Sharkey’s Village Cafe

Sharkey’s has caught my eye in the neighborhood for quite some time now. I finally got the chance to check it out for a quick bite of lunch with a co-​worker of mine.
Upon arrival, it is noticeably dead inside. The hostess is in the back corning snacking on a sandwich or something, and approaches us mid-​chew. Haha. Mid-​chew.
The deco inside is kinda funky. With it’s jaguar print carpets, cushiony (yes, cushiony) leather booths, brown arm chairs, and black tables. I bet it’d be a cool place to check out in the evening, y’know, rockin’ that sexy coug vibe. But in this case it would be more like «sexy jaug vibe». You get the picture.
Anywho, it is a lovely afternoon so we sit in the back patio. It’s pretty sleek, I guess. The tables are red, the patio fence is black… IT MATCHES THE SIGN. Woah.
I order a Strongbow ($ 6.5), and it is refreshing as per usual.
Me and Co-​work. split the Warm Goat Cheese Salad ($ 9.5). It takes about 10 minutes for the salad to arrive, but when it does, I am slightly alarmed by the panko crusted goat cheese on top. Frankly, it looks a little weird to me, but this is only because I was expecting it to be crumbled. After breaking into the odd little ball-​o-​cheese, all my worries fade in to ooey-​gooey, goat-​cheese goodness.
Below my good pal’ Goat Cheese, lies a bed of spinach in a citrus balsamic vinaigrette. It’s a little bit too acidic for my taste buds, but I can deal. Slices of green apple are garnished around Mr. Goat-​Cheesio, along with candied walnuts and roasted artichoke. There’s a decent salad-​to-​topping ratio, and before you know it, the salad is gone like the wind.
The service was nothing spectacular, the menu was meh. I’d recommend the Warm Goat Cheese salad fo’ sho’, but in all honesty, this place seems like a real «Line and Stinker».

Went here for dinner on Valentines Day 2010 with my boyfriend. We walked in expecting to have a nice romantic dinner. Boy were we dead WRONG.
First of all, we walked in to a nearly empty restaurant. There were a few guys hanging at the bar and another couple at one of the tables. That was it…
2 of the servers were at the bar chatting and laughing it up with the guys. It took them nearly 3 minutes to realize we were standing at the entrance waiting to be seated.
Once we were seated we looked over our menus and made our choices. I ordered the steak dinner and my boyfriend ordered the braised ribs. The food quality was AWFUL! My steak was cooked how I like it but it was cold. My mashed potato’s tasted as though they were left overs from the previous day and my veggies were ice cold as well. My boyfriends ribs were ok, nothing super great but edible.
Not once did our server come check on us during our entire meal. The next time we saw her was at the end when she came to ask us if we would like our bill. She did however, notice I had hardly touched my meal and she asked me if there was a problem. Usually I don’t say much but this time I did. I let her know the issues with my meal and expressed that I wasn’t happy. She apologized, cleared our plates and left, returning 10 minutes later with our bill. I was very unimpressed that she didn’t offer to correct my meal or get me something different.
Thanks for putting a HUGE damper on my valentines day Sharkeys.
We wont be back.

Lame.
Food was terrible, and more than once people in our dining parties got ill.
Far too full of itself to be worth a revisit.
Shame, as the patio is very good, and in a good location.

Friendly service, good food, and a great place to eat out with friends without breaking the bank. Classy but fun, definitely worth a visit!

One of the worst bar experiences I’ve ever had. The servers don’t care if you’re there, and they probably wouldn’t care if you showed up at all. They’re far too busy chatting with each other about how beautiful and amazing and important they are to care about customers. Avoid…

Went there boxing day 2010 with a couple of friends. It had recently changed owners. Still has a good vibe, good menu & martini list.
Realized they didn’t expect such a crowd on boxing day and were understaffed. Because of that the food took much longer than it should have but the manager came out, apologized profusely and comped our entire meal.
WOW, talk about good customer service! In the end the food was delicious, we’ll definitely be going back!

