The place is pretty impressive -- high ceilings, nice floors, marble, nice wood (reclaimed
douglas fir) and ornate plaster work. This is a big place, but its broken up into distinct rooms. There's a bar area with a banquette when you come, the hostess is in a corridor and you tell her how many. She then basically figures out where you'll sit or have to wait -- no reservations. You can get seated in one of two rooms, a smaller one of two the side and a large one in the middle with a big fireplace. The smaller room has like a gallery or balcony on top so the ceilings have a lot of height. They also have a few private rooms: the one upstairs has a more contemporary look to it, but the basement one makes you think of those movie scenes where you get these little Italian
cantina around the time of WWII. My favourite thing about the place is the giant case where they keep the prosciutto's at the front -- makes my mouth water.
The patio is nice. It's pretty understated. It backs onto to a square or green area for some condos or something. It kind of reminds me of this side street just off of St Denis in Montreal where the patios for the
restaurants and cafes spill out onto the street.
The crowd tends to lean towards the younger end of the age spectrum, but the you get all sorts here. Pretty casual and relaxed.
The service is decent. I mean this is not the sort of place where you're going to get a personalized meal planner and spectacle when they serve you, but they answer your questions and are friendly and polite.
In terms of drinks and wine, they keep it real. If you're looking for a place to go get fruit martinis and shit like that this is not the place for you. So you can get cocktails and drinks that Italians drink. I like that, no pandering to local tastes. So if you order a
Campari, you're not going to have your server say things like
"Excuse me, can you say that again" or
"I'll have to check whether we have that", or even worse bring you a cranberry juice.
The wine list is pretty extensive. I have to admit I've had some trouble sorting through it because its so extensive. To really work through it well you have to have a pretty good knowledge of Italian wines or perhaps a good knowledge of the wines from some region. I'm not sure the staff would be too much of a help. The last time I order wine there I asked for some help and got a glowing recommendation, but the wine turned out to be really pedestrian. Of course, if you've got some money to spend you're going to be able to find something decent -- you can probably sort most of these wines by price. But if you're on a budget its tougher to work the list. There's no house wine to fall back on.
The menu is basically simple southern Italian food -- although I'm not sure how the smoked salmon
pannino made it on to the menu. So stuff is done in a homey kind of way. For example, if your
secondi dish comes with broccoli then the broccoli is prepared the way an Italian mother might prepare it -- boiled, garnished with some olive oil and sprinkled with chili peppers.
The salads are nice and you can tell that they don't go cheap on the ingredients. For example, if you get the buffalo mozzarella
caprese you really get fresh buffalo mozzarella that tastes different from what is described as buffalo mozzarella at most. The salads are all relatively light so you can get two or maybe three for two persons and sample the menu. The fried calamari come super-sized. They only come with some slices of lemon and they're done well -- not soggy, not burnt, just right.
The pastas there, broadly speaking, come in a tomato sauce or without (cream or oil based). Personally, I'm not a fan of the tomato sauce ones because the tomatoes aren't cooked before making the sauce, so you get a little more of the acidic taste of tomatoes. But this would be true for almost all Italian spots. So they would be fine for people with less refined palettes who can't tell the difference. Of the ones without the tomato sauce, I tend to prefer the
aoili e
olio ones (oil and garlic). For example, the
pappardelle (thick fettuccine) with sausage, peas and mushrooms is kind of like a
bolognese, but without the sauce. The serving sizes are relatively big.
They do thin crust pizza's well here too. Big variety to pick from.
Surprisingly, coffee is not really a strength here -- but then the places that can serve well made coffee are few and far between. On the other hand, the deserts are well done. They have a
flour less chocolate cake on the menu right now that's really good. The
tiramisu is also a nice fall back pick.
A dinner for 2 (2 starters, 2 mains and a shared desert) with a few drinks will be about $80-$100. So this is in the medium price range.
Overall, you can't go wrong with this place. Good food and great vibe. I'd say they set the pace for simple Italian food in the city. As much as I like the place, I can't give it two bunnies though, its a real close call. There's just something missing -- maybe they need some real Italian guys roaming around the place or a
sommelier to help out with wines -- but its really close. But this place gets a bunny without any reservations.
Rating: 1 Bunny
Notes on the Bunny Rating System:
- 0 or no Bunnies, it's a waste of time; don't go.
- 1 Bunny, the place is worth checking out.
- 2 Bunnies, you should go out of your way to check out the place; the food is really good and the place is cool.
- 3 Bunnies, you absolutely have to go there; the food is exceptional and the place is really cool
