Ristorante Portovino BROSSARD — Restaurant in Brossard

Good Italians restaurants are hard to find, most often they're all about the looks but not about the taste, this restaurant is one of the good one. Firstly, the portions of food are very generous, these days its rare to find such sizes, but nothing in excess, we don't want quantity over quality, but in their case quantity and quality was present. Furthermore, everything was cooked to perfection, the meat, the fish, the vegetables. It has become a rare occurrence for restaurant to be able to respect cooking temperatures of everything but none of that there . The lamb had a beautiful taste, it was not covered in oil, or anything you could fully taste the meat, I wouldn't be surprised if the lamb we had was fed grass, because I could almost taste it, it felt fresh. I personally love goat cheese, but most often if you order a dish with it, people barely put any in your food, but I was not disappointed. The plates were very colorful, and beautiful, with a beautiful balance of meat and carbs, and greens. My only minus, would be the potatoes but this is more a matter of personal taste, they were very nice and fluffy, and airy, but I prefer mine more dense, also the salmon could have benefitted from a bit of vegetables in addition to the risotto. Otherwise very nice experience. Regarding the bathrooms, they were acceptably cleaned, and bonus points for the hooks inside the stalls(good to put your coat or your purse.) Also , while I'm an avid dessert enjoyer, I think once you've had your meal, having a full dessert by yourself would be too much, so sharing it is recommended. The Tiramisu was good, maybe a tad too much cocoa powder on top, but otherwise nicely textures not overtly wet, but still very moist. Also, even after I was full I was still able to enjoy all the taste of every food I had which is a testament to the culinary expertise. For the people it may concern, you can bring your own wine. Our waiters was very amicable, we waited a little bit for our food but not that long, I encourage you to bring people you like and have a nice conversation before your meal, the setting was very pleasant. I didn't have this sort of "pristine" chic, where people worry how they should behave, the people inside the restaurant were dressed nicely, but still casually. I think this place would be nice for large groups, or semi-formal events. The interior design is slightly outdated, but it gives out this sort of nostalgic vibe. The menus were slightly dirtiest with wine ,but its proof of the "realness" of this restaurant. The tables are covered in a paper sheet, as opposed to a table cloth. I would consider this a great...

My husband and I went this evening for our anniversary. We had been wanting to try the restaurant for a while. Sadly, it was a disappointment. Our waiter basically ignored us for quite a while, then finally brought us water and opened our wine and asked if we had questions about the menu. We said no and he walked away and didn't come back to take our order for at least another 10 minutes.

I ordered the arancini to start and nowhere did it state that it was spicy. I checked the menu again after I received it because I am very sensitive to spice. My husband (who loves spicy food) confirmed it was very spicy. That basically ruined the rest of my meal, though my mains of gnocchi was delicious but I couldn't eat it due to stomach upset. When I told the waiter he said, well it's "arrabbiata" which I know is spicy - I would never have ordered it has it been listed as such. When I told him I double checked he just basically said, Ok. Ok. No apology, no offer to make it right. To be fair, I finished it because I had a feeling there would be no offer of making things right based on the level of service so far, and I wasn't throwing away an expensive app - that probably made me feel worse in the end, I own that.

Then our mains came within about 5 minutes of finishing our apps - not ok. My husband's dish had at least 3 large chunks of raw garlic. We like garlic, but that really overpowered everything else in the dish and wasn't terribly pleasant.

I also noticed the busser (bread runner/plate clearer) mostly had his mask under his nose (as did at least one waitress). And to be clear, when we arrived, it was not busy enough to justify the huge wait to be served. I am very understanding about the current situation and lack of staff and don't complain normally, but this was lackluster service. For the price of the food, to only enjoy half of our meal (my husband did quite like the fried calamari) along with the service, I doubt we would ever return. The 3 stars is for the food we...

Have eaten here multiple times before without any problems, loved the food and service. We liked the restaurant so much we wanted to host a birthday dinner for approximately 20 people here. This proved to be impossible.

After eating at the restaurant one night in September, I requested information from the hostess at the end of the evening in order to make reservations for the event, which we wanted to hold at the end of October. She gave me the managers email address and said all I had to do was to email, which I did the next day. I did not receive any response. After a few days, I called the restaurant and was told the manager was on site, that the restaurant was busy but that the manager would call me back that same day, as only he could confirm a group booking. This didn’t happen. I called 3 more times and was told the same thing each time. I then went on the Portovino website and filled out the reservation request for a private event, thinking maybe with this information on hand it would be easier for the restaurant to call me back. I called one last time after this, 2 weeks before the date we wished to hold the event, and I was once again told the same thing - it’s busy, he will call you back, I can’t make the group reservation myself it needs to be determined with my manager.

Needless to say, we gave up and called another restaurant, Bocci in LaSalle. The manager here called me back within 3 hours, and within 24 hours the entire event was organized. We ended up being 23 people, and had an excellent evening there instead, with great food and service provided for all.

This was a disappointing experience, as before this I had a great opinion of Portovino. If you manage to book your event here, the food will be good, but I would strongly suggest booking elsewhere to save yourself the headache and effort of chasing after someone in order to...