Cleaver & Wake — Restaurant in Nottingham

Went for Sunday lunch. Nice welcome at reception. Decor is modern, simple and clean, couldn't fault it. Staff are very good, nice, polite and attentive without being overbearing.

The food: The salt baked celeriac was fantastic, exceptional presentation and very tasty.

The beef sirloin was beautifully cooked and the accompanying vegetables were very good, with exception to the roast potatoes. The outside of the potatoes were a little tough to cut into and a little dry on the inside. I think they had been roasted and then kept warm (for to long). Again, the presentation was very good.

Chocolate delice with ice cream for desert. Very nice, very rich. Again the presentation was great, decorated with honeycomb and chocolate pieces. It wasn't a large portion, but you wouldn't want any more due to the richness, perfect portion size in my opinion.

When the bill came there was a couple of glasses of wine on it that we hadn't had. They were removed when we pointed it out. Service charge of 10% automatically added, which I think was fine, especially for the service we received. Another downside which has nothing to do with the venue or food, was the small (6) young group of people on the table behind us. They were very loud and the woman with a horribly loud laugh could be heard when I was in the men's room, some distance from where she was.

Overall a very nice restaurant with great food. £50 for a 3 coarse...

Dinner Birthday celebration

We've been before for lunch but not in the evening. We managed to book this fabulous restaurant to celebrate a special occasion.

Started off with a couple of cocktails in the bar. One being a classic Mojito that is not on the menu,but they gladly accommodated.

When seated in the restaurant, there was a lovely birthday card on the table,quickly followed by a glass of Champagne. Which was totally unexpected and a very nice touch.

To start, we had Oysters Natural & Tempura

For the first course, we chose Beef Fillet Tartare Black garlic, mushroom, confit egg yolk & sourdough crostini.

Spiced Crab Salad. Nashi pear, brown crab ice cream & sourdough.

Mains Tandoori Monkfish Coriander and mint chutney, mango relish, curied musel, fennel & monksfish bhaji.

8oz Fillet Steak Served with triple cooked chips, onion ring & dressed baby leaves. Along with a trio of very tasty sauces. With sides of Buttered BBQ Hispi cabbage Purple sprouting Broccoli.

Desserts BLOOD ORANGE SOUFFLÉ Milk ice cream WHITE CHOCOLATE & STRAWBERRY White chocolate pafait, macerated strawberries, sable biscuit crumb & strawberry meringue.

Everything was absolutely delicious. We were treated very well, especially by the chef Hira,and the staff are all friendly and professional. Even though it was a very busy night, service was very brisk and efficient.

Thank you for such a...

Having been to Binks Yard a couple of times and enjoyed it we paid our first visit to Cleaver and Wake for an early Valentine's Day dinner, and very much enjoyed that too.

As we arrived early we enjoyed a (reasonably-priced) glass of champagne each in the cosy bar area before being shown to our table. There's no tasting menu option available here so we took a few minutes to decide on our dining choices.

Unfortunately the oysters which were on the sample menu online weren't available (supply issues) so we just had a starter and main each before finishing with a cheese board to share. My smoked ham tortellini starter was delicious, with the filling being particularly flavoursome. The guinea fowl main I had was even better - tasty breast meat and a crunchy croquette. Our sides of pomme puree and hispi cabbage were both tasty and even though we went for the cheapest red wine on the menu (a Tempranillo at £19) it was still very good.

Service was good throughout with no overly-long waits. It'd have been nice to have had a window seat but the restaurant was pretty full so that wasn't possible. Not a cheap meal but the price was reflective of the quality of food and service. Will be interesting to see how Cleaver and Wake evolves but after just a few months it's started...