Urban Farmer

I arrived on a very busy Saturday evening. David and Joel were phenomenal in handling all my questions. (It was my first time.) Though the menu options are quite pricey (due to it’s location adjacent to the Westin Hotel), my beau and I made a decision to just enjoy the experience. If the price wasn’t so high, we would probably become regulars! Urban Farmer is truly a dining experience.

I’ve now been to three of their locations. The Cleveland, Portland, and Philadelphia are all very similar but unique at the same time. This review is about the Cleveland location.
Location — it’s in the bottom of the Westin Hotel at the corner of a very busy part of downtown Cleveland.
Ambiance — the place is dope as one would expect. The décor is modern industrial meets Midwest farm if that make sense. During the warmer months they beautiful sidewalk dining outside that is partitioned off from the unwashed masses passing by.
Food — I’ve eaten there on multiple occasions for every meal. The breakfast is always very fresh and changes seasonally. The munch has a host of farm to table options like burgers and such. The dinner always has a beef selection that is being promoted from various organic farms across the country.
Cocktails — an okay bourbon selection and craft spirits selection. Some of their specialty cocktails are very tasty. Especially their interpretation of an Old Fashion.
What keeps me from giving it five stars? Bathroom location is a mile away it seems inside the hotel lobby. Petty I know… but I’m impossible to please.

Urban Farmer is absolutely on point, yes a Steak House for sure! The staff is over the top attentive. Cocktails are flawless, we entertained our cousin
Chef Chris Hastings a James Beard Award Winner from The Hot and Hot Fish Club, Birmingham, Alabama… He Loved the entire concept, everything was delicious presentation beautiful the attention to detail perfect.

Steak is expensive. My mom can usually buy a decent one for $ 10-​$ 15 and throw it on the iron skillet or grill it and I am happy with it. I do not see much of a difference when going to steakhouses. I had the flat iron cut for $ 34 and it was a great steak at a high cost. That equates to entrance fee, one appetizer, two Heineken and one lap dance at the Lido Lounge not including tip. It is hard to justify paying that for a piece of meat when all that fun could be had at the same price point on W 117^th St. My friend ordered the $ 96 strip steak sampler including Wagyu beef. He could not finish and was kind enough to break us cheapskates off some meat pieces. They were delicious. The waitstaff is professional and subject matter experts. They know almost too much about the cows. I rather not think about the lives they once lived on farms before ending up in my stupid and mean self. I am not a high-​end guy unless I back peddle and end up high. I did enjoy the pampering.
Brunch here is one of my favorite in Cleveland. New Year’s Day was funny. People seemed off their game and in pain. Now they can try to empathize with the animals that were slaughtered for them.

I’ve only ever been here for happy hour and brunch, but I can say it’s one of my favorite places in Cleveland for those two reasons.
My go-​to for happy hour is the charcuterie board. All of the cured meats and pates are so delicious and I always feel particularly adventurous when I’m breaking out of my boring picky box. Beef tongue? Only Urban Farmer’s charcuterie board could get me to eat it.
The cocktails I’ve had during happy hour have not been my favorite. They’re pretty mediocre, so I might just end up sticking to beer here. I also got soup once and it was good, but I quickly realized I have a favorite item here and I shouldn’t stray from that.
I went for brunch once as well and was impressed with the smoked salmon bagel, no surprise. I’d definitely come back for that too! Brunch cocktails are a different story compared to happy hour cocktails – the bloody mary bar here is amazing. All of the house pickled items are delicious and the variety of drink garnishes is impressive!

Thank you Urban Farmer for coming to Cleveland.
I recently visited with my dad after a trip to the art museum and wow, we left super impressed and happily full! The restaurant gives a sort of ambiance that makes you feel at home all the while being in a high end steakhouse. The booths are cozy and the décor is modern. The local farms they get ingredients from are listed above the kitchen and jars of pickled vegetables sit on shelves around the tables. Our waiter Tyler was fantastic! I would definitely ask to be seated in his section again. He knew everything about all ingredients on the menu and had fantastic recommendations. He had humor as well and that is a fantastic talent to have when working with people all day. My dad likes to make jokes about everything and even though some of them are lame he rolled with it. Two thumbs up!
Now for the food. We each ordered a steak, I got the Tri Tip that was on special for the month and my dad also got a special steak (which unfortunately I cannot remember the name of «doh»). We also ordered the Creamed Spinach Gratin and Brussels Sprouts. I cannot tell you the last time I had creamed spinach but man oh man was it fantastic! For dessert we took Tyler’s recommendation of the Butterscotch Sundae and boy am I glad we did! It was presented beautifully and tasted like dessert perfection.
What a tremendous first experience!

