoe salad. An intriguing combination but one that did not work on any level and should not have been served. The dill pickle salsa was horribly salty and bitter, absolutley heaped on and overpowering,a bad concept. The smoked potatoe salad the same thing very bitter and unappealing. It sounded good but just wasn't, why bother with an idea that tastes so bad ? The trout was prepared ok but the dreaded salsa killed it . This dish should have been subjected to review by the head chef before being allowed on a menu.
On the other hand some really creative and well prepared dishes have come out based on this same freedom to execute, a Skate Wing lunch dish comes to mind as well as the now defunct Chicken Livers in garlic cream with Fennel spiced Spaetzel.
Overall , kind of hit and miss, the new menu has strayed into pretention with chic sounding items not living up to the billing, far from the sound basics exhibited some several months ago. Sort of like radio, you sometimes need to wade through a lot of garbage to get to some gems.
I went with my boyfriend, who had ordered the salmon, which came with a sauce not at all similar to the one the menu said would accompany it. It was almost like they tried to make a seafood dessert. My salad was drowning in sauce. But at least the resturant is nice.
Food isn't anything special though.
We ordered oysters rockefeller as an appetizer.For the entree we had schnitzel and the seafood medley.The oysters were tasteless except for a LOT of salt.The schnitzel was just okay.The seafood was rather skimpy with 2 tough shrimp 2 mussels a very tiny amount of lobster(almost $40)The potatoes were very grainy.As some one else said they most likely were of the instant variety.The restaurant itself was attractive,modern with upscale ambiance.Our bill was $100.
every thing was great the atmosphere service that...
every thing was great the atmosphere service that was until the food came you would think paying 30 dollars per dish they would put some effort into it.. i don't think instant potatoes are a good idea.. maybe if thy hired a real chef instead of a group of high school kids thy just might make it worth the price.....
We had our staff Christmas Dinner at the Blackshop. The pace of service, quality of food and the hospitallity were all excellent.
I would recommend this restaurant to anyone!!!
The new restaurant is dramaticly improved from the previous. It is unfortunate that the food does not reflect that. If you are going to charge Toronto prices then you need to get yourself a better chef. All our food was cold and the service was very slow. Overall not impressed. The sadest part is they reaaly seem not to even care. Next time I willmake the drive to Toronto.
Celebrating a family member's birthday.
First time at the new location on Hespeler (been here twice before).
Congrats to the owners, they have dramatically improved Blackshop in terms of decor, ambiance, service and most importantly, food quality.
Our server was excellent, as was the bar service on their patio.
Food was also a big quality improvement (not that it was bad before) -- it's now a top-notch restaurant. High quality, fresh ingredients and the dishes hit the table piping hot. Nice!
We'll definitely be back.
My husband and I spent many a wonderful evening...
My husband and I spent many a wonderful evening at the "Old Blackshop" and I was very disappointed with the service and the food we received in December of 2007. On entering the new location for the first time, we were blown away with the atmoshpere and the decor...very chic, modern and refreshing...unlike any other restaurant in Cambridge. Our starters were perfect.....Calamari was crispy, caesar salad beautiful. We waited forever for our main. When it arrived, the strudel was stone cold and the lamb chops were burned beyond being edible. After sending both back, the strudel returned...obviously microwaved because the pastry was soggy..before the chops, which were still on the well done side and not as ordered. Other than the fact that this was a very special occasion for us, we would have been irate at this time, but we were enjoying the afternoon and our waitress seemed very apologetic. For that reason we decided to linger over coffee. I ordered an irish coffee, my partner a regular coffee. When i took a sip of the irish coffee I was shocked . The glass was rimmed with salt and not sugar. Appalling. And, my partner's coffee was old and stale. We filled out a comment card pointing out the lack of attention to the food. Maybe that was the problem...you paid more attention to your decor and new image and not enough on the quality of food you were serving.
The variety of seating is awkward, not very many...
The variety of seating is awkward, not very many intimate seats, its as if they tried to push in as much tables as possible first off. Our server for the evening was not attentive we had to keep flagging him down he walked by our table many times and never stopped to ask us if we were ready to order even though we had our menus closed and placed on our table ready to go.. The food although was delicous, the lobster nachos were out of this world! and my veal and my fiance's pork tenderloin was extrememly moist and tasty, although we were not offered better knives other than the butter knives placed on the table for the bread and butter so we had a hard time cutting our meat and the waiter barely came around so we never got a chance to ask for different ones. So the food is delicous but the service suxs and we will only go there for special occasions, as it is extremely expensive to have a 3 course meal.
