Cork & Cleaver Steakhouse — Attraction in Lexington

I really wanted to like Cork & Cleaver. I made reseravations for my wife and I to eat @ 5:30 on Sunday. We were promptly greeted and seated. Our server was attentive and came over to us quickly, she was very pleasant. She told us about the half off bottled wine special during happy hour, which we took advantage of and ordered a bottle of Orin Swift. Little did we know that this would be the highlight of our evening. We ordered the japanese fried chicken as an appetizer which was good, the chicken was tender and the dish was flavorful, not spectacular but good. My wife settled on the 8oz filet and shrimp, cooked MR, for her entree, I opted for the 16oz strip with a large scallop, cooked MR as well. Our server came by prior to our entrees being delived to bring us a steak knife, although she did not remove our butter knife, appetizer, app plates or any of our used silverware, which we had completely finished with. Our entrees arrived and the food runner just stood next to the table while my wife and I had to move all of our old plates and silverware out of the way so he could put the food down. The presentation of the food was nice and the steaks were cooked properly to temp which we discovered when the food runner asked us to cut into the middle of our steaks to ensure proper doneness. Everything seemed fine and we began to eat. After our first bites we found the food to be a major let down. I started with a bite of scallop, which was cooked with proper doneness but lacked a crust. It was incredibly over seasoned, the chef had caked the scallop in salt and pepper destroying the delicate flavor of the scallop. I chalked this up to ordering seafood in a steakhouse and decided to start on my steak. The steak had the opposite problem, there was no seasoning whatsover. I'm not sure what their process is for preparing a steak but it seemed like they had completely missed the step of adding even a little salt to the meat prior to cooking. It was so bland that I had to order some chimichurri and maitre d' butter to try to add something to the steak. The chimichurri was overpowering so I used it sparingly with the butter. My wife 's filet suffered from the same issue from a seasoning stand point but in addition it was probably the toughest filet I have ever tried. Again, I don't know if this was a preperation issue or perhaps the cut but this was the worst filet I have ever eaten. She added 4 shrimp to her steak, the were ok but overcooked and chewy, about what I would expect if had ordered shrimp from a chain restaurant. And please understand that in a high end steak house I expect that the flavor of the meat is supposed to be the star, I don't expect to have a heavily seasoned steak that covers up the flavor of the meat. I do however expect for the chef to use some seasoning to at least accentuate the flavor. I also expect a nice cut that is not tough and chewy, especially for a filet. Lastly, although our server was relatively attentive it took a very long time from when we received our check to have it processed. Not once did a FOH manager come by to see how our meals or experience were, the only people we worked with were the hostess, server and food runner.

Overall we were disppointed in the food and the level of service. It did not meet the boasts on the website of a "Premiere dining experience", this was not a professional level staff, which you would expect when paying over $200 for a 2 person meal. Our experience left us feeling like we would never return and sadly I cannot reccommend Cork & Cleaver outside of maybe going for a bottle of wine...

Me and my family of 4 decided to have dinner here on an idle Thursday night. We arrive at 6 pm and were greeted by a server assistant who pleasantly watered our table. Shortly after we were greeted by our server Jackie who takes our cocktail orders. We ordered 3 titos dirty martinis and 1 espolon margarita; she writes it down, then a minute later comes back asking what “escaron” is to one of the people that ordered a martini. I then answered “um espolon? A salt rim espolon margarita”. This immediately kicked off the type of service we were going to experience the whole night.

We ordered the fried Japanese chicken and the pimento cheese appetizer. Both of the appetizers were good and the food runner was pleasant. Possibly the highlight of the evening.

We then ordered a bottle of wine for dinner. She proceeds to present the bottle at the table. As she is cutting the foil she to ask if it’s okay if she takes the bottle away to open it because the table is too high to lean on. Needs to be trained on wine opening protocol.

Our food was subpar. We ordered 2 filet mignons cooked medium. A strip cooked medium rare, and lamb chops cooked medium. One of the filets were cooked medium rare, the other cooked medium well. One of the filet sides were asparagus which seemed like a small serving compared to the fries that were ordered on the other entree. The asparagus was flavorless. The strip was ordered with broccolini which unfortunately was flavorless as well. The lamb chops were good, the potatoes and carrots were undercooked. We did order a side of mac and cheese and it was really good.

As we finished our entrees, our server was missing for at least 20 minutes. Thankfully, Brandon saved the day by coming by and pre-bussing our table and telling us the dessert menu and continued to check on us after realizing our neglect. After not seeing our server for around 20 minutes, I had to get up and go to the bar to order our next round of drinks. Caroline was so accommodating and took our drink orders and even came around the bar to hand deliver them to us as well. Needless to say Caroline and Brandon were one of the few highlights of our night.

I had high expectations for this restaurant, i really wanted to rave about it. The restaurant is beautiful and maybe if we had better service i would give it another shot. After spending $380 i expected a more upscale dining experience. I really wanted to support this local business but i think they have some things to improve. Hopefully i will be writing a more positive...

Very impressed! Party of 6 for dinner at 6pm on a busy holiday Friday night. We made reservations about a month ahead. Got there 5 mins early and seated early. Cannot say enough good things about the service. Our waiter, Brandon, was top notch! The entire staff takes care of you. Constantly paying attention to removing glasses and plates, but not in an annoying way. We waited just a touch long for our drinks, but they were worth it, the bar was packed and so was the restaurant. We had Espresso Martini's, Titos and cranberry, 10 yr old rare bourbon ol'fashions and a nice bottle of Italian red and bud light in a bottle. Their Bourbon list is extensive and the wine list was above average. The appetizers were off the chain good! We had fried oysters rockefeller, japanese chicken and steak bites. there was not a bite left! We ordered the Scallops over rice, Ribeyes, Dry aged Ribeyes and Filet mignon. The crispy brussels were very tasty!! There was a bit of a wait for the entrees, but we didn't mind, it was nice to actually DINE with our friends, not rushed in and out! Like I said the entire staff tends to your needs, as multiple times other servers and management would bring our drinks or food to the table or check on us to see if we were all set. The portions were great. We left with to go boxes. Must try the rosemary truffle fries, get the family sized portion for the table! The drinks were very well priced, $4 for a bud light and $7 for titos, rare bourbon drinks $18 and under $50 for a bottle of wine that they sealed for us so we could take home what we didn't drink. The ambiance was exactly what we were looking for, fancy but not stuffy, nice lighting and smooth jazz at a good volume. It has a Big City vibe that...