Review Cafe' Sole' - Key West

Exquisite food! Conch carpaccio an intelligent texture and flavour that awakens the appetite! The hog fish sole takes center stage on the plate, its delicate and flaky texture a testament to its freshness and careful preparation. It's beautifully complemented by the rich and creamy French bake sauce, which adds a velvety touch of indulgence to every bite. Served alongside are tender lima beans, their vibrant green color and natural sweetness providing a refreshing contrast to the richness of the fish and sauce. The mashed potatoes, whipped to perfection, offer a comforting and creamy side dish that pairs harmoniously with the rest of the meal. Completing the ensemble is the carrot shredded puree, a vibrant and colorful addition that not only adds a pop of orange to the plate but also brings a subtle hint of sweetness to balance the savory elements of the dish. Together, these carefully selected components create a symphony of flavors and textures, making each bite a culinary delight that's sure to satisfy even the most discerning palates. Magnificent!

Excellent food, outstanding service. We loved our evening here.

This restaurant was highly recommended by a local and it did not dissapoint!!! They have an amazing beer and wine list, but the food was exceptional. Their signature dish of Hogfish Snapper Sole was one of the best dishes I have ever had!

Hidden Gem! Staff was professional and service was outstanding! The mushroom soup was one of the best I have tasted. Not overpowered by other ingredients! You tasted the mushroom and did not make you feel stuffed. Nothing like fresh seafood for the entree. The tuna was cooked to perfection. The dessert was the perfect amount. Spent New Years here, will be dining here again! Great date night place. Off of Duval. Reservations recommended!

What a beautiful restaurant in the old town but still far enough from the busy Duval street. Please do come to visit the staff at Café Solé, they will make sure you will be attended and leave the restaurant happy and content. Their house recommendations are definitely something to try, we are glad we enjoyed our last evening here. The key lime pie was the best one we've had on our trip. Thanks for having us - we hope to be back. Thank you to our waitress, Patrizia and her colleagues that made sure our evening was delightful!! 💙

4.8 Food was great. Fish was fresh. Expect French style cuisine. A lot of butter, cream, etc. delicious, but rich flavors. Service was nice and attentive. Building is very dated. We happened to be the only ones there for a late weekday dinner, so it was a fun experience on our end, but it looked as though seating would be very tight if the restaurant was busy.

Outstanding dinner at Cafe Sole! I do not think that you can have a better dinner in Key West for the price point. The service was great too!

A lovely surprise - a snug, stylish and classy restaurant with a decidedly cosmopolitan menu. I was introduced to Hogfish - a first for me, but delicious. My partner had the seafood risotto, which also got a resounding thumbs up. The service was attentive without being intrusive, and there's a lovely ambience to the place. Cafe Sole was recommended to us by the concierge at our hotel, so its reputation is already established among the locals - and on this showing, entirely justified. Thoroughly recommended.

We managed to get last-minute reservations and ordered the Bacon wrapped dates, Saganaki, Lobster Bisque, as well as the Diving Scallops. They were so sweet to split our entree for us & suprised us with an extra scallop. So thoughtful and appreciated. For desert, we shared Creme Brule. Everything was incredible, including all of the staff. My best friend and I both live here and will be recommending this place to everyone.

Charming and romantic setting. Many unique dishes, as well as some traditional French dishes. Definitely try the Haddock Snapper, it's one of their signature dishes and well worth a try. Full bar not available but they have a great wine selection. Friendly staff.

Cafe Sole is a delightful culinary gem that truly deserves a glowing 5-star rating! From the moment you enter, the cozy and charming ambiance creates the perfect setting for a memorable dining experience. The menu is a culinary masterpiece, offering a delightful array of flavorful dishes. From the mouthwatering seafood to the savory pasta, every bite is a journey of taste. The attentive staff adds to the overall enjoyment, providing warm and friendly service. For an exceptional dining adventure, Cafe Sole is an absolute must-visit

What an amazing dinner experience. To start, the staff was all welcoming and seemed happy to be there. Our waiter, Allen, was nothing short of amazing. He was very helpful and checked in us the perfect amount. Let us have our time to ourselves, but also was perfectly available if a need arose. The atmosphere is warm and cozy, the perfect setting for a nice romantic date. I’m not a huge wine guy, but if you are you will love this place. They have an extensive wine menu. The food was phenomenal, possible one of the best fine dining experiences I’ve had so far. The hogfish was so unbelievably good, perfectly salty and buttery it was just perfect. My significant other had the spicy skirt steak, and she loved it! I tried a bite and it was again perfectly seasoned and tender. This is high quality food, the chef does not mess around. Incredible.

