- Restaurants |
- Nightlife |
- Shopping |
- Coffee & Tea |
- All
Town Hall Kitchen Bar
Category: Restaurants Canadian (New) Canadian (New) [Edit]
1032 Alberni StVancouver, BC V6E 1A3
Neighbourhoods: West End, Downtown
(604) 689-9749
- Price Range:
-
$$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- No
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- No
- Take Away:
- No
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
- Has TV:
- No
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
11 reviews for Town Hall Kitchen Bar
11 reviews in English
-
Review from Dru C.
3/16/2011
Amazing place to just chill and hang out! I love it. The service here was amazing and the people here are all hot. The girls were actually in really good jeans too. I was surprised a place that had the waitress in jeans. I liked that a lot though. The bartender was a girl too, but she was cute herself.
The service is very attentive and I enjoy that. The good thing about this place is that there is a second floor where you can have great parties with people with coaches and two TVs with your friends!
The atmosphere here is lovely. The decorations is one of the best here! The original design of the place has large chandeliers, and the tables are lovely. This place does not remind me of a lounge, but it reminds me of a place where I can stay for hours and hours. I would take a whole day and come here with me and my friends for an Olympic marathon and maybe drink 6-7 bottles of wine!
I will for sure come back with my large parties of friends!Listed in: Dru's Night Life~
-
Review from Nikki W.
Vancouver, BC
12/20/2010
Came here recently for a joint birthday party. There were about 25 of us, and they accommodated us at two ultra long tables on the upper level. Beautiful space with sleek modern decor and soaring ceilings. Clean and stylish bathrooms. Nice little lounge area upstairs to watch the hockey game. Good food and better dessert! This place would be a 5 Star contender (ok, maybe 4.5) if the service was a little better.
I ordered the oyster mushroom tempura to share, skirt steak, and chocolate lava cake and cheesecake to share. I didn't see a dessert menu anywhere, but our server said that these were the featured desserts.
Oyster Mushroom Tempura - 5/5
Awesome! Piping hot, nicely crispy and flavourful with just the right amount of seasoning. The accompanying basil mousseline dip was rich and cool; the perfect foil to the hot crispy batter.
Skirt Steak - 4/5
Not the best cow I've ever tasted, but it delivered what it promised. I ordered it medium rare, and thankfully it arrived at my table medium rare. The balsamic reduction is what made this better than just decent.
Chocolate Lava Cake - 6/5
Omigosh this wowed me. Delicious. They nailed the outer crust, and the chocolate 'lava' part was perfectly smooth and not overly sweet. Served with vanilla ice cream.
Cheesecake - 3.5/5
This NY style cheesecake with berry coulis was decent but nothing special about it. The lava cake was polished off significantly faster.
Service - 3/5
Our server was really on top of drink orders, but that's about it. I asked her to tell me more about the tempura because I've never heard of oyster mushroom tempura before. She looked at me and said "It's mushroom tempura." Thanks for enlightening me. Food came out slowly and were strangely spaced out. Granted, there were a lot of us so service is probably much better with smaller parties. Again, maybe it's because we were such a large party, but it took at least 30min to settle our bills at the end, and I know that some people grouped their bills together, so there definitely weren't 25 bills to handle.
I came here expecting Earls or Moxie's quality, but was pleasantly surprised. The food, drinks and the restaurant itself were great, and I would definitely go back. And maybe hope for a different server. -
Review from Stephanie M.
Vancouver, BC
10/6/2010 2 Check-ins Here
This place has an ultra cool atmosphere and beautiful decor - not to mention the impressive-looking bar. The service was excellent, too. Maybe even just this side of overbearing (The hostess (or manager?) dropped by several times to check on us, but I'll take that over being ignored and having to chase down a staff member any day).
We shared the tuna tataki appetizer, which was good quality and very flavourful. My Pacific salmon salad was excellent. The salmon was perfectly done, everything was fresh, and even the roasted potatoes (normally not my favourite) were well-cooked (ie. not too mushy) but not too oily/crunchy, either. The coffee was fresh and sufficiently strong, too.
In short, this is what you would call a "classy joint" - a good place for a business lunch or dinner date. In other words, somewhere you can actually hold a conversation.Listed in: Best New American
-
Review from Jenni B.
1/17/2010
3.5 Stars actually.
Out with Saltlik and in with Town Hall? Apparently under the same management a re-branding has occurred (according to the Server at least).
I went last night for a birthday party, and I have mixed feelings towards the place. For any item I disliked it as much as I liked it.... lets discuss...
I was struck by the large gothic style chandeliers, amazing really. And the bar is really cool. And there is the mix of inviting light brown leather chairs, and supermod white circular booths. I can say I did like the decor, but inasmuch, it didn't really make sense.
Our server was very friendly, attentive, efficient, all the things you want a server to be. So she would get five stars for service - and that is impressive as the party had two tables.
The menu: a challenge for me inherently as most items had either seafood or gluten, and both of those are my "no no foods". There were some delicious looking things that I could eat, but mostly that I couldn't. What struck me was the incorporation of standard American food - for example, as a appie you can order a grilled cheese sandwich.
Now, image sitting in a super-mod trendy circular white leather booth dressed in your cool dud as this place wants to be an It place clearly, and eatting a grilled cheese sandwich?
I'm so confused.
I did order the house salad and a glass of a lovely rose. My salad was surprisingly perfectly dressed and incredibly delicious.
So the verdict: I don't don't like this place, I just think the concept is all over the place. I would go back for after work drinks, and the service was spot on, but as a fun Saturday hang out... I'm not convinced, only confused. -
Review from roland a.
11/9/2010
Bit of a hit and miss place. For me, the worst steak I've ever had. Stringy, chewy, felt like the chef snatched it from the lions' den of the zoo, really.
