Braai House — Restaurant in Stratford

When looking for a unique place for dinner following an afternoon at the Stratford Theatre, the Braai House venue & menu certainly stood out! A South African-inspired restaurant in Stratford of all places? This we had to try!

It’s a popular place with both locals and visitors, so getting a reservation wasn’t easy. Our play finished at 5:00 pm but the first available reservation by the time we looked several days prior was for 8:30 pm. We took it, figuring that this was worth a three-and-a-half hour wait. And we were not disappointed!

Braai House is located up a long flight of stairs on the second floor of a building, over its sister restaurant, The Alley. It’s worth the climb!

The seating is comfortable, the atmosphere is relaxed, the service is friendly and timely. Electro-pop and other kinds of music play in the background not too loudly, at least not to the point where you can’t hear each other talk. All cooking is done on grills & pans over an open wood fire, with a wood-fired oven to one side for making pizzas. Seating is available on bar stools along a counter overlooking the kitchen so you can watch the chefs preparing the food if you like. We opted for the more comfortable seating at a dining table, but could still see the flames and kitchen activities from where we sat.

The menu is creatively divided into various sections. Sparks covers the appetizers. Combustion lists the main dishes. Pizzas is self-explanatory. And desserts are listed in the Embers section. Ingredients are primarily sourced locally.

We started with an appetizer called Bobotie, which consists of 3 curried beef & pork samosa accompanied by the tastiest chutney we’ve ever had, with a dollop of duck egg custard on top.

For mains, my wife opted for the half-rack of smoked ribs with South African BBQ sauce and pistachio dukkah and accompanied by another tasty chutney and a bowl of mashed potatoes with a wonderful crust on top. The meat literally fell of the bones and was incredibly tasty.

I went for the duck dish, not something you see every day on a menu. The smoked duck breast was so tender & tasty. Some grilled greens, a crispy, fried dough ball filled with savoury duck confit, and a dab of red peri-peri sauce made up the rest of the plate. It truly was outstanding! A Lekker Lager beer helped wash it down.

For dessert, we wanted to try the Koeksister, but they no longer had any. We went for the Malva Pudding instead, but it wasn’t that appealing to us. Kind of a dry muffin with some ice cream. But to each their own! Maybe you’ll like it :)

We will definitely be coming back to enjoy this unique place with its...

Visited Braai for the first time almost two years ago. The food was amazing. We were sat where they cook the food and it was such an interesting and inviting culinary experience. Ranted and raved to friends about this restaurant in the last couple years and were super excited for our reservation tonight to relive the culinary treat/experience. We arrived a few minutes before our reservation and there was a couple in front of us who also had a reservation. They were told to have a seat at the bar until there was a table ready for them. Thought nothing of this because we've been to plenty of restaurants that do this. We were then told to do the same until our table was ready. We were seated at the center of the bar and patiently waited to be asked by the bartender if we wanted drinks while we waited for our table to be ready. He never made eye contact and served the other couple that we were waiting at the bar beside two minutes after they sat down. Almost 10 minutes went by and we were not acknowledged at all. Finally that same bartender who had walked away threw two cocktail menus behind us in between myself and my fiance and said something along the lines of "here if you want to order something to drink" and then walked away again. A minute later the host said that our table was ready so we left the cocktail menus at the bar and went to sit at a table. Waited another ten minutes and once again weren't acknowledged even though 3 separate people that worked there walked by and didn't even get so much as a, "welcome we will be right with you". At this point we felt absolutely dejected and disillusioned as our first experience a few years ago was the complete opposite to this. I have worked in the service industry my whole life and would NEVER treat someone this way. We will never return here and I absolutely believe all of the other negative reviews of this place now. If you as a consumer read this review, please do yourself a favour and visit another Stratford restaurant and do not come here because you work hard for your money and don't need to waste it at a place like this with less than...

I first thought I wasn't going to post this because private non-franchise restaurants in Canada need boosting, not the kind of critique I am giving. Still I spent close to $300 for 3 people so it's worth a review. First, I know South-African cuisine. At its worst, it is a copy of old British and Dutch non-cuisine with a bit of spice thrown in. At its summit, it is a powerful hothouse of blends of spices from all around the world, India, China, Malaysia, Mauritania pushed into bland British ingredients to make them just amazing. I ordered biltong, boboti spring rolls, my colleague ordered a pizza funghi. This was underwhelming. The biltong were at the bottom end of flavor for South African biltong - and there were supposed to be two flavors on that board. The bobotie rolls were OK - which means a 3 out of 5 - because it just didn't pack enough typical South African flavor. We ordered monk fish, quarter chicken, and I ordered the Plant along with some boereworst. My companions were impressed with the fish and the chicken. I wasn't with the plant, which was supposed to be a vegetarian dish that I desecrated with boereworst (farm sausage), a sausage that again was very average. I had chosen it because it was the only curry on the menu. South Africa has loads of curries. This one was very disappointing. The veggies were undercooked: let me stress, I know crispy veggies which I love, and I know undercooked. This was the latter. My colleague confirmed the same with the monk fish veggies. Overall evaluation - why does a South-African place have so few curries? Bobotie is essentially also a curry dish, and I am stunned that a place with a pizza oven (which is not South African) would not use that to make some amazing personal bobotie dishes. Also, reminded here of the dichotomy within South Africa - the Afrikaner crowd which clings to British low-flavor dishes, and the melting pot South African crowd which celebrates spice. This place is definitely on the low end of flavor. Nice atmosphere, nice service, but disappointing in delivering full...