Padrino's Italian Ristorante — Restaurant in Grande Prairie

This was hands down the worst Italian restaurant I’ve ever been to—even Olive Garden would’ve been a better choice. I went here with my dad hoping for a good meal, but the experience was disappointing from start to finish.

Our server listed off the specials, one of which was a chicken parmesan for $17. When the bill came, it turned out to be $38. The waiter claimed the $17 was for an appetizer portion—something he never specified. To make matters worse, the portion really did look like an appetizer, so the explanation felt like an excuse.

Drink prices were just as ridiculous: $9 for a small beer of their house brand is absurd. Even bottled beer was overpriced at $7.50. To top it off, the waiter brought the wrong drink—we ordered Molson Canadian and received Coors Light instead.

The complimentary bread was cold, hard, and clearly left out for too long. We barely touched it, and what we did eat was unpleasant. At least they didn’t charge us for that.

I ordered the Spaghetti con Bisonte—spaghetti with bison meatballs—and it was terrible. The portion was child-sized; I could literally count around 40 strands of spaghetti. The meatballs were extremely chewy and tasted off, nothing like real bison. For $30, it felt like a complete ripoff. The bread served with the dish was also hard and stale.

For that same $30, I could have made a far better meal myself—enough to feed my dad, my grandma, and me for days. We will never return, and I strongly advise others to avoid this...

We were seated at 7:00-7:10, planning on going to a show at 9:00 at the GPRC. I had called ahead weeks earlier to book a reservation and the woman who answered the phone explained that on Valentine's Day they didn't take reservations and that it "worked great". Again, I understand it was busy, but given the limited set menu, we thought this two hour window would be an adequate amount of time.

Our salads had an odd grit to them, and my fiance's polenta pizza was room temperature. We had to wait 45 minutes between our appetizer and our main course. Our waitress was friendly, but said our entrees "would be right out" 25 minutes before they actually came. After 30 minutes without entrees we began to worry about being late for our show, and this anxiety occupied the rest of the time we were at your restaurant. When our entrees came we had to scarf them down, and get our desserts to go with the bill.

The desserts were not what was advertised on the menu to my recollection, but a thawed slice of cake.

Any of these things by themselves could be overlooked and the business certainly was an expected factor, but I just felt like we got very little value for the $150 we spent. I've been to Padrinos several times before and enjoyed the food, but we felt like the first half of our evening...

Let me start this review off by saying that our expectations were already low for a restaurant connected to a Hotel, yet somehow we were still disappointed. We got the Lasagna (which everyone recommended) the Ribeye, and a Caesar salad. I've never had food taste so awful. Why would anyone think it was a good idea to add spinach to everything? All of the food had a metallic hot spinach taste, to include the bread. I've lived in Italy for years, and not once did I ever see Spinach anywhere near food. Hell, I've even been in combat and eaten numerous rations in war zones and I would take any one of those over any of the food this restaurant serves. We ended up taking the lasagna home in boxes thinking hunger would eventually drive us to eat it. Not the case. I got one whiff of the steak after a day of not eating, and decided it was best used as dog food, to which the dogs wouldn't even touch it. Save yourself some trouble if you're staying in the hotel and get a microwave meal from the front desk.

P.S. The waitress was absolutely fantastic. Can't remember her name but she had black hair and what seemed like a matching Kendra Scott opal necklace and earring set. She was great to my wife and I and was the only redeeming quality...