Cru Bistro

4 Stars based on Bar Service only. I’ve not tried their recently revised menu so i cannot rate that. My 3 star food rating is strictly based on their breakfast buffet. I would like to try their Chef’s new dinner menu however…
I’m at a work conference and have been coming to this bar for a nightcap every night. They have a young Latino bartender named Santana (yes like the Singer) who is an awesome bartender. Generous pours, very personable, smart, attentive and professional all in one. He was a great excuse to keep coming back and definitely a great way to end the evening. Great job Santana!

Cru Bistro at the Sheraton Mission Valley has been recently renovated and they have hired a new Head Chef, Chef Anabelle from the Beverly Hilton. The result is a flavorful and delicious upscale menu that even frequent guests of the Sheraton may not expect.
We tried a bunch of items off the menu, starting with the amazing ceviche! My wife and a friend both had the Angel Hair Seafood Pasta, which had lots of delicious shellfish and a touch of spice that made the dish flavorful and unique. I had the blackened cajon chicken, which was just the right amount of kick to give it a great lasting flavor. The chicken was served on a brown rice pilaf that was amazing, I can’t ever get my brown rice to come out so moist and tasty! My other friend had tilapia that was just flaky and perfect.
We washed everything down with another Chef Annabelle creation, a Jalapeño and cucumber margarita! You have to try it, the cucumber makes the drink refreshing and fresh, and as you get to the bottom you start to feel the jalapeño, it’s a great drink! My wife also got a passion fruit mojito that she loved.
There are a lot of dining options in San Diego, but if you are staying at the Sheraton, you’ll likely have to drive somewhere. I really think the Cru Bistro is a bit of a hidden gem in mission valley and I’d recommend Sheraton guests definitely not be afraid to give it a shot.

Empty and they are Slow as fuuuuuu…
I have been in here twice and both times only had drinks from the bar area.
They take forever, and their drinks weren’t that great… my Bloody Mary was all mix this tie around.
I came in several months back during the San Diego Music Thing. I was watching an acoustic performance out by the pool area and had a couple Bloody Mary’s that day. They tasted better the first time I was here.
When I came in again last week, it was to kill some time while I was waiting for my oil change next door. The bartender didn’t have change in the register for a $ 20 bill and he didn’t mention that to me, I was wondering where he disappeared to. If I knew he didn’t have change, I could have gave him a different form of payment instead of wait like 7 minutes for him to go somewhere for change.
My Bloody Mary was all mix, I could barely taste the top shelf Vodka I requested it to be made with.
If this is my only option for a drink in the area, I might just have to stick with a water instead.

Wow. I’ve never payed so much for fish and chips, and had such poor results! Guys, this isn’t easy to mess up. I’m guessing that the new chef may have embellished on his resume a little.
The fish consisted of three tiny pieces not much bigger than a fish stick, and were soggy and rubbery. They even skimped out on the fries. I asked for cocktail sauce instead of the tartar sauce, and they gave me a big bowl of it, and even that was probably the worst most off-​tasting cocktail sauce I’ve ever had.
Of course this did not come with a side salad, just a tiny portion of very sub par food at an inflated price.
Bön Appetite!

As a platinum member with SPG, I received a free, hot breakfast daily. It wasn’t the spread like the DoubleTree Universal Studios in Orlando, but it was alright. Options were more than the Hilton Portland downtown, which was good. Your typical items are available for breakfast: scrambled eggs, potatoes, bacon, toast, cereal, etc.
Service was decent. The waitresses were pretty attentive after initially sitting. If you only placed your items at the table and went straight for the buffet, they’d come to you as you picked your food choices and take your drink order. I thought that was nice instead of waiting for me to sit down after gathering my food. Since this isn’t the absolutely best or worst breakfast I’ve had, «A-​OK» it is!

It’s not that I don’t believe the other Unilocalers. I do. I almost didn’t order anything because of the awful ratings. But I just drove a couple hours and oh god please don’t make me drive another inch! I had to suppress a sigh when they asked me to move my car from loading to the 15 minute parking 10 feet away. So here I am starving looking at a bit of a pricey menu that ‘everyone’ says is absolute shite.
The crabcakes sounded divine but I know that doesn’t necessarily mean much and at 17 $ I didn’t feel adventurous enough. Please just feed me something hot and delicious and inexpensive!
That’s where the clam chowder popped off the page. Safe! 4 $! Soooo delish! My mouth and belly are soo happy and my brain is starting to function again yae!
P.s the bell man who professed he eats here almost every day said the hamburgers are the highlight of the menu.
P.p.s the service was all fantastic to :)
Good luck hungry travelers!

