Smash Kitchen and Bar — Restaurant in Markham

Came here w/ my gf on easter weekend last year. We dodged the dinner rush as we arrived slightly earlier due to markville mall closing earlier than normal.

The plaza is just west of the unionville train tracks. This plaza actually never looks full surprisingly enough and the resto is stuffed in a lil cove in the plaza.

The interior of the resto is beautiful though. There's double bar seating and big booths inside. We were seated instantly without a reservation.

There's a rotating daily/weekly special menu and a regular everyday menu. I was SUPER tempted to order the roasted lamb and chicken biryani off the daily special menu but alas, my gf doesn't like lamb and I wanted her to be able to partake in all the food.

Our server was really friendly and helpful (even though I forget her name). She topped off our water constantly and always came around to check on us.

Seafood linguine: There was a lot of seafood running through the dish so for $30 I'd say they could justify it. It was bordering just ENOUGH on not being good value though. There was a good amount of seafood but ironically, there was too little pasta. The rosé sauce was chef's kiss though and the shrimps were cooked perfectly.

Buttermilk fried chicken: I usually like my food very well-seasoned but even I had to agree w/ my gf that while the chicken was very moist and crunchy, it was too salty (most likely due to being brined in the buttermilk for too long). The mac n cheese was the sleeper "smash" hit for me though (pun intended). It was a very gourmet mac and it's not a surprise since I see it in almost everyone's review here on yelp. The pickled cucumbers were great to help cut through the richness of the chicken but honestly, why can't they just give straight up pickles? That had me scratching my head haha.

Bread pudding: For dessert we opted for bread pudding which was listed on the daily specials menu. We were deciding b/w the bread pudding and the chocolate toffee cake but since we could always come back for the toffee cake we opted for the bread pudding. The bread pudding was a showstopper for sure. Came out with michelin star plating and the bread was still warm! It was served with chocolate ice cream and nutella drizzle. I love desserts with the hot and cold contrast so for me, this dessert was an absolute winner.

All in all, the resto is kinda pricey but some items were an absolute home run. I'll be back in the future to try other items since the menu's pretty big. The bbq brisket grilled cheese was calling out to me and I also want to try the brunch menu and see if it stacks up to its sister resto, NextDoor on...

You'd think that after living in a town for years that I would have a strong grasp of most of the bomb dining in the area. Guess not, because the folks at Smash Kitchen & Bar know what they're doing.

A group of maybe 20+ of us went to Smash on a Monday night for dinner. Surprisingly, considering the day of the week, the place was super active. (Apparently, I'm the last one in the city to come here.) Thankfully, Smash has plenty of space and seating, so our group was easily accommodated. You'll find regular dining seating as well as bar seating and TVs, so I suppose you could head over to watch the game. (Though in my trashy opinion in this regard, I like to watch sports in less upscale environments. Weird? Probably.) The general vibe of the place is upscale bar, but still rather casual.

On to the food! Since there were so many of us, I got to see a large variety of what they serve. Holy mother of Jesus, do these guys know how to plate stunning dishes! When they were placed on the table, it was the food equivalent of walking into a room of models, minus the sexual attraction. I'll skip the description. Just look at photos. But how does it actually taste you ask? After much deliberation, I ordered the Smash Burger. Friends who had already been to Smash suggested several items, but I was smitten by the idea of the Smash Burger, which is apparently prepared with tiny cubes of butter distributed through the patty. (I cannot 100% guarantee the validity of that claim.) For about $17 I was served up two beef patties, sandwiched between a brioche bun, with cheddar cheese, whatever Smash Sauce is, lettuce, pickles, and onion chips. The burger also comes with a side, (sweet potato fries for me), and dip. Aside from being beautiful, the burger was wonderfully satisfying. It's not as if I could discern whether the mystery cubes of butter existed, but boy was the patty pleasantly moist. The onion chips gave the burger a welcome crunch, and the Smash Sauce did it's flavourful work. For someone who has been on a Best Burger tour of Toronto, I can't say that this burger broke any records, but I can say that the Smash Burger is close to as good a burger that you're going to get without stepping more outside of the box in terms of typical burger ingredients.

The staff at Smash are gracious and generally fantastic, the food looks and tastes beautiful, and the decor and setup is well thought out. This is one of those would-be 5 stars, but on the knock-my-socks-off scale, my socks were firmly on....

I made a reservation for 3 for Sat brunch. Two of us arrived early, a server was at the desk, just smiled and walked away. It was slightly awkward but another server was happy to help and took us to the table. The restaurant had enough staff and was not busy. Restaurant atmosphere is standard.

We were greeted by our server and both of us ordered a coffee to start. Our friend arrived after and we had quite a long conversation after deciding what we wanted. I decided to not wait for the original server for the table and I asked another server for help to take our order. She gladly took our order and then the original service returned immediately. She indicated to us that she was the server and that we had to repeat our order to her. I found this rather rude and inefficient especially when she was not attentive to our table. She also was not the server who brought us the meals (there were multiple servers and all of them seems to be more attentive to us). In fact, it was all of the other servers that made the service rating a 2 star instead of a 1 star.

Throughout the whole meal, she only checked on our table once. As I was finishing my plate, she came to the table to let us know that there is another reservation after us. This is very odd because there were many tables that arrived much earlier than us and they were there even after we left. There were also many empty tables. My friend looked at the time immediately and it was exactly only an hour since our reservation. What is the rush?

As for food, we all shared a little of everything and we all had similar comments:

Dripped coffee – we are all coffee drinkers; some of us are regular specialty coffee drinkers so we knew to lower the standards for regular coffee. The coffee was lukewarm and stale. Although bottomless, it is only worth it if you are literally drinking it as water.

Latte – no attempt in art, it came out to be a cappuccino. If you offer this on the menu, give some training or some general documented procedure so the staff can do this properly

BBQ brisket benedict: very normal brunch type item; it was good but nothing spectacular Fried chicken sandwich: Smaller than I expected but overall it was good Pork belly benedict: very normal brunch type item; it was good but nothing spectacular

Overall, for the service and the price, I agree to others that there are many other...