Breakfast is wonderful. Farmers omelet for G and eggs Benedict for me. Plenty of food for the price and it’s cooked to perfection. Highly recommend for breakfast.

In town for a few days for work. Walked next door to try this place for a quick dinner. On the plus side, great drink selection, cool environment. Ordered the burger for dinner, pretty underwhelming… It was dry and lacking in flavor. Wouldn’t order again.
Would return, but probably for drinks only.

Outstanding meal. Excellent steaks and sides. The porterhouse and 21 day dry aged NY strip were perfectly cooked and full of flavor. The potato tart was decadent and the creamed spinach was creamy and rich.

Wonderful concept and great unique meals! I had the chopped hash with beets and poached eggs, I ordered it with a side of hollandaise sauce and it was AMAZING! Nothing short of greatness here, and reasonable prices to top it off

Inside the new Westin Hotel! Quick breakfast before we start the day. Omelette and yogurt panna cotta. I don’t know what they put in the yogurt but damn was it amazing! The hashbrown that came wit hthe omelette was different and tasted great!

Came in for brunch and was very, very pleased. Everybody really liked what they ordered (benedict, french toast, cheddar bacon biscuit)… The bloody mary bar was awesome, along with the service. Great atmosphere, and local food sourcing was a big plus. The dinner options don’t seem to have as much variety, but after such a great experience, I think I would give it a shot.

My friend and I took a quick trip to Cleveland this weekend and stopped at the UF for brunch on our way home. Fresh, local food… magical. I had scrambled eggs, bacon, breakfast potato and white toast. Seems pretty basic but tasted nothing of the sort. It was clear how fresh each ingredient was, so tasty. My friend thoroughly enjoyed the shrimp and grits. Coffee was delicious and both the coffee and waters were refilled frequently. I’d absolutely return for brunch or any meal.

This is a top notch dining experience that all steak lovers of Cleveland must embrace and induldge in. It is expensive, but you can’t put a price on perfectly cooked, excellent cuts of local and regional steaks. Ive tried one of the filets and a 24 oz ribeye (both corn fed). I give the nod to their ribeye, naturally flavorful with great marbling.
Their oysters were great, both your traditional Atlantic and creamy Pacific oysters. They were served with an onion-​ey delicious dunking sauce. An abundance of scratch made corn bread was served to us, SO GOOD but tried not to fill up. I also tried their bread crumb crusted cream spinich, become a staple of my Urban Farmer meals.
The cocktail I had (old fashioned) was made well, great touch of sweetness and bourbon to pair with my meal.
The décor and interior design was tastefully done, very swanky and unique place. You get the feeling when you’re inside Urban that everyone else is just plain missing out. The service was on point, compliments to our hot bartender too.
This is 5 star all the way, bravo.
FYI if you’re not trying to spend then go to Outback, this is a go big or go home/​special occasion place.

A colleague and I stopped in for dinner while in Cleveland for a conference. Amazing food and great atmosphere!
We found the service to be very helpful. For example, we both felt we couldn’t eat a huge steak by ourselves but we both like steak cooked differently. Our server suggested ordering it the way I liked it (medium rare) and sending half back for additional cooking (to get to well done like my colleague likes it). Brilliant! The steak was wonderful.
We also had the roasted vegetables and baked fingerling potato tart. Mmmmmm…
It’s only too bad that Urban Farmer is in Cleveland, because I’d love to go back for dinner with my husband.

We decided to give this place a try… Looking for something a little different while in Cleveland for business. Note that Google maps tries to put you about a half block from the restaurant — its actually in the hotel building.
My companion had the Walleye dish and I had a Flank Steak. The fish was ok… Not great. The steak was cooked perfectly… But was tough. For the price point this place is on the scale, I expected more.

