Quinn’s Steakhouse & Irish Bar

Came here with my friends for Winterlicious and my experience was very good. However for the rest of my group the results were hit and miss .
I got the Mushroom Salad, Lamb Shank & the Irish Whiskey Spice Cake .
Rating for my food is ⁴⁄₅. I recommend you get them. Deducting two points for my concerns below
Bread Basket needed improvement. The breads were long and oblong and we had to use our hands to break it apart. Take a page from the baskets provided by Sassafraz, Auberge, for example .
Mushroom Salad: Very flavorful salad with a mild flavoured toscano cheese that did not overpower the salad like a parmesan or cheddar would. My only concern was the salad portion could have been larger by a third .
Lamb Shank: The Lamb Shank was better than expected. The shank was large atop a mountain of barley risotto. I loved the uniqueness of the dish. The lamb was very soft and literally fell of the bone when I cut it. I had seen pictures of the dish on Unilocal and this dish lived up to the hype.
Irish Whiskey Spice Cake: The cake tasted pleasant although it could have been a bit softer with more amount of whiskey added into it .
Service: It began on a good note and went bad. For me it was a 7/​10, for my other friends a ²⁄₁₀. Our server answered our questions. I was happy with his answers, however he was a bit rushed with his service towards my friends, and was not giving a straight forward answer. It took 15 minutes for our desserts to arrive and the bills could have arrived faster.
Ambience: The lighting was very poor and we had a hard time seeing each other and taking pictures of the food. We had to resort to using flash which was very annoying for us. Please increase the lighting so that it is lit well .
Vegetarian friendly (⁰⁄₁₀): One of my friends, had to switch out of ordering from the winterlicious menu due to a lack of vegetarian main options. He ended up ordering the Goat Cheese-​Stuffed Portobello which is on the winterlicious menu as an a la carte item. It was an extreme disappointment. This dish amounted to false advertising. It was labelled as «Goat Cheese-​Stuffed Portobello with Woolwich Ontario goat cheese, penne pasta, sun-​dried tomato, pesto sauce, broccolini». What my friend received was nothing like the dishes name He got a tiny morsel of goat cheese stuffed portobello on top of a mound of penne pasta. My friend paid for the portobello and not penne pasta. He did not deserve such a horrible dining experience.
and I am urging everyone not to order this dish unless changes are made for it. It is very unfair to neglect the vegetarian customers .They have potential to spend on lots of money if more options are made available to them .
Overall good place to dine out with friends looking for some good food, BUT please increase the lighting, show lots of appreciation to your vegetarian customers. They must get a three course menu of pub style food using vegetarian items. and get the servers to work faster to reduce on waiting times for food items. Hire more staff if needed. In fact I will even suggest to you a three course alternate vegetarian menu as an idea to work from so that vegetarians will never suffer like my friend did
Starters: 1 Salad of the day with a third more of salad on the plate. (choice of 3 salads)
2 Choice of garlic, sweet potato, or polenta fries with a choice of sauce/​aioli
3 Soup of the day with generous amounts of vegetables added in
Mains In fact the mains can be the same as what you have on winterlicious but substitute any meat with a vegetable that would compliment the recipe. For example use seitan or tofu instead of chicken /​beef/​seafood. Instead of bacon, use vegetarian bacon. The quantity of seitan and tofu will remain the same as what it would have been were it meat. The portobello dish will have much more portobellos in it. Using the Guinness braised lamb shank as a reference how about using the same amount of meat (not including bone) as portobellos for the portobello dish. Vegetarian customers will greatly appreciate it
Desserts: Keep the same desserts as those are very good and appeal to everyone. Consider increasing the portions for that .
My group and I will definitely return if such improvements are made.