Weird because we also went on ⁸⁄₁₈ and they refused my
certificate so when we presented it at the time of the check so we had to pay full price. Food and service was AWFUL! Bland tasting with very small serving size. The server (Almado — name on the receipt) was a f**king @ss and deserved the $ 0 tip we left.
Absolutely one of the worst places we have been. Please do not waste your time, even if you have a discount coupon.

We went here because we had a
certificate despite the rough review. This is basically an overpriced hotel restaurant. If you take it at face value as just that, you’ll probably be fine. Don’t expect fine dining. You’re paying for the convenience of not leaving your hotel and that’s about it.
We didn’t want to go too far over the bare minimum of the certificate given the aweful rating, so everyone got pretty safe selections (a few cheeseburgers and I think a chicken sandwich). Everyone liked what they ordered, but seeing that we get the same food as the kids received but for twice the price was a little off-​putting (but good none the less).
The service was just weird. That’s the best way I can put it. The guy who sat us seemed a little uppity, like he was doing it for the sake of making this place seem nicer than it was. The window that led out to the pool area was open across from where we were seated, and my family was cold, so we tried to move to the back of the restaurant away from the window. We were told we couldn’t sit back there even though there was NOBODY there, so we just slid to another table that wasn’t directly in line with the open window. The waitress, again, weird. She was nice enough, but there was just a weird vibe. Can’t put my finger on it, but it was an awkward vibe as she seemed to try to relate to us. We’re a pretty standard 2+2 family who are very easy going, so not sure what was going on there, but very strange.
So go if you’re at the hotel and you just don’t feel like getting your car out of valet and you have a few extra bucks to spend on ok food. But don’t expect fine dining.

Have you ever handed over a decent amount of cash to somebody that promises you something wonderful, only to realize later that you have been the victim of a confidence game? That is exactly what Cru Bistro is running… a con job disguised as a restaurant. Their menu and web site make the place sound like a nice casual bistro that cares about the quality of the food. «Cru Bistro is a sophisticated yet approachable eatery with a strong focus on and passion for local ingredients.» This is absolutely not true, especially for the price. The «West Coast» clam chowder claims to be made from fresh local ingredients… but it had to have come out of a can. I know how to make a nice chowder, and this was a thick white mush with some clam flavor and maybe a rind of bacon in there. There was nothing fresh about the plate of Asian Skirt Steak tacos that I ordered. The tortillas were not fresh, and crumbled like old tortillas have a tendency to do. There was a small strip of steak in each taco that was overcooked and chewy. They were supposed to be covered with «Asian Slaw» that was just some coarsely shredded cabbage and carrot with a weak ginger dressing. On the side? Half of an old lime. Total cost? About $ 17. You can go just about ANYWHERE in San Diego and get a better taco plate for half the price. My partner’s fish taco plate was equally disgusting. About 2 tablespoons of greasy, smelly white fish and a pile of cabbage and mayo with a small cup of black beans on the side.
I don’t know who they are trying to fool with the high prices and low quality… I suppose that when you are staying at the hotel you might feel like you have no other choice. Just know that you are being held hostage by the culinary con artists of Cru Bistro. By the way… the current menu looked nothing like the one that is posted on their web site, and I seriously doubt that there is a trained chef anywhere in the building… he must have gained some self respect and walked out.
Now, I would not give a restaurant only one star for poor food. You can make up for it with ambiance and good service, and at least pull 2 – 3 stars out for being nice. This was totally not the case. There seemed to be only one bartender that had to manage serving the whole place, and she got saltier and saltier every 5 minutes. We are not troublesome diners… in fact we are very easy to serve, but we still got a poor attitude. We also overheard several snappy and rude remarks that were made to other customers… even though people were doing their best to be patient and polite. The server never checked on us once the lousy food was delivered. I suppose she knew better than to come and ask us how everything tasted. We did our best to be nice to her, and didn’t deserve the treatment that we got.
In French, Cru means «believed». These charlatans, chiselers, con artists, connivers, or crooks want you to believe that this is a bistro.
Don’t believe it.