Brel's Restaurant & Bar at Playhouse Square (Formerly Ghost Light) — Restaurant in Cleveland

First time in Cleveland and staying a few days at the Crowne Plaza for a conference. Decided to get dinner at the Ghost Light after settling into our hotel room. Josh, the Food & Beverage Manager, was extra accommodating for my multiple food allergies and even had the chef visit our table to help me decide what would be safest for me to order. Very welcoming, professional, and friendly staff. Star was our designated server and was super attentive with 110% customer service. I ordered the grilled New York Strip medium-well without the glaze and with extra potatoes. My husband ordered a jasmine tea since he already ate before me.

Service was fairly fast with my food being ready in about 15-20 minutes after I ordered, and the place wasn't ultra busy at around 8pm on a Saturday with about 3 other active tables being served. Steak was prepared excellently with only a thin layer of crispy fat. Potatoes were pretty good and the asparagus spears were well-cooked just how I liked em. Jasmine tea smelled great and tasted nice from what I sampled from my husband's tea cup. I also ordered 2 shots of Johnnie Black straight, which paired nicely with the steak dinner. Total cost for the meal was about $80, excluding generous tip.

Overall, the food and service were 11 out of 10 stars! We'd go here again.

The location itself is tough to find parking, but if you're already staying at the hotel, the Ghost Light is a must visit.

Addition: There is a buffet breakfast that closes at 11 a.m., which costs $16.95 plus tax per person. Luckily, the conference I'm attending includes a voucher for the breakfast, but regularly, it would cost about $35 for 2 people. There is an assortment of baked goods (bagels, mini muffins, bread), some cereal, oatmeal, fruits (grapes, honeydew, cantalope), Chobani fruit yogurt, milk, scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, and bacon. I had the yogurt, eggs, oatmeal, and potatoes (I was hungry) and my husband had a pastry, eggs, potatoes, and black tea.

Even if breakfast was covered by my conference, we tipped anyway since our server Carmella was attentive, and Joseph, the day manager, was very helpful and accommodating. We'll be back another day to enjoy more of...

Had reservations. Waited at the “wait here to be seated sign” for 5 minutes with the hostess or manager being aware of that but not even acknowledging us to tell they’d be with us in a moment. Walked to our table and told “well, we only have high tops available” like that was a terrible thing. If she hadn’t said anything I probably wouldn’t have even thought anything of it…but we also had reservations so if that was bad they shouldn’t have overbooked and it wasn’t my fault they only had high tops so why did she have an attitude with me? Took 10 minutes after being seated to get asked what we wanted to drink…which there was no wine or beer or cocktail menu and the food menu didn’t have it on either (food menu was also very minimal). Ordered a Coke - paper straws ugh! Little plates were on the table but never filled - we asked what they were for and she said “for appetizers or bre….for appetizers”. The way she stopped mid sentence and what we expected was that it was for bread that we never received; she took the plates away at that moment. Food was awful - $34 for a strip steak that was charred on the outside, thinly cut, lots of fat, broccolini which was limp and watery and had vinegar tasting diced tomatoes on it (?) and what tasted like flaky box mix mashed potatoes…. We weren’t checked on and when she did get around to us she was unfriendly. We waited with our empty plates for the server to come back to take our plates and give us our check for a long time. Didn’t even stay for dessert. Was looking for a replacement for Cowell and Hubbard when we go to playhouse square every other month but this definitely was not it - we...

This place was pretty decent when it was the Ghost Light. It's now called Brel's, and when we recently dined here before a show at Playhouse Square, it was an awful experience. The waitress seemed to be doubling as the bartender, and while she was nice, she was swamped, so we had trouble even getting her to take our order. After waiting about 20 minutes with no sign of our food, she came by and asked if we were ready for dessert! She thought we had already received our food and had our plates cleared. After another 10 to 15 minutes, she came by and explained that there had been some mix-up in the kitchen, and our orders had gotten pushed back. She offered us a free dessert, but at this point, we were getting worried about the timing with the start of our show. When we finally received the food, it was terrible...overcooked and bland. We ate most of it because, by now, we were starving. Surprisingly, a chef came by and asked how things were. When he was told the food wasn't great and why, he argued that it must not have been too bad if we had eaten most of the food. He also said, "Salmon can be difficult to get right." It took a long time to get the waitress back to pay our bill, and by now, we were really running short on time, so we had to decline the free dessert. They made no other efforts to compensate us for this lousy experience. If we go to another show at Playhouse Square, we'll choose a...