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Price:
$$$ 35-45 per person Would I go back again:
Yes if I have to
Located in the Byward Market it advertise itself as one of Ottawa’s premiere dining spots, Ottawa City Magazine Best Italian Restaurant and that they go above and beyond to create a personal and truly unique dining experience.
The atmosphere was really nice. A really good location for a romantic or intimate, cozy atmosphere.
Other than being greeted by a friendly hostess and immediate direction the table the service was left to be desired, although it could be just the waiter we had but it was not acceptable customer service standard. My boyfriend and I were the last ones of the party to arrive for dinner. Everyone already had their drinks and I arrived first as my boyfriend had to go to the vehicle to retrieve something. From the time I arrived to my boyfriend arrival and to the time we had our orders taken not once did the waiter come by to greet us and ask us for the order for our drinks. In fact when he was taking our order for our meal we had to point out that we would like to order some drinks as well. He did not once ask for our drink order, we had to tell him we wanted drinks in which his response was "sure what would you like". When it was time for dessert we did not even get a dessert menu we had to pass the three that was given to one end of the table to the other end of the table. There was a bit of confusion as well because some of us weren't even done eating our main as not everything arrived at the same time at our table as most restaurants will do even if it's a larger group.
The food was okay. It wasn't the best as they had advertised it but it wasn't bad. Going by the restaurant's self advertise and claim of reviews their presentation of the meal was quite random. Some had some sort of presentation and some doesn't have any at all. Prior to the food coming they had bread with oil and vinegar dip like all Italian restaurants do. I ordered the Prosciutto & Pear for an appetizer to share with my boyfriend, for main I had Veal Marsala ("Veal scaloppine in a Marsala wine and mushroom sauce accompanied by roasted potatoes and grilled Mediterranean"), and my boyfriend had Chicken Breast ( "Oven fired chicken supreme drizzled with gorgonzola and walnut sauce, accompanied by parmesan mashed potatoes, snow peas and carrot"). Starting with the appetizer (antipasti), I like to go to restaurants and order something different and it had promised me a unique experience, I had ordered the Prosciutto & Pear thinking it would be a unique combination of flavour that would be yummy (like those weird combinations that you put together and they turn out to be really yummy). The dish was not anything amazing to make it was just as it says in the menu a few "Bartlett pear wedges and brie wrapped with thin slices of prosciutto" leaned on a small pile of green with balsamic reduction drizzled on it. Eating it was not anything amazing either, the combination did create a new yummy blend of flavours, in fact it took all my will power to not disassemble the thing and eat each individual ingredient by itself as it would taste a lot better that way. It also didn't help that some of the balsamic reduction got onto the wraps itself and it did not complement at all.
The main meal what can I say...The veal was cooked okay. It might have been a bit overdone as I trouble cutting it into pieces. There was no presentation for my dish. It was three small pieces of veal piles on top of each other veggies, 3 half of potatoes spread around, and the whole entire plate was swimming in the "marsala" sauce. Why in quotations.... well it wasn't a flavourful marsala sauce it was lacking in taste and what you can taste will be all of a sudden over powered by explosion spiciness and numbness as you bite into a whole black peppercorn which once you bit into one you can't taste anything afterwards. My boyfriend’s meal was a small pile of mash potatoes and a chicken breast was put on top of with a sprig of rosemary stuck in it standing like a tree. I normally would try his dish as well but it looked like and tasted like (in his words) “a grilled chicken breast and mash potatoes". It was not anything special. I didn't even see any sauce on his chicken, maybe it all grilled off.
So overall it was kind of over rated especially with their advertisement and claimed review. It was not the worst Italian food but not the best, as well not a really fully traditional Italian culinary cuisine. I would say it's heavily Italian influenced, but was a really expensive Italian restaurant with so so food. It seems whoever made the menu kind of put things that would look good written on the menu but not as great or complementing when it comes to the reality of eating it. For those that have been to the Cheesecake cafe that's the quality of the food you'll be getting at this restaurant but at a much more expensive price range. By my opinion the Cheesecake had a better Marsala dish than this restaurant did.
Those that have been here and gotten a different experience please feel free to comment as we all know sometimes restaurants can have their bad days.
