Alessa Trattoria — Restaurant in Magog

We walked in at 6.50pm on a Saturday with no reservation, I understand that's risky. We were told that for 4 of us there was a table but we would have to vacate it by 8.15, which was fine because we were hungry and would be quick. Plus it's pizza and pasta, so that won't take long to cook. All good.

We ordered at 7pm, our starters came about 5 minutes later.

Then we waited.

At 7.30 we started doing the "going to the washroom to conjure the food"

All 4 of us tried that.

At 7.48 one of our party asked the waitress if our food would be out soon. She replied with a cheery, "just 2 or 3 minutes"

At 8.15, after avoiding eye contact for a long time asked us if we'd had our food yet.

At 8.33 our food came. We were hangry by this point so the soggy pizza, luke warm linguine, cold, meat-free (not vegetarian, merely lacking a main ingredient) and pasta-heavy lasagne were finished very quickly, the oily orecchiette was half eaten before the oil became too much.

At no point did the waitress apologise or give us a reason (even a made up one if she forgot to put our order in to the kitchen would have meant something) for the enormous delay. None of the starters (a disappointing caprese salad and a massive eggplant lasagne type thing) were offered for free as compensation, not even the one glass of wine drunk by the party was knocked off the bill.

We were never going to be going back there anyway but in terms of my parent's last night in Canada on their first visit it was a massive disappointment.

Just a bit of politeness would have made a huge difference, we were not the only people waiting for our food, but we were waiting for a lot longer than everyone around us.

Avoid. Go to one of the other restaurants on the...

We made a reservation for 5:30pm. When we walked into the restaurant and gave our name, the hostess right away told us that they “double booked” and that we would need to be out by 7pm. This put us back as we came to celebrate a birthday (which was mentioned in our open table reservation) and did not want to be rushed through our meal. For appetizers, we ordered family sized caesar salad, caprese salad and fried calamari. The caesar salad was just ok (croutons dry w/ no flavour, overly salty prosciutto instead of bacon) whilst the calamari and caprese salad were slightly better. For the main course, we ordered a pizza (which was soggy), the seafood pasta in white wine sauce (whereas the sauce was non-existence and the pasta was undercooked) and 2 orders of the funghi veal (the veal was good but again the pasta was undercooked). When we were finished our main course around 6:50pm, the same hostess who told us we needed to be out by 7:00pm returned to take our plates. It appeared to be a tactic to rush us out. We also told her our issues with the food (undercooked pasta) and she offered no sort of resolution. When our actual waitress returned she had a bill in her hand but we had not yet requested it nor were we asked for coffee or dessert. I expected to order a dessert for my father to celebrate his birthday. At this point it truly felt like they wanted us out, which clearly puts a sour taste in your mouth when you 1) reserved this time and 2) paid over $200 for your meal. Long story short, lacklustre food and terrible...

We had dinner on a Tuesday night in the summer, arriving at 20:30 (8:30 PM) and were seated immediately inside where it was cold and noisy. Our waitress seamed to want us to order quickly, so we did and then waited about 15 minutes for our salads (no bread was served). We both had the Caprese salad which was short on salt and balsamic vinegar (it was pretty tasteless). We asked for more balsamic and a small container of liquid balsamic was delivered - not the reduction. I finished my salad first and the waitress took my plate despite my wife not having finished hers - which for a fine dining restaurant was odd. And then we waited 30 minutes for our mains during which time the waitress poured out the last of our sparkling water and left the empty bottle on the table. A server arrived and placed a pasta dish in front of my wife and the Linguine Pescatore in front of me - which was interesting because that isn't what I ordered and my wife's dