I like everything about Cleaver except the food.

This is a good omen.

Because über-bartender/award-winning cocktail maven Nectaly Mendoza owns it.

And the last Mendoza restaurant whose food I hated (Herbs & Rye), turned out to be a big hit.

I’m not going to go on and on about its menu miscues (in one of my 1000+ word articles with a bunch of pictures), but I will point out a few things. So here goes:

Cleaver has an ambitious name and a very ambitious location (directly across the street from a Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse), and it has a cool, comfortable decor with a long, capacious bar and comfortable booths bathed in a soft, flattering light that makes everyone look good and a noise level conducive to enjoying good drinks and conversation, not to mention tucking into steaks and sides straight from an old school steakhouse’s playbook, which seems like a really good idea until you realize this place has been death to several other steakhouses that all thought they could make a go of it with the same template and each failed miserably within a year, even though they didn’t have this joint’s pedigree or ambition, which might be enough to bring a big industry crowd in, but  which won’t be enough to keep this place afloat because it needs to chip off a bunch of conventioneers to make a go of it and to do that you need to have food and wine and drinks that compete with our top (and even 2nd tier) steakhouses (like Del Frisco’s), and from what I’ve tasted in two dinners here the steaks are worthy but the side dishes — from almost uncooked Brussels sprouts to grainy-bland cheese sauce to dusty-tasting calamari to an atrocious steak tartare — won’t do anything to turn anyone’s head from a more well-known venue, none of which bodes well for Cleaver’s chances if they can’t find a way to turn out at least B- side dishes to compliment their B+ to A- beef.

They also don’t know how to make a Bearnaise sauce to save their life, which is pretty much a cardinal sin in the steakhouse world. And the carpaccio won’t have anyone forgetting Harry’s Bar, either.

None of this comes cheap. The sort of neighborhood budget-steakhouse vibe that packs them in at Herbs & Rye won’t cut it a half a mile from the Strip — not in the $60 steak arena, and not with the stiff competition Cleaver is facing.

But like I said, the design is super-groovy (dominated by faux-military framed paintings of Chris Farley, Martha Stewart, Eddie Murphy and their ilk), and the service is great and the bartenders are skillful. I even love that they do a Kansas City strip here — a bone-in cut I thought had gone the way of tournedos Rossini — and they know how to season and sear it.

But if they don’t get their act together with the rest of the menu, this place is going to go the way of Mr. Farley.

There, I said it.

CLEAVER BUTCHERED MEATS, SEAFOOD & COCKTAILS

3900 Paradise Road Suite d-1

Las Vegas, NV 89169

702.538.9888

http://www.cleaverlasvegas.com/