Martello Restaurant — Restaurant in Hamilton

I'll start with a review of the food (3/5). We've been a few times and normally enjoy their pizzas. Our Margherita was yummy as they use tasty crushed tomatoes. The mushroom and fontina was very bland: very few toppings that just didn't pack a lot of punch, so what I mostly tasted was the smokeyness from the pizza oven. With several other restaurants on James that offer similar menu items at the same price, I would generally opt for elsewhere. What has always brought us there was the very large patio - very helpful if you are dining with kids, which we do regularly.

However, after our interaction with staff yesterday, we won't go back and would recommend anyone with small kids avoid this restaurant. It's difficult to explain the situation without sounding like the kind of parents who think their kid can do no wrong. So I'll just say that our kid was doing something we didn't think was a huge deal, on a completely empty patio, but can also see why staff had an issue with it (quietly making a pile of pebbles on the corner of an unused picnic table).

One staff member scolded our daughter (“could you not?” in a snotty tone), then came up to me with an extremely condescending and judgemental tone and told me to do something about my child. The next staffer continued to defend the actions of the first because our daughter was misbehaving from their POV. We don't have an issue with wanting her to stop, it's how they went about it.

We dine out almost on a weekly basis downtown with our kids and have never been met with that kind of hostility. In fact, we often comment about what makes so many of the trendy restaurants so great is that they welcome kids.

We got the distinct message that children aren't welcome and so we won't be back. If you want to go somewhere with better food, and that is welcoming to families, we can recommend the following places we've been recently (with kids) instead: Rapscallion (immediately gave us a list of ways they could accommodate a toddlers pickiness), Aberdeen Tavern (had crayons and activity books waiting at the table), The Diplomat (really attentive to the kids and making sure their food came quickly), The Mule (asked what our daughter liked to watch and changed the TV to something more kid-appropriate), Claudio's (took her on a tour of the kitchen), Gastro Market (kitchen tour, got to taste a sauce they were working on), Salt Lick (small mac and cheese brought right away for her) ... honestly the list just goes on and on because we've never encountered such an anti-child attitude even though we almost never dine at child-focused restaurants.

They want to be a kid-free place, that's fine, but given how empty the restaurant was (there were only two other customers inside), I'm not sure they should be so picky. And it's ridiculous to claim to be authentic Italian when families are so...

More and more, Hamilton has ample of good places to eat at. In this visit, I was met with pneumonia on my second day and into the last of 11 days. Before heading home, I wanted to go to LaCantina, which is one of my usuals when in Hamilton, but since they're closed on Sundays and Mondays, my son suggested Martello and a reservation was made. Martello was a bad joke! They try too hard to be authentic and upscale but it just doesn't have soul to support that! It didn't offer the quality of good food and service LaCantina has. For appetizers, we ordered the Cherry Tomato Confit ($9.00) with 9 cherry tomatoes. It didn't pop and I've had better. In addition to that, we wanted to try their pizza and ordered the Mortadella & Stracciatella which was, aside from the partly burnt dough edges, very good! A party of 3, we each had 2 small slices of pizza and 3 cherry tomatoes that we spread over the minimal complimentary sour dough focaccia bread. For dinner, 2 of us had the Carbonara and my son ordered the Papardelle al Ragu. To my disappointment, the carbonara was bland, and for $26.00, the portion was very small!!! See photos. They tried to be fancy by serving it with the raw egg yolk on top, but that didn't work because by the time the food arrived at the table, it was half cold and the egg yolk didn't blend well into the pasta. Additionally, there was not enough pasta to hold the heat in order to let all the flavors marry. The pasta was served in a salad-sized bowl, but we hardly ate any of it and took the rest home for the trash. At this time, I was still thinking of LaCantina and their huge servings, not to mention the bottomless best focaccia bread I have ever had, which is hard to beat—even at some places in Italy. My son is very easy to please and he said his food was "good." Maybe so! The place and the service was okay. I'm someone who does not mind paying good money for good food and tipping big for good service but this was a big joke! Be warned: when they bring you the portable payment reader/terminal, it defaults to the 20% gratuity. I'm fine with that when it's deserving and warranted. But when the food and service is mediocre, I resent that! Needless to say, I will not be going back to Martello! If you want authentic Italian food, pay the money and go to LaCantina! They have best bottomless focaccia bread, huge plates, great food and service and no such thing as imposed 20% gratuity! And yes, I have tipped them more than 20% because of the...

As a connoisseur of haute cuisine from the esteemed echelons of Toronto (the gastronomic centre of our country), my standards are as lofty as the towers of our iconic skyline. Needless to say, I was apprehensive about dining anywhere west of Roncesvalles—suburban restaurants are, as a rule, underwhelming in their fare and overwhelmed with the din of the hoi polloi.

Martello, however, proved itself a culinary oasis amid the gritty environs of this hard-luck town.

From the moment one crosses the threshold, Martello envelops its guests in an ambiance of refined elegance, a symphony of sophistication that resonates with each delectable bite. The attentive staff, headed by their fearless commandant Gaby, guided my journey through a medley of flavors, each dish an opus composed with the finest ingredients and executed with unparalleled precision. I was unaware that such a verdant wellspring of good taste could exist outside The Core.

The menu, a veritable sonnet to culinary innovation, seamlessly marries old-world tradition with avant-garde flair, offering a tantalizing array of gastronomic delights that excite the palate and elevate the dining experience to transcendent heights. Each dish, a masterpiece in its own right, pays homage to the rich tapestry of Italian cuisine while infusing a distinctly local charm—a testament to Martello's unwavering commitment to culinary excellence, on par with the finest Yorkville institutions.

In a city often synonymous with blue-collar ethos, Martello stands as a beacon of gastronomic excellence, a testament to the notion that culinary brilliance can exist—and indeed, thrive—in the 905. So to my fellow urban epicureans, I implore you—cast aside your preconceptions and make the journey into the hinterlands of Hamilton. The experience at Martello is so refined that it’s as if you never left...