EXPERIENCE EXPERIENCE EXPERIENCE!! It was nice to go to a nice, intimate restaurant and relax! Cafe Sole definitely exceeded expectations. It's a small place so definitely make reservations in advance. But don't be fooled by how small it is, everything we had was outstanding from the bread and hummus to our main courses. Our waiter was knowledgeable and attentive, the other servers kept our drinks full and cleared plates quickly. We heard on a food tour that while we were visiting we needed to try hogfish and they had it on their menu! I ordered hogfish and my husband ordered the rack of lamb. The hogfish was like nothing I'd ever tasted before. I'm from Louisiana so no stranger to seafood or fish but it tasted amazing. It was lightly breaded and so buttery. It was worth every cent! The lab was tender and seasoned to perfection. The portion sizes were larger than I expected for this type of restaurant, especially the dessert which was bananas foster! If you're looking for a nice experience and want to get away from the bars and party crowds, this is where you need to be! It was pricey but I don't regret one ounce!

Wow this restaurant is so delicious. French Caribbean fusion in Key West. The French bread was amazing. The Hogfish was as great as the reviews say it is. Unlike anything we have ever had (in a great way). Service was great. An unbelievable wine selection. Super cosy environment. Love the ambiance.

Have been in Key West for 10 days and on our last night here, lucked out with this magical place! Ordered Angels on Horseback, Hogfish, Tuna Pistachio, Key lime pie and chocolate soufflé

Very nice restaurant with a chilled atmosphere, good service and great food. Highly recommend you get reservations and you must try the hogfish special. The escargot was a hit as well as the French Onion soup. They also have a pretty good wine list.

Lovely restaurant with a romantic atmosphere and excellent service. I got the hogfish snapper, which is their signature dish, but it didn't quite meet my expectations. The fish was very good, but the hollandaise sauce is heavy and I wasn't impressed with the sides it came with. Personally, I would've preferred to choose how the fish was cooked and have a choice of side item(s), but I understand that's not the way this restaurant does it. Overall we still had a great dining experience, but next time I would get one of the chef's specials.

Fantastic!. My partner and I ate dinner here last night late. we had arrived in town late and wanted a nice quaint place to have a good dinner. Well, dinner was G r e a t! We both had the hog snapper at the suggestion of our server. it was some of the best fish i have ever ate. it did not taste like fish at all. food. service. atmosphere = 110%. Go there.

For starters we only chose this restaurant, because it was one of our choices in our B&B package. Upon arriving at our B&B, we received our gift certificates to the restaurants we chose; both were for $100. We had a 7pm reservation for this restaurant today (which also happens to be Thanksgiving). We get there at 6:55; get told it'll be 7:15, didn't get seated until 7:20. The whole time thing wasn't a big deal to us. What happens at the end of our meal is what sets is off. After our meal we hand the waiter the gift certificate. He says one moment and goes to the lady at the front counter. They're taking back and fort, she getting on the phone calling someone. He comes back says it's being verified. She then comes over and says, "Sorry but we do not take gift certificates on holidays", extremely loud so everyone around can hear. I tell her where we are staying; who made the reservations, and who gave us the gift certificates She goes back to he phone, gets off the phone exchanges a few more words with the waiter. He finally comes back over, says it's taken care of, but sorry you can't use the unused amount for gratuity. Which was only $8 and some change; who cares here's your very small cash tip, can we just get out of here and away from this horrible experience. I think the B&B and Cafe Sole are both at fault. A big communication error; that lead to a big embarrassment. Not the kind of treatment we expected; big let down. The only good thing I can say about Cafe Sole, is that the food was fantastic. A thank you to the Chefs for your outstanding work.

My Favorite Place in the Keys. Can't wait to visit Harry so we can go here...went last night and the hogfish was wonderful. Everyone else had lobster and our waiter was awesome..he had a Polish accent and was delightful.

Uninspired. Had dinner here tonight 1/12/13. I had their Snapper special that was suppose to be "stuffed" with crab but instead the crab was dry and cold on the side. The snapper was nice and meaty but flavorless. For the price of this place, I would say it was uninspired. My wife said the shrimp risotto I make at home was much better than what she had which was suppose to be shrimp and scallop risotto and had one shrimp.

An all time favorite!. One of my Top 3 meals of all time! <br/>Start it off with "Angels on Horseback" and then get into the best Hog Snapper anywhere and finish it off with the desert trio!<br/>I have had this everytime I have been there, have ordered it for everyone I have brought with me and have recommended it to everyone I met visiting Key West - EVERYONE loved it!<br/>It's off the worn out, beaten path of Duval St. and SOOO worth it!

Fabulous beet salad Napoleon and portobello mushroom soup. Next course was the hog snapper and grouper romesco - phenomenal!

