Archeo — Local services in Toronto

My wife and I planned to have our wedding here. We paid our $5000 deposit in March 2020. Two years later, we’re still trying to get them to reply to our emails.

Distillery Events was not able to host the event we’d initially planned due to the pandemic (totally fair) and offered to convert our deposit to a limited-timeframe-use credit (sort of weird).

We still wanted to get married in 2021 and ended up having our wedding elsewhere.

We reached back out to the company in mid-January of this year. We heard nothing for 10 days. Sent a follow-up email and a rep got back to us. Set up a call with the rep. On the call she suggested we use our deposit to "have a brunch with friends." A $5000 brunch.

A $5000 deposit for a wedding? Fine, that’s a once in a lifetime event. $5k for “a brunch with friends?" You’ve got to be out of touch with reality. For many folks, us included, a lot changed during the pandemic. We weren’t living in Toronto anymore, nor were the majority of the friends that we’d invite to this hypothetical extremely expensive lunch!

We brought up the possibility of converting the credit into gift cards for Distillery restaurants. The rep seemed optimistic about this on the phone. It seemed like a possibility.

The rep followed up with us via email four days after the call. In regards to the gift card idea she stated flatly “we can’t do that” and repeated the (insane) $5000 brunch suggestion.

We replied that day, reiterating what we’d said over the phone about an event no longer making sense for us.

A week later, she replied saying we can keep our credit open for an event “down the line” but that “if we don’t host an event our deposit is forfeit.”

Feeling we had no other option, we asked about hosting an event sometime this year. We asked about availability, menus, etc. We did not get a reply. We reached out several times over a period of four months. Nothing. Eventually, I sent an email CC’ing everyone who I had contact info for from the company, and this resulted in a reply from the Event Director. Apparently the rep we’d been speaking with left the company, and Distillery Events failed to transfer this employees open accounts to a new rep or inform open accounts that this employee was no longer with the company. Yikes.

The Director of Events deferred us to a new rep, who initially treated us as if we were new clients, not existing clients with an open credit from a deposit made two years ago. It was frustrating that she seemed to have no info on us. We were able to set up a call with her and catch her up on what was going on. She suggested we speak with the Events Director, referring us back to her. We’ve sent multiple messages to the rep and the Director of Events over the last few weeks and have heard nothing. We’re being ignored again.

We’ve been led to believe we have options we don’t, we’re continually being ignored for weeks or months at a time. We haven't been offered our deposit back, nor have we been given the opportunity to plan an event with the company.

UPDATE: With no other options, we went to Toronto to try and resolve this in person. We asked reception about speaking with our rep, who's email signature says she's in the office weekdays 9-5. We were asked if we had an appointment. We said we'd been trying to make one for weeks via both phone and email. There was an office phone sitting on the desk. Apparently it is ignored. The receptionist said our rep was not in today. We asked why, given her email says she should be. The other receptionist did not look up from her cellphone during this entire conversation.

We went main Distillery District office, and met the first person to actually listen to us. The Office Manager put us in contact with the Distillery District VP, who we explained our story to. He was shocked by the mismanagement happening at Distillery Events.

Mindblowing that we had to take things to VP of Distillery Events parent company to actually talk to someone. A huge thank you to the Office Manager and VP of Distillery District for not ignoring us and...

We had our daughter's first birthday at Archeo due to their policy of not allowing deposits to be sold or transferred (our deposit was intially made during covid-19 and had to postpone/relocate our wedding due to restrictions). This was one of the first issues I had with Archeo, however I had no choice if I did not want to lose a $3500 deposit.

The planning process with Olivia was smooth and she was able to answer all our questions and ensure quick responses when making changes to our event.

However, on the day of the event - we had several issues. The first issue we had was, since we had a buffet meal and wanted a kids meal, Olivia had said we would have to pay the adult price for the kids meal as it would be included in our buffet.

On the day of the event, the kids meal was not included in the buffet and the chef had no idea. We spoke to the onsite coordinator and he advised us he would look into it. He then came back and said he has no record of a kids meal included in the buffet and we would have to pay $10/meal, despite the fact we had prepaid already for 4 kids at adult prices. I notified the coordinator and he went back again to "figure it out". He came back a second time and said they will serve the 4 kids and I can figure it out later with Olivia.

He came back a third time and finally said they will remove the 4 adult charges for the kids ($60pp) and only charge us for the 4 kids meals ($10/pp). While this was a satisfactory resolution, the constant back and forth took me away from my event numerous times.