Came here for dinner on a recent Saturday evening. The place was empty and we were seated at a gigantic (seriously this place can seat 10) booth. I ordered a pizza and my girlfriend ordered the goat cheese salad with chicken.
The pizza was huge. I have a large appetite but I could not finish this. Perhaps it was the size, but perhaps it was the fact that the pizza was horrid. It was terribly salty, almost to the point of being inedible. The pizza had a reasonable amount of toppings but was just not appetizing. I will admit that the thin crust was decent, but that is about the only positive i can say about the pizza.
My girlfriend’s salad came out and had a browned piece of «something» on it. It wasn’t chicken, that’s for sure! Turns out it was the cheese. It was fried and just stuck on top of the salad with about as much care as I have writing this review. The waitress forgot about the chicken and we waited a few minutes for the no frills bought chicken breast to arrive.
The salad, if you couldn’t tell, was forgettable as well.
With so many good places in BWV this place should be avoided!

OK, so let me say one thing up front: I came here for drinks, and that’s what my rating is based on. Food may be an entirely different matter.
The first time we went, my sweetie and I had just moved to the ‘hood from the SF Bay Area and we were looking for the vibe of our local tapas place/​wine bar — sleek, chic, sophisticated — matched with excellent mixed drinks. Sometimes we just want to go a little swanky and have a nice cocktail, rather than hitting the neighborhood pub in a sweatshirt and jeans for a beer.
So: we really, really wanted to like this place. It seemed like it might fit the bill, even if the décor was kitschy.
Bad sign #1: When the place turns into a bar after-​hours, the servers all mix drinks themselves. There is no bartender. This means the service is slow and the drinks. well… not quite consistent.
Bad sign #2: I didn’t feel the slightest effect after having finished my entire drink. After ordering another drink, hoping the first one was a fluke, I STILL hardly felt anything. Same thing happened the next time we went.
So the upshot? Overworked waitresses mixing weak drinks. We gave them three more tries, and each time the drinks were small, weak, and overpriced given what you get. Pass.

Decent place for quick bite or drink … Nothing special though.

Wow, the service at this restaurant is unbelievably bad. I arrived at the door and waited 5 minutes as 5 different staff members saw us and walked by but didn’t bother to seat us. Once we were finally seated, I waited another 10 minutes for someone to wait on us. This is at 3pm and the restaurant had 5 other customers at most. I tried to wave someone down but noone came to the table. I walked out of there.

Decent spot for a dinner or lunch, the soups and salads are good. They have really weird palm trees with lights in the middle of the restaurant, not sure who made that decision. It’s just OK

You know when you only eat half your (bad) food and the waiter asks you if you want it wrapped up? And that awkward moment passes where you really don’t want it wrapped up because you have no intention of eating it later but you also don’t want to call attention to the fact that it wasn’t great?
That’s what happened last time I ate here.
I ordered some of their pizza, which looked delicious when I first saw it, but it was quite possibly the saltiest thing I’ve ever tasted (and I’ve licked a salt lick before, a story for another time).
There was that and the décor. Oh Jesus. I can only describe it as «Jungle 90’s» (see my photos). Terrible.
So here’s what I’ve decided: Sharkey’s isn’t really a bad restaurant, it’s just not doing a lot of things well (like so many mediocre restaurants in this city). It’s too big, so it always looks half empty, its décor is outdated, its style doesn’t fit the neighbourhood (it’s trying to be Yorkville-​swanky in a Bloor West Village-​friendly neighbourhood). And, like so many restaurants, they cover up bad food with salt. PLEASE people. Stop doing this!
So why the three stars? Because it’s mid-​range. Nothing more, nothing less… oh, and I had a mojito when I was there that was pretty good, like 7 out of 10.

These guys take their fusion cuisine seriously – maybe a little too seriously. When I was here, the waiter spent a little too much time explaining the whole concept, as though I’d never been to this kind of place before.
The food was good, even the free bread munchies, and the entrées and appetizers include pretty much every major world cuisine. Still, I found the portions a bit small considering the price, and considering all the accompanying hoopla.