Eventually and after a bit of a wait, they brought me another one which was alrightish, but of course by then everybody else in our group had already eaten. Service is definitely on the slow end.
Too bad really, cause the looks of the place and its personnel are first class. -
Review from Eric B.
Vancouver, BC
4/17/2010 1 Check-in Here
Town Hall is actually a very nice place to go. I wonder why it is always so empty all the time?
Every time I go out downtown, I always end up there for the delicious Scallop & Prawn Linguini, the great wings, the fantastic Wok-Fired Calamari and the awesome margaritas. For some reason, the night wouldn't be as great if it didn't end up there. I've always had great food and great service. Everyone I ever brought there always said the same: Town Hall is awesome. I've had the chance of tasting pretty much everything they have on the menu and I can say it's all great.
Town Hall is a very classy place and relaxed atmosphere. It's a lot less "corporate" then Cactus club on Burrard which can get very crowdy and arrogant at times. I find Town Hall the best choice for a good crowd.
Also, Wednesday, Thursdays and Fridays are the Live Music days. It doesn't seem to always be at the same time or always happen on those days but if you are lucky enough to be there when it's the right day, the live music is a fantastic add-on to the ambiance. The greatest night I had was when a singer played all the best songs (to my taste!) of the 90's with his guitar and incredible voice. -
Review from stan s.
Vancouver, BC
2/24/2010
Fuller's group has a hit with Town Hall but for how long?? Town Hall has the Power Lunch or Date night crowd without stiff noses, or attitudes.
Nice clean room, great open atmosphere, very friendly staff and management.
Food is very good to great, but service needs work, a lot of mix ups.
Their "almost dry ribs", are killer!! we order them twice so good. You'll need tooth picks for the ribs which Town Hall ran out of.
Soup is made fresh cause its no too popular,( very good)
Burgers are made perfect even tops of buns have grill marks.
Wings need help little bone still attached to main wing.
Drinks are $$$ and made to the exact pour, expect nothing extra.
great location...I hope it lasts... -
Review from Yoony P.
1/29/2010
3.5 stars
I used to like this place a lot when it was Saltlik-mostly because the food was good and the service was attentive.
Everything on the new Town Hall menu looked incredibly appetizing. I ended up ordering the West Coast Salmon Salad. As Jenni O. commented, the salad was dressed perfectly. I love salads, but it's a peeve of mine when a salad is swimming in dressing.
It came with roasted butternut squash laid on the bottom of the plate with the greens resting on top. The barley was a nice touch.
The ling cod my husband ordered was the tiny piece of fish accompanied by a couple of forkfuls of greens and their skinny fries. I noticed that they don't give as much fries as they used to (when they were Saltlik), which is too bad since their fries are really yummy and it would have made up a bit for the tiny piece of fish.
The vibe seemed in a word- Louder. The music was much louder than I remember it used to be when it was Saltlik. It seemed OK if you were out with friends to have fun, but not a very good ambiance for a dinner conversation with husband, FIL and BIL.
I really like how the furniture is now all white/cream instead of black. It looks like it really brightens up an already dark cavernous like space.
Overall, I think I might have to give Town Hall one more chance before I say Yay or Nay. -
Review from Karen R.
Town Hall is a beautiful space - huge, with really dark decor. I love the lit red wall of wine! There's a lot of room and a good option for large groups because it's never that busy. There's no need to make reservations either.
The service is on the slow side (not sure if it's complacency or something else) and the kitchen is also quite slow. I was in twice this week and both times there were only 2 small tables there and the food took a really long time. The servers were friendly, visits were few and far between which was a little odd since we had the booth next to the bar.
Order wine here - a 9oz glass is more like a half litre and the 6oz glass is definitely more than that. Be careful if you're driving!! My friends ordered the Booya cocktail and raved about it all night.
The food is pretty good but extremely over priced. The fish tacos are tasty but $11.50 for a really really small portion is a little overkill. The best value would be the desserts. Last night we celebrated a friend's birthday with the chocolate ganache cake, with vanilla ice cream and berry compote. The berry compote is delicious because the fruit is FRESH. Not frozen. The chocolate cake has a never ending river of molten chocolate in the middle. A friend ordered the make-you-own-sundae, which came with fresh berries, pots of caramel, chocolate, nuts and toffee and two HUGE scoops of vanilla ice cream. For $7.50 I thought that was a pretty good deal.
In general, skip this place for dinner and come for cocktails and dessert. -
Review from Alexandria M.
Vancouver, BC
5/1/2010
I fell in love with this joint when it was Saltlik. My friend and I used to meet up here for postwork gossip, suit-watching, and mean martinis loaded with cerignola olives.
Now that it's Town Hall, it seems to me the only thing that's changed is the name. The staff and decor are still lovely, the drinks are still deadly, the cerignolas are still crisp and fist-sized, and the appies are fantastic. The tempura calamari, wings, and seafood pizza were all mouthwatering but my favorite was the sliders. Mounds of sweet and sour shredded pork between sinfully tender miniburger buns. Coupled with a frosty martini, I could cheerfully live on these for the rest of my life.
Only the music was off; the house stereo played Joy Division (which I found distractingly inappropriate in the yupwardly-mobile environment, but then I'm a music snob) and the live combo was yowling out some generic postmodern folk. -
Review from Kal B.
Updated - 10/1/2010
came here for my bday.. they were very accomodating for about 22 people.. great service. food was awesome too.. pulled pork sliders! skirt steak! cheese fondue with toast! mmmm mmmmm mmmmmmm!
Listed in: Where to watch the Game/Fight
1 Previous Review: Show all »
-
4/26/2010
where Saltlik used to be.. same owners though I hear.. located right beside Kobe Steakhouse
bright… Read more »
-
