Calgary has many good restaurants (food and service quality) but no exciting restaurants. Then again, what kind of excitement is appropriate to look for in a restaurant? I would never go (or want to go) to some of the places described above. Serving in the dark, eating with your bare hands, making your own food - seriously??? A friend of mine says that he'd try anything once. To each their own, I suppose. Call Stefon.
Live music is, imo, the best kind of dinner entertainment and we suck at it in Calgary. I am really disappointed that our nearly 1.5M city does not have any decent live jazz venues anymore. Kaos and Cannery Row were really good in the 90's but couldn't survive. Ironwood in Inglewood is trying but the food sucks and it's more blues/country nowadays...