This restaurant is located in the Westin. I had two lunches here, both very good. The staff was accommodating and friendly, although the server brought four tiny rolls for a table of six. Different people delivered the food, leading to my pet peeve — a server standing with armloads of plates, querying, «WHO HAD THE TURKEY?» while interrupting all conversations.
The menu changed to a more limited brunch menu on the weekend. Lucky for me, the shrimp and grits was still available, so I got to enjoy a plate of grits, moist grilled shrimp, *and* pulled pork, with a poached egg to top it off. ‘Nuff protein there!
One wall is lined with gorgeous jars of canning and preserves, which a server told us the chef makes herself. Having grown up with home canning I have to wonder where she finds the time. And it’s not just decoration — they serve this homemade good stuff. Very cool.

If what you are looking for in a steakhouse is a selection of cuts from a variety of purveyors further divided among grass-​fed, corn-​fed, and grain-​finished meats, then Urban Farmer is the place for you – and probably the only place for you, as I have rarely seen such detail put into a steakhouse menu. On the other hand, if what you are looking for is an expertly-​cooked steak complimented by tasty sides and an enjoyable meal, I would recommend just about any other top-​tier area steakhouse over Urban Farmer.
I went with a medium-​rare 14 oz. Creekstone (Kansas) corn-​fed New York strip – the only prime-​rated piece of meat on the menu (and that in itself bears some attention). My fellow diner went with a medium-​rare-​plus 8 oz. Bartels (Oregon) grass-​fed tenderloin. Unfortunately, both steaks were savagely mis-​cooked: My New York strip was easily medium, if not medium-​well, and the tenderloin was straight rare. To his credit, the waiter sensed my displeasure and after looking at the steak offered to get another one cooked up right away. I declined – frankly, because I did not want to spend the extra time – but the offer to correct the error was appreciated. (I am unsure why he did not make a similar query regarding the undercooked tenderloin.)
As for non-​steak items: Drinks were excellent. The oysters were decent, despite the staff misidentifying the oysters as Pacific and Atlantic varieties even though the waiter informed us that only Atlantic oysters were available that night. I also enjoyed the Apple Doughnuts, set up to rival Red’s Doughnut Holes. As opposed to the latter’s pillowy feel, Urban Farmer’s take (also served piping hot) offers a slightly crisp exterior covering a soft interior. The Candied Bacon addition also bears mentioning: I really appreciated the thickness of the strips (probably as close as I have yet to come to Peter Lugar’s famous appetizer slices), but the meat was really tough – almost like jerky. I did not think the candying added much to the side, and the bacon jam accompaniment gets lost altogether. I do not recommend getting either the green beans or Farm Fries.
When you are paying $ 50+ for a steak and $ 200+ on a meal for two (without wine), the bar is necessarily set high. And the crucible only burns hotter when you are in a steak-​loving town with plenty of able competition from the likes of Morton’s, Red, Hyde Park, Cabin Club, Strip, XO, and the soon-​to-​be-​revived Ruth’s Chris. Urban Farmer’s commitment to local and organic sourcing is a plus and actually compliments the oft-​cited credo of «great ingredients, expertly prepared,» but the restaurant desperately needs to refocus its efforts on the latter half of that philosophy to stay competitive.

The food here is top of the line! My table shared the Charred Octopus, ½ Shell Oysters and Crispy Sweetbreads. so good. My first time having charred octopus and i was an instant fan!
Main course I had the 8 oz Bartels, Oregon, grass-​fed TENDERLOIN. med rare, cooked to perfection!
Staff was so knowledgeable, friendly and treated us more as family then customers.

Dinner. Weekend brunch. Now I tried UF for breakfast. The breakfast menu is slightly smaller than the brunch menu, but just as fresh and good. Some of the same items are on both menus.
I got the omelet, which recently just changed ingredients from when I was here for brunch. It was just as good. The eggs were cooked perfectly.
What really made breakfast better than brunch was that we had such a friendly, on-​top-​of-​things waitress. Yolanda made the experience delightful!
My friend ordered something with bread just like he did when we were here for brunch. He eats gluten free so asked for it without bread. At brunch, the waitress said ok. At breakfast, the waitress said well if you don’t want bread how about an English muffin that is made in house. When my friend turned that down, she offered gluten-​free bread which my friend and I didn’t even know they had! What a problem solver! She didn’t take no for answer; she hunted for a solution to make her customer happy and because of her effort she found a solution and my friend got bread after all.
She also paid great attention to detail. She kept waters full and even though she left a pot of coffee on the table she kept coming by to refill our mugs with it (good coffee too!). Also instead of just setting the condiments on the table she identified them as she did so.
All in all a great start to a workday. Quick kitchen service lets you come in and eat within about 40 minutes.