SOCO Kitchen + Bar — Restaurant in Toronto

Beautiful restaurant with food that lacked an identiry. That's the first thought I had as I set my fork down.

I was just in tonight for a work dinner prior to a Raptors game. We were entertaining out of town colleagues so we made a reservation for six. Entering through the hotel entrance is confusing as there is no host stand. So we informed the first person to walk by that we were here. "I'll tell the host", Great. Thanks! There really should be a host stand at both entrances.

Our server was good an attentive (with one exception), water was full, drink orders were taken and prompt.

We ordered our starters, multiples of everything for the table. I have to say, it took a long time to hit our table, but was very good when it hit. We had a charcuterie board (plate) that was big and had a tasty selection. We also had the grilled calamari which was good but sparse, the tuna was very tasty & I didn't have a chance to have the arancini but they looked good.

The time between starters and mains is where the let down really happened. Our mains weren't even taken for order before our starters, we had eaten most of the starters before orders were in. This was a let down as it took again a very long time for our meals to come out. While it was busy, it was not that busy.

My main was a let down. I ordered the duck leg confit with a cassoulet stewed onion, a sweet jam of sorts and there were supposed to be lardons. Starting with the best, the jam and the cassoulet were very good, on it's own it would have been an interesting, balanced dish. The lardons were not there unless I missed them, but I was looking for them! The stewed onion, very good. The duck leg really needed some work. The meat of the leg was not the beautiful stringy fall off the bone you expect from a confit, there was no fat rendered from the leg, in fact there was a good 1/4 CM of fat under the skin. I peeled the skin off because I could not eat it. It was covered in what I can only describe as an ultra sweet BBQ sauce, which when paired with the fat under the skin made it rubbery. This was the frustrating point for me. The whole dish could have been redeemed by a crisp and salty skin!

Overall the duck leg confit, as I said needs some serious refinement. It's trying to do far too much with what amounts to preserved meat. Overloaded with sweet elements and let down by a lack of umami or salt, there is a definite imbalance in the dish. The little green salad placed on it, but it didn't add texture, freshness or a shot of vinegar that the dish desperately needed to bring it to life.

For the rest of the table, I heard 2 of 3 loved their burgers, one didn't. The other duck leg looked similar to mine but I didn't hear how they liked it, the steak "was a steak" and by far the winning dish was the chicken. It looked amazing and would be what I ordered if...

If I could give this place a rating of zero I most definitely would. Reservations were booked for Soco approximately 2 weeks ago, upon arrival we were seated at a table clearly not meant to accommodate 7 individuals. When I arrived, I spoke to a manager asking why there wasn’t a table to accommodate when a reservation was made well in advance, he apologized and moved us to another table, great. The waitress we had, although she seemed like a lovely person was clearly not very knowledgeable about the menu items, by the way for context, we went for brunch. There were quite a few inconsistencies with ordering and what we could order vs what we couldn’t, however, not knowing this because I came in a bit later, I ordered something apparently from the menu that the ladies that were there prior to my arrival were told they couldn’t order. Fast forward to the food coming out, items were incorrect, or cold, or burnt. We asked if we could have the items replaced, as we should. The number of inconsistencies with some of the meals was a bit much, we simply spoke to the manager to just let him know. Upon receipt of the bill, there was an error that needed to be corrected, the manager took the bill to correct the error and returned it to us. Upon me going over the bill to ensure its accuracy, we found a statement that clearly wasn’t meant for us to see but was printed out on the bill. Never in my life have I received such poor service. Soco kitchen, I’d just like to say, the inconsistencies in your service and your waitress’s lack of knowledge of the menu is not the fault of the customer but however a reflection of your establishment. Not once did any of us at the table say we didn’t like the waitress, if that is your interpretation because of the amount of times we had to get items replaced because they were wrong then I’m not sure what to tell you. What happened today was absolutely unacceptable and I can say with my whole heart that never again will I patronize this establishment. Corporate will also be contacted tomorrow to further discuss the events of today. Pictures are posted in the...

Unfortunately I have to give SOCO Kitchen and Bar 1 star for I had a rather unpleasant experience there this past weekend. I booked what I thought was the Rooftop bar for my reservation a week or two in advance over the phone and told the person taking my reservation that I wanted seating for 10 on the rooftop bar. Upon arriving to the restaurant on Saturday June 18th, my group was not greeted by any host or hostess right away. We were seated downstairs rather than upstairs, after being told I had to book a totally separate reservation to be seated on the roof (this was not communicated to me over the phone when I made the reservation). Reluctantly, we took the table for 10 downstairs. My reservation was for 2PM. We were not greeted by a server until 2:20PM for drinks or food and when we were, the server did not greet the entire table and did not provide menus. Due to the fact that the reservation was for 2PM, the kitchen closes at 2:30 for the menu switch over, so we were told we only had 10 minutes to order all of our food (for 10 people) or else we would have to wait another hour for the new menu. This was also not communicated to me when I made my reservation for 2PM. We were forced to scramble and make our decisions on what we wanted to eat and we were only able to order from the Brunch Menu. The food was OK but not worth the expensive price tag (tater tots were the side to the meals...really?). Our server was especially unhelpful, the digital menu on the table was not the correct menu we were told to order from and when we asked for paper menus, we were provided less than 5 for the entire table. Our server did not bring enough cutlery, he did not exchange glasses when he took them away and he did not address the entire table when asking if we wanted more drinks or dessert. Food and drinks took a long time to arrive even though the restaurant looked empty and our server was unpleasant. Overall, everything was terribly communicated and handled from the moment we arrived to the moment we left....