Birk's — Restaurant in Santa Clara

Over the years this has become a spot I frequent with professional friends and colleagues. I started coming here to get after work drinks and happy hour, and for a while that was all I sort of knew this spot to be for me. At some point, I realized it was a well-established steakhouse and restaurant, and I began to do more of that as well.

The establishment is connected to hotel and is sort of in an alleyway of the lower floors of the buildings. You will not see this restaurant from the streets as it is well embedded in the structure but does have an entry and view of the outside from inside the restaurant, so it isn't buried inside the walls of a building. When you walk through the doors you will be greeted immediately with the bar to your right which has a combination of bar seating as well as bar tables where you can sit and have casual drinks and conversation and then transition over to a dinner table if you decide to pursue more formal dining into the evening. When I come to the bar I typically start with a kettletonic, and then move on to beer to finish. They have a good selection of beverages which of course includes wine, hard liquor, mixed drinks, and draft beers. The interior sort of reminds me of an eatery that mixes contemporary design of old Hollywood mixed with a diner? I'm not sure how accurate that is but that's the vibe I get. It's clean and nice, and I would call it professional and leaning towards upscale. I tend to not see families here, and why don't necessarily recommend bringing your kids or children here, if they are well behaved. I'm fairly sure you would not be turned away. I should also mention that they do have outdoor seating as well.

The service here is top notch. Very professional, and on the higher end. The waiters are very knowledgeable around the menu. How things are prepared, specials of the day, with the high focus on the customer satisfaction. This is a classic steakhouse with all the trimmings.

One note about my last experience here. One of my dining companions had ordered a steak medium rare, and it came out medium well. They immediately took it back and made her another without hesitation. I know this is standard in good restaurants but it was nice to see it in practice.

For me, I decided to order the tuna steak wanting to stay light on my diet where beef is a bit heavier. I had never had the tuna here before and I do love me. Good tuna sashimi, and one of the best tuna experience I ever had was an American restaurant with a seared tuna steak. My comment on the tuna steak was that it was okay. Because I am a fan of tuna sashimi, and my very first tuna steak experience was eye-openingly good, I had a lot of expectation going to this one. The tuna was seared, but I felt like it was overcooked, meaning that it was less of a seer and more of a cook. Not being an expert on sear tuna steaks, I thought it would be one of those throw the tuna on a hot grill to give it a light sear to get a crust and prevent minimal cooking towards the center. This tuna seemed like it was thrown on a semi-hot grill and was allowed to slightly slow cook towards the center. This ends up giving it more of a cooked tuna feel than I would have preferred. It also did not come with a sauce on top of the steak. Which means that you are left mostly to the natural flavor of the tuna versus it being assisted with the glaze of some sort. Admittedly, given how good their customer service is, I was tempted to share my comments, but I didn't feel like bothering them further because I didn't know what their default tuna steak experience was supposed to be like, and did not want to pursue a correction, especially if the correction was off standard. Standard. Guess I'll never know unless I order the same thing again. But for those of you reading this review, you should be able to tell from my description what their tuna experience will be like, so you can be informed heading in.

For my other dining experiences here, I've had both the pastas and the steaks, and both were very good with...

My wife and I decided to take a road trip down to Birk’s from Livermore. I have eaten at Birk’s for years during lunch, not for dinner though.

Birk’s is a comfortable, beautiful, large, and classy spot for lunch or dinner. They can easily accommodate large parties. As always, we were greeted as soon as we entered the restaurant and made to feel welcomed. We were seated immediately and brought some yummy warm bread and butter.

Our server, Jaime, was very professional, friendly, and had great recommendations for my wife. Service here is ALWAYS excellent. We've never experienced anything less than exceptional professionalism, attentiveness, and assistance. The servers are very responsive and move things right along (no waiting for drinks, meal courses, bill). No rush though! We both had Gray Goose Martinis while we looked over the menu, very generous pour. I decided on a “Surf & Turf” special that was delicious. The steak melted in my mouth and the prawns wrapped in bacon were super. My wife had Wild Caught Salmon Risotto which was wonderful. The wine was very good with dinner as well. We followed the dinner with Key Lime Pie and White Chocolate Cheese cake and since my wife was having trouble deciding between this or the Crème Brûlée, Jaime brought her both. All were very good.

You just cannot go wrong at Birk’s . High quality grass fed beef, fresh seafood, and very professional staff. We have always had great meals at Birk’s. If you have not been, you have got to go, you won’t be...

Went here with high expectations for such an “elevated” steakhouse. Was very disappointed with everything we ordered. The bone marrow was smothered in some kind of chimichurri which was so overwhelming it masked the flavor of the bone marrow and wasn’t very good to say the least. We then got our steaks. An $84 ribeye which barely had any flavor. I guess the meat itself was good quality and the color looked great when it came out, but it tasted unseasoned and flat. What a let down. We also ordered the peppered filet for $64 which also had almost no flavor (except the completely overwhelming steak au poivre sauce). For a combined $148 in steak you’d at least expect to be able to enjoy your food. The truffle Mac and cheese was not very good and had a funky taste to it. The Brussels sprouts were terrible. Also no seasoning and unappealing.

They were nice enough to comp our Brussel sprouts and filet, as we had one bite of each, but felt that the waiter did not seem very happy about it which hurt our experience even more. We honestly wanted to send back our ENTIRE meal, but felt that would be too uncomfortable of a conversation. The server didn’t even call over a manager making us feel like unimportant patrons. Usually guest experience is most important and high end restaurants would do this without a second thought.

For $185 (AFTER comped items) it was a complete miss. Flemming’s...