Went for winterlicious here and it wasn’t a great experience.
²⁄₅ stars for the food
Lets talk about food. I chose the soup of the day (corn chowder), with the bacon wrapped tenderloin and Irish whiskey spice cake for dessert.
The corn chowder was ok. Nothing too great but not too bad. No complaints about it.
The bacon wrapped tenderloin was a disappointment mostly coz I saw a picture of the same dish in 2013 and it had 2 pieces of the tenderloin and here I had only one. Had a couple of beans along with a scarce portion of mash potato. I ordered medium rare and tasted more like medium.
Irish whiskey spice cake wasn’t too grand as well. Decided to choose it over the cheesecake (coz i feel eat that a lot) and… my friend kept raving about his cheesecake while i was disappointed with my choice. It did not taste that flavorful.
2.5÷5 stars for the service
Our waiter wasn’t that great to ask questions to. Not sure if he didnt know the answer but saying a straight forward answer or an I don’t know is always better than giving a sarcastic one. Also I understand that it gets busy but acting in a rush to get our payments done quickly and not hiding that fact is… ridiculous. Plus he asked a friend to finish off our payments.
In the end it feels as though i should’ve skipped the winterlicious menu and just stuck with the regular menu. Maybe I might’ve enjoyed the surf and turf but that again is debatable. a friend ordered the stuffed mushroom from the regular menu and all he got was 1 small mushroom surrounded by whatever it came with. For it being called a «steakhouse» it doesn’t feel any better than montanas or kelseys.

Meh. To be fair, we had a corporate event here and it was a set menu to choose from so I didn’t get to choose from the entire dining experience. The staff were ok — the drink selection (wine specifically) were limited but I don’t think the establishment was meant to be super fancy in that respect.
Food was ok and the ambience was more akin to bar and grill — which was a little of a surprise for me given its a hotel restaurant.
I’d recommend trying it once but understand that walking out to the streets there are likely a ton of other restaurants to choose from.

Been here twice, left unhappy both times.
On the last visit, I ordered mussels $ 12 and peppercorn steak $ 39.
Mussels was fine, 2 pieces were not fresh and taste sort of rancid. But for $ 12 and the location. I let it go.
Peppercorn new york steak came with a totally burn crust. The medium rare steak was juicy and tender but the crust was so burned that it gave a very strong aftertaste. I have had peppercorn steak elsewhere before and none of them offer BURNT crust, felt like tasting a tender charcoal.
Waiter was nice and offered me a regular new york strip after sending the peppercorn back. Not sure if it was the peppercorn crust that burnt my palate or what. The regular steak doesn’t taste like a piece of steak, instead it tasted like the stir fried beef u get in a Chinese restaurant.
I asked for the bill after my 2^nd bite. Left the restaurant still hungry…
With Ruth Chris just right next to the restaurant. I would rather pay more for much better quality. Or go to the keg that’s in the similar price point.

We went to Quinn’s using a 50 $ Groupon. Had reservations at 6:30. Our waitress was very attentive – at first. Tuna Tataki (an appetizer we ordered) was fantastic! But we never saw our waitress again until the bill came. We had to ask the guy clearing our table for the bill, and that was after waiting 15 minutes. It was my birthday so this was to be a special occasion. In fact, we came here from Minnesota USA to celebrate. I had the lobster, and my husband had the prime rib. It was good but not fantastic. The wait staff were really catering to a certain table. My husband asked who it was. Turned out it was their marketing guy. Hmm, cater to an employee over a tourist? (By the way, my husband is the President of a downtown Minneapolis bank.) Doesn’t seem very logical.

We had a great meal… the server was friendly and knowledgeable. The prime rib was medium rare just like I like. My better half enough enjoyed the peppercorn cooked yo perfection. The suggested wine complimented out meal and crème brule was awesome as a final tada. All was glutten fee which is awesome.

My mom and her friends go here for the prime rib sandwich and I had a chance to come try it with my mom. The sandwich was delicious. Fresh actual roast beef, medium rare with crispy fried onions on top that remained crispy and weren’t soggy. The bread was fresh too and it came with a nice bowl of salad and a bowl of au jus to dip. Service was friendly. Comfortable seating. Would never have thought of coming in here for a good lunch!

Went for Summerlicious 2015. What a great place! Amazing food and service. Huge portions considering it was Summerlicious. I’m in the restaurant industry so I can be a bit critical but I was very pleasantly surprised. The manager even came over to check on us (which I know hardly ever happens as often as it should anymore) and he was very genuine and nice. I will definitely be back.

This is my second time coming here for Summerlicious and I have to say that this time was even better than the first! They were great when I called to make the reservation and we were able to ask for separate bills right off the bat since we were a large group.
There were many great choices on their lunch menu which made it so hard to narrow it down to one. I had the warm mushroom and arugula salad, the 8 oz sirloin burger (which was massive) and the berry crumble for dessert. All of them were excellent! My co-​workers got the steak frites, the salmon, and the vegetarian pasta dish and everyone was very impressed. The service was very quick and friendly. I would definitely eat here again and I think it’s one of the better bang for your buck summerlicious menus.

Great place… So far I’ve only eaten at the bar. The Charcuterie was lacking (dry?!?). The pâté brûlée was odd. BUT the salads are WONDERFUL!!! The wild mushrooms and arugula salad is BEAUTIFULLY done! I also tried the goat cheese and beet appetizer — yummy!
Irish Cocktail Sausages are sooo good!!! (Ask for grain mustard).

Went for winterlicious. Had the steak frites. The steak was cooked to perfection (medium rare). The Caesar salad is like most that you could make at home. The spice cake was moist but had a bitter after taste.

Called to make a lunch reservation for winterlicious on the 15^th, but when I called today to confirm the reservation, they told me that the reservation didn’t even go through. They then continued to tell me that they do not even HAVE a lunch menu for winterlicious like excuse me… check the winterlicious site, you have a lunch menu do you think I would be reserving for something nonexistent? What a waste of time, I could have reserved at another place.
Would give no stars if possible.

Officially I would give this a 3 ½ stars — better than a 3, but not quite a four.
The décor is an interesting blend of fine dining and pub experience, but what the heck, it works. Service is friendly, knowledgeable and fast. The wine list is reasonable with some decent choices.
The food is good, and we both enjoyed our meals. My friend had the prime rib, which was very well prepared and quite tasty. I had the wagyu bavette, which was a gamble that didn’t really pay off. Sure it’s wagyu, but it’s bavette, which is flank, and as a grilled steak, is just too tough to thoroughly enjoy.
The real problem with this place is that The Keg is just a long block away, and they basically have this pricepoint steakhouse down pat. If Quinn’s is going to survive, they need to do something to differentiate themselves from the Keg, because right now, the Keg is better.

I just went here last weekend while I stayed at the Sheraton Centre for a dance congress… I found this bar to be pretty hip and had a great selection of pub style food. I ordered a drink called «The Black Velvet» It was half Guinness and half Cider. I enjoyed it very much and was shocked at how the two went together. The cider made the guinness feel light. I decided on the prime rib burger as my main. When the waitress asked how I wanted it cooked I must have given her a puzzled look because she then gave me her suggestion to have it cooked to medium well which I took her up on that offer. It was seasoned quite well and seemed to be a little more on the well done side but i didn’t mind. I found the portion to be a great size, didn’t leave me wanting more or made me too full to move. The display of the food was also presented in a well way.
I found the bar to be your typical bar… low lit, high tables and a great selection of beverages on tap as well as in bottles. The layout was well situated and the waitresses were on top of their game as soon as I sat down the lady came to clean my table and wipe it down before even thinking about taking my order. I liked that.
If i’m staying at this hotel again I wouldn’t mind going back but I wouldn’t make a special trip downtown for this place.

