Cravin Kitchen + Lounge — Restaurant in Toronto

A great place for a birthday dinner! I came here for my birthday on Saturday, February 3rd. It was a big group of us and all my guest said the atmosphere was lovely and the food was even better! From the moment I walked it the atmosphere was beautiful! Had a great aesthetic, nice music, and the staff were nice as well. I had the lounge section booked which was a nice area that was seperate from the rest of the restaurant but still close enough to see and be a part of everything.

The food: I started my night of with a drink called "the only saint" and it was amazing! The other guest has drinks and they said they liked it as well. We all started to order meals and with how busy the restaurant was the meals came in a pretty timely manner. It took about 30 minites-45 minutes for the food to come out. Everything from the appetizers to the steaks to the seafood were all so good! It had so much flavour!!! The have a pretty good variety of food which is great for everyone with different dietary needs.

The price of the food and drinks weren't too bad. It was pretty standard for a nice restaurant.

What I also loved about this restaurant is that they do a nice presentation for your birthday! They bring a cake out with sparklers and a sign that says "happy birthday from craving" the dj also played "In da club" also known as "go Shawty, it's your birthday" by 50 cent LOL. It was awesome! I definitely felt special!

The music: As a music lover I was looking for a place that I could have a great meal and also jam out after with my friends and family. I chose the right place when I came here. There was a great variety of music, hip hop, afrobeats, reggae and much more. What I loved is that they played the music at a lower tone with just CD playing or something and then at around 10pm or so the dj comes in and raises the music a little more which I feel is great as it creates the lounge/party vibe I wanted. The music was the perfect volume that you can vibe out but still could have conversations with the people around you. My guest and I actually got up and started dancing.

Overall this place is clean, washrooms were clean, had so many different places for photos, A great place to if you want to dress fancy and have a great night!

I must say that the managers/owners are also very sweet. I booked with Jessica and she is such a sweetheart. Very helpful and you can tell she really cares. She deals with things very well. Thank you Jessica for everything and helping to make my birthday...

UPDATE: The owner responded to my review, so I reached out to them again for a refund since I have no intention of returning due to their poor service. And guess what? I emailed them twice and received no response! If they truly don’t care, why even bother replying to the review in the first place?

Worst Experience Ever!

We had a 7:30 PM reservation and waited 20 minutes just to place an order and get regular water. We ordered both a starter and a main course together, but after an hour, all we got was six chicken bites after asking 3 times—while people who came after us were already eating.

The worst part? Between ordering and getting those bites, the staff came to confirm our order six times. Yet, we still had to wait. After another hour of nothing, we gave up and left at 9:30 PM without even getting our main course.

Tried talking to the manager, but she just laughed and smiled instead of apologizing. Other couples walked out too on valentines day, and despite all the chaos, they were still seating new customers like nothing was wrong.

Then, when we went to pay, they couldn’t even find our bill—took them another 15 minutes to sort it out. In the end, we paid $45 for tap water and six chicken bites, with no apology, no discount—nothing after two hours of waiting.

Never coming back. Don’t waste your time here!

Worst Experience Ever!

We had a 7:30 PM reservation and waited 20 minutes just to place an order and get regular water. We ordered both a starter and a main course together, but after an hour, all we got was six chicken bites after asking 3 times—while people who came after us were already eating.

The worst part? Between ordering and getting those bites, the staff came to confirm our order six times. Yet, we still had to wait. After another hour of nothing, we gave up and left at 9:30 PM without even getting our main course.

Tried talking to the manager, but she just laughed and smiled instead of apologizing. Other couples walked out too on valentines day, and despite all the chaos, they were still seating new customers like nothing was wrong.

Then, when we went to pay, they couldn’t even find our bill—took them another 15 minutes to sort it out. In the end, we paid $45 for tap water and six chicken bites, with no apology, no discount—nothing after two hours of waiting.

Never coming back. Don’t waste...

I would like to love this place, it’s walking distance from my house, but, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. We had dinner around 7 pm on a Friday night. There was only one other party of 4 for most of the evening.

We ordered drinks, my drink took about 10 minutes to arrive, however, I ordered a glass of pinot Grigio, I’m pretty sure I got a glass of Chardonnay. My guest’s drink, which was nonalcoholic, a Sprite, didn’t come until I reminded the server. It finally came 5 minutes later.

Our appetizer also took some time to arrive after we finally got our drinks. I do have to say, the chicken appetizer was delicious! In a spicy, tangy tomato sauce over fresh arugula and basil. 😋

As for the mains, my guest very much enjoyed the chicken burger, and the truffle fries were amazing!!!

As for myself, I am a French Canadian person who likes to experiment and try different things that I don’t make at home. I ordered asun 33, which is goat (I like goat but in my experience, goat was not deboned, not the case here!) which came with a side of plantains. I don’t like plantains, I asked if I could replace the plantains with any other side dish, the answer was no. I also overheard the other table questioning plantains on their plate when they had asked for a substitution (and they were not Caucasian! Seems like this restaurant is pushing plantains on everyone!) Very disappointing given that the plantains were by themselves on one side of the plate, and it was clearly not a stew type of dish where plantains were incorporated in the dish.

I would like to support this restaurant and the culture it represents but I can’t see myself entertaining a client or having a family function here because the service is too slow, especially on a Friday evening which should be a busy night, which it wasn’t, and because they are so rigid with substitutions.

I truly wish for the owners of this restaurant to truly decide who their target market is and how to appeal to them, because the food is fantastic, but, given the neighbour hood, some tweaks could be made to bring this restaurant to the next level.

I truly wish you, the owners/managers,...