Davis Craft Kitchen & Bar

When a downtown Sarnia table can't agree on what it wants, Davis Craft Kitchen & Bar is the answer that keeps the peace. One person is there for the beer, another for cocktails, a third for a plate of tacos or a burger, and the menu is wide enough that nobody has to compromise to keep everyone at the same table. That breadth is not accidental. Davis is Refined Fool's downtown craft kitchen on Davis Street, and since opening in 2014 the brewery has built a food menu that holds its own next to the tap list rather than coasting on it.

The food reads like a menu designed for a table, not a single diner. Davis Poutine is the clearest comfort-food anchor — fries under slow-cooked beef, house gravy, cheese curds, and scallions. From there the kitchen sharpens: Chicken Birria Tacos arrive with braised chicken, cilantro crema, crispy chicken skin, and adobo on the side, and Carne Asada Tacos bring shaved ribeye seared in spicy adobo under avocado crema and pico. The Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwich stacks crispy fried chicken, hot glaze, pickles, and slaw on brioche; the Davis Smash Burger keeps two patties simple with onions, mustard, and lettuce. Around the mains sits a deep shareable list — grilled halloumi, a deli board of cured meats and fine cheeses, crispy cauliflower in mango habanero or Cajun, hummus and chips, brussels sprouts under Parmesan and balsamic.

The handhelds reward a closer read. The Cubano presses slow-roasted pork, ham, Swiss, pickles, and Dijon aioli on grilled bread, and the French Beef Sandwich pulls beef with onions, arugula, Gruyère, and a mustard-horseradish sauce on ciabatta with au jus on the side. There is range past the meat, too, which keeps the menu honest for a mixed group: homemade spinach-and-ricotta ravioli under almond-basil pesto and Grana Padano, a hummus bowl with roasted cauliflower and Israeli couscous, Mediterranean and Tuscan chicken flatbreads, marinated tomato bruschetta on whipped ricotta. Three empanadas come stuffed with Cuban beef, chorizo, or plantain, the kind of plate that signals a kitchen reaching past the standard pub roster.

What the menu says about the kitchen is that this is a brewery that took the food seriously. A taproom can get away with a short list of fryer items beside good beer. Davis runs a full kitchen daily, threads Mexican, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern notes through a comfort-food spine, and keeps cocktails in the conversation alongside the Refined Fool tap list. The result has more range than a beer-only stop and more intent than a generic pub — a place where the drinks program and the plates were built to be ordered together.

The brewery context gives the room its character. Refined Fool's beer identity sits at the centre of the visit, and the tap list runs the brewery's own catalogue — seltzers, a lager, a red ale, IPAs, Kolsch, cream ale, raspberry wheat — beside a bar that turns out cocktails for the diner who wants something other than a pint. On Davis Street downtown, with the kitchen open every day and the bar running later on Friday and Saturday, Davis anchors the kind of unhurried evening that a quick counter stop can't.

Davis works best when a table leans into the social version. Reservations and private-event space make it easy to plan around, and the smart order spreads wide: halloumi or bruschetta to start, poutine and wings for the middle, tacos or a hot chicken sandwich to finish, a flight from the tap list moving alongside. It is less a restaurant you visit for one plate than one you book when the night is the point and the group is the reason.