Harvest & Ale

Really great staff and delicious food served in a reasonable time. I recommend you make reservations in advance, otherwise you may be placed on a wait list or not get seated if it's really busy. Beers on draft are mostly local and some desirable ones may be out by the time you get there but a nice alternative will be offered. Highly recommended

They did a beautiful job with interior! It was very crowded and understaffed (like everplace during covid) so service was slow. A lot out food outages (probably hiccups from just opening). Will definely give it another try earlier in week! Hope they do well because not much in that area.

Went to Harvest and Ale for the first time tonight. Really great ambiance and interior was a step up from the old restaurant. Our reservation was at 6:30 and while we were sat promptly, we waited 45 minutes for a cheese plate. We really didn't mind this since we were just hanging out and drinking (the drinks were really good and the wine was a nice heavy pour). The waiter took our order around 7 pm and we didn't get our food until 8:30 pm. Although this was frustrating, there were two gentlemen upstairs who were extremely kind and kept apologizing profusely. The management and wait staff kept saying over again they would comp us which they did. When the food showed up it was tasty and above average for a restaurant in Oakland. The one young man was definitely in high school and it was his first time working in a restaurant and he was hard working and so friendly. Once they work out their kinks I will definitely be back. I recommend going if you have time to sit a Little long time or to wait maybe a month so they hire more staff members.

Great menu, getting the twecks out, good job all! Will be back!

Harvest and Ale is a brand new Oakland restaurant serving a variety of dishes made with locally (relatively) sourced meat and vegetables. This is the eatery's opening week and, as is often the case, nothing is running at 100% yet. I took my mother and fiancée here on a Wednesday night and it was crowded. I made reservations for 6:15 pm by emailing them at 3:30 pm the same day. Don't expect to just show up and be seated quite yet, but reservations aren't necessarily hard to get either.

We were promptly seated at arrival and the waitress set us up with bread and water while we checked the menu out. It is a soft opening, so not everything was available. The three of us each decided to order a different signature cocktail and dishes from three different categories (salad, sandwich, and entrée). The cocktails, while flavorful (initially) were VERY strong. To some, this could be a positive aspect, but for us it was negative. Out of the three we ordered (Cherry Lux, Mango Heat, and Charred Pineapple) the mango heat was the best. Beware though! These each cost about $16 and the price is not on the menu.

Unfortunately it took a tad bit too long to get our food brought out to us... around 25 or 30 minutes. It felt even longer because the management had yet to figure out how to properly set the air conditioning for a packed house. In the end though, the wait was mostly worth it. My dish, the Barnwood Salmon, was absolutely amazing. It's crab meat crust made it different and it was extremely flavorful and cooked excellently. I would highly recommend it. My mother got the Free Burger which is a chicken burger. She enjoyed it and I can say that we all enjoyed the fries it came with. In fact, the fries are up there in terms of the best fries I've ever had. My fiancée had the Quinoa Chickpea Salad and, unfortunately, did not like it. It was completely missing the dried cranberries it was supposed to come with and she claimed that the quinoa was overcooked/soggy and generally made the whole salad soggy.

One other thing that I would like to add is that the restaurant does not give you good sized portions of the sides and the plating needs to be improved. Comes across as sloppy and lacking, not minimalist and fancy. See the pictures I've included.

I can honestly say that I want Harvest and Ale to succeed. Oakland needs new restaurants like this one. As of now I am giving 4 stars with the hope that I can bump this up to 5 in the future after some of the kinks are worked out. I definitely do recommend that you give this place a try.