Faux fine dining in the keys. Although it's an intimate environment, the patio seating is crammed meaning that servers bump your chairs constantly if you're sat with your back to them. The table next to me was offered different wine specials to the ones I was given and was served in larger glasses (we had very small 4oz pours). <br/><br/>The conch carpaccio is frankly just a weird and unpleasant flavor covered mixed with too much oil. The signature hog snapper was overly heavy and why it was breaded for was absolutely beyond me, but at least the bread soaked up the excess butter. Exactly the same vegetable sides are served with every entree so good luck using the lemon if you choose the skirt steak - these veggies were also oily and unpleasant. My wife's pasta was nothing special despite the hefty price tag. The wine list didn't offer anything interesting or French by the glass (they were out of the sauvignon blanc) and $8 for a 4oz Buehler chardonnay is a rip-off. All the wines were over priced.<br/><br/>When my entree arrived, I waited 15 minutes for silverware and then the waiter disappeared on us again for a long period. Overall, $130 later for a few dishes that were really dreadful attended to with poor service, we left. This was the worst and most expensive meal we had during 5 days in the keys. This is as far from fine French dining as it gets.

Worth a nice walk there. Found this in the Lonely planet which isnt always a good thing especially when the book is from 2008<br/><br/>really nice imple interior with busy dining room and white panels and fans<br/><br/>great menu or fresh and light dishes etc the accompaniments with my hog fish could have been a little hotter but they were delicious. nice mango salsa.<br/><br/>a great break from fried food and the Duval street crowds<br/><br/>service was very good attentive but not overdone<br/><br/>not cheap but worth a splurge, a nice walk through the colonial houses to find it

Great dinner. Great food,great service had the highly recommended hog fish,also ordered the scallops,very good will be back next year!

Our favorite dinner in Key West. My wife and I and 2 other couples enjoyed our first dinner at Cafe Sole on a recent vacation to Key West. The Portobello and French Onion soups were both excellent. The scallops were the best we have ever had, anywhere. Absolutely to die for. And the Key Lime pie was the best from the many we sampled during our 4 days and nights in Key West. Add to this the ambience and the wonderful service at Cafe Sole and this place was hard to beat.

Great dining experience. We loved everything about Cafe' Sole', from the atmosphere and service to the dishes we ordered. Figuring fish was the way to go, we had the Wahoo with lemon caper sauce and pink shrimp (very good), the blackened grouper with mango salsa (tasty, with some heat) & the hogfish snapper with red pepper coulis (awesome. Would order it every day). Nice little place in a quiet residential area with lots to offer.

Amazing! Had the Hog Snapper, their specialty and it was to die for. My husband and I talked about getting one of these and another entree but both decided to get it. We were glad we had both gotten it because neither of us would've wanted to share it. We also had the Key Lime Pie and Chocolate Pecan Pie andloved both. Two thumbs up!

One of the best in Key West. Absolutely superb. We started with the portobello soup and the gazpacho. Both excellent. Then we both had the Hogfish. Chef John really knows how to cook Hogfish. Coming from South Florida I have had Hogfish many times before but never this good. Just wonderful. Can't wait to go back to Key West just to go to Cafe Sole.

Very unique entree meats/plate veggy garnishments. Hogsnapper dish great! Key lime pie is NOT the best in KW! excellent consistency and toasted meringue...boring key lime taste/not strong. Go for Bananas Fosters!

Took my family and enjoyed our dinner. Great hogfish. Comfortable setting with busy yet friendly service. favorite spot thus far of way too many meals in key west.

Great salmon with crab with hollandaise sauce, coupled with hogfish (a mild flavored locally caught fish) in a roasted red pepper sauce. They included gratuity for 2 people, which is unusual, but this may have been because we utilized a coupon for a free bottle of house wine. Overall a great meal and experience

Consistent, good food!. With a year lapse between visits, Cafe Sole offers consistent, great food and service! A perfect place to go for a nice meal that's a little off the usual path of the Key West experience.

This delightful eatery is several blocks away from the crowds of Duval and Front streets. The exterior of the building looks in disrepair but we charged on anyway. The tables were elegantly set on snow white table clothes. The bread is made on site and is among the best anywhere. While a bit "a la carte" pricy, the three-course tasting dinner comprised of conch salad, hog snapper and three minature deserts is memorable. A wonderful romantic place off the beaten path in Key West.

This is something really excellent & unique in Key West, NOT on Duval St, and NOT filled with tourists getting drunk. Mostly seafood dishes and a great wine list, all heavily Euro-Mediterranean in tradition. This isn't for a quick meal on the cheap. This is a place for savoring the evening. Casual atmosphere, very attentive staff with a combination of accents that I can't explain. Enjoy.