My boyfriend and I came here for the Winterlicious menu and I was super excited to eat here after seeing the menu. However, I was greatly disappointed with the food and even the service here.
First, our waitress seemed completely out of it! When we asked for something she would walk away before we even finished asking for it! Rudeness! She also gave some attitude when it came to the temperatures of the meat.
Now let’s talk about the food! For the apps we both ordered the Caesar Salad. It was nothing spectacular but again not much you can do with caesar salad. For our main course, my boyfriend ordered the bacon wrapped beef tenderloin and requested the temp of his beef to be medium. His beef was not medium and in fact well done! Which annoyed the heck out of me since he got so much slack from the waitress. Now for my dish, I ordered the grilled spice rubbed Chicken supreme. The plating was nice but the flavour was lacking! The spice rub was inconsistent throughout the chicken and the cilantro was overpowering!
So all in all, not a great experience when it came to the food, service and just overall experience. With that being said, we won’t be returning again in the future.

We did a re-​visit to Quinn’s this past week.
It’s still a very solid location for a steak, although there are some others in the city that probably rank higher for me. Having said that, very reasonable and worth the visit –aka equals great value for the money!
The server was knowledgeable about wine and recommended the McManis Cab Sauv — a solid choice — we loved it with our food.
Also, I had the warm mushroom salad (arugula). This was outstanding! Very flavorful with lots of great, meaty pieces of all different kinds of mushrooms — the seasoning was fantastic.
We had the rib eyes and were both cooked perfectly accompanied by mashed potatoes and a nice vegetable medley.
Even though the place was hopping (aka very busy), service was attentive!
If you want a solid steak dinner at a great price downtown — check it out!

To be honest, I normally would never choose this kind restaurant for a night out; steakhouse, meh unless we are talking Jacob’s. But I had a gift certificate for $ 50 so I figured why the heck not?
We made six o’clock reservations and the place was busy. We had to wait a bit to be shown to our table, but eventually someone acknowledged that we were standing there and seated us. Our booth was fine but in a busy corridor. Our server took a very long time to come take our drink order, but she was very personable so I didn’t hold it against her. I was also impressed with the selection and price point of the wine. A decent Chianti was $ 13 for a 9 oz glass.
We both ordered the steak frites. A basket of bread arrived to tide us over; it was nothing special but it served. When the food arrived, the steak was decently prepared, very rare as requested. It had a good flavour, but I had a number of very chewy bits. The café de Paris butter and the lemon aioli were decent. I wasn’t a big fan of the fries. They were a thicker cut and were served with the steak resting on top of them. I found them under cooked and the steak made them a bit soggy. I did not feel compelled to finish my meal.

Came here for Summerlicious with a big group of 15. The service was the first, but not the last thing to amaze me about Quinn’s. The staff were very friendly and attentive — with each course, the waiter, without hesitation, delivered each of our dishes to all 15 of us. The courses were all timed perfectly too. That was impressive.
On to the food, I had the Corn and Sweet Pepper Chowder. It was very creamy and the corn and pepper flavours were prominent. For the main course, I had the Gaelic Rib Steak. The presentation for this dish was amazing, and the taste was equally as impressive. The steak was a perfect medium rare, and was accompanied by some of the best potato chips I’ve ever tasted (yes, potato chips). Lastly, I had the Blackberry and Ontario Rhubarb Crisp for dessert. Nothing to say about this dish, but it was a great way to top off a great meal.
Quinn’s was well worth the price, and I will be sure to return.

Came here shortly before a $ 50 groupon expired. Nearly forgot I had the darn thing. The burger is a mite pricey. A great thing to order if you’re here with an aunt and uncle visiting from out of town and they’re picking up the tab. Hardcore whiskey drinkers will be, I think, impressed with the extensive list. Service is great. Dark and intimate.
It’s fun to pop over to the Shopsy’s side and check out all the old photos, back when I guess Shopsy’s was something other than a crap place to get a crap sandwich. Henny Youngman? *tears*

Forgot to finish this review!
Came here last week Thursday with coworkers to take advantage of their Winterlicious menu. I must say for a first timer to Quinn’s, the ambience is really cozy pub-​restaurant you can take a date to. The staff are actually from IRELAND! and they’re always accomadating to any requests. I ordered the set menu, Beef Barley, Steak Frites with Café du Paris sauce and Chocolate brownie cake for dessert. Overall, the dishes were cooked to perfection, and complimented my glass of rioja! I will definitely be back again Quinn.