Shortly after food was served, the onsite coordinator repeatedly kept asking when the cake would be cut - mind you, food had just been served at 12:30pm and Archeo had on their schedule to cut the cake at 1pm.

We had a 3 hour event, you'd think we would be able to cut our cake whenever we wanted, this was a birthday party, not a wedding, so it was more a "go with the flow" kind of event. I must've been asked at least 3 times when the cake would be cut - again taking me away from my event, with the coordinator telling me the chefs were getting antsy. Why? I'm paying for the space, the food and the chefs coming with the food. Why am I being rushed to cut the cake during my very short event?

Finally, we rushed to take pictures around our cake so the staff could cut it. They took the cake away almost immediately and DISCARDED MY HANDMADE CAKE TOPPER! They were able to cut the cake in record time and bring it out , but could not be bothered to bring back my child's FIRST birthday cake topper that was handmade by my sister. There was also an acrylic "1" topper that was also discarded.

After the cake, people had already started to leave and at 3:02pm, the coordinator came to me and said just to let you know, your event is over. People were LITERALLY walking out the door and we had already started cleaning.

Ontop of this, we had until 4pm to clean up and remove our belongings and at 3:30 we were nearly done, however the family that was helping us clean up was being eyed by security and rushed out the door. Mind you, we were coordinating where to put stuff/in whose car etc and the security was just very rude telling them to leave and pushing us out. We still had 30 minutes to clean and we were not socializing.

I would not recommend Archeo for an event as you will repeatedly be taken away from your event for things that could have been dealt with later. If i'm paying for your food and your staff, I should be able to tell YOU when I want my cake cut.

The two positives here, the food was delicious and the staff, aside from security, was friendly even if they were a bit misinformed.

Very glad I did not have my...

Archeo is easy to miss when you are visiting the Distillery District and not specifically looking for it - even though it is right at the main gate entrance to the district, the exterior of this restaurant is so low key that it can easily be mistaken as a gift/clothing shop of some kind. If you do give them a try, you'll find that it is quite a solid restaurant with very reasonable prices given it's at a touristy location.

The restaurant has a casual, rustic Italian Trattoria look and feel to it. Service is prompt and delightful. Unlike other restaurants in the area, this place does not have a huge menu selection, but it is well-rounded and thoughtful. With me and 3 other companions, we were able to sample pretty much all of the appetizers and most of the secondi main dishes.

The food here is contemporary Italian, so anyone who comes here expecting to taste classic home style Italian cooking would probably be disappointed. Presentation of the dishes here are great, and I found the flavours very interesting.

Dishes we had for the evening:

Antipasti with local & house cured meats, housemade pickles, ferments, mustard and cracker Cannelloni with Chianti braised rabbit, charred carrot puree, and burnt cucumber infusion Fresh local greens with house ricotta and elderberry caper Fritto Misto (Maitake mushroom, olive ascolone, dandelion and burnt cucumber emulsion) Flatiron steak with potatoes, creme fraiche, beet, juniper and glace de veau (this was perfectly seared and was an absolute joy to eat) Fazzoletti Ripieni with house made Italian sausage, seared Ontario mushrooms, fennel, kumquat and anise truffle nage (this was an awesome dish as well) Farfelle with rapini, vanilla poached salsify, shallots, garlic confit, garlic pesto cream and preserved lemon Pappardelle Bolognese with blisted vine tomatoes, white anchovies and smoked olive oil (my favourite pasta of the evening) Branzino with pan fried sweet gale, crispy skin, brussel sprouts, dandelion greens and elderberry piccata Piadini Manzo with beef bresaola, sunchoke puree, green olive, pistachio, smoked golden blyth goat gouda (much more interesting and tastier than a pizza!) Apple cake with brown butter icecream and marsala cream (this was so good, especially the brown butter icecream!) Vanilla buttermilk panna cotta Bittersweet chocolate bar with cocoa nibs, raspberry sorbet and strawberry coulis (a very nice and balanced dessert)

I truly appreciate Executive Chef Dyer's passion of trying to focus on using as much local ingredients as possible for his dishes. I was also delighted to know that most things are made/prepared in-house, which is always nice.

Overall, I am definitely a fan of this place and would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone visiting the Distillery District who wants to try good and reasonably priced Italian fare. Archeo is a popular event spot and could be closed for a private event, so reservations are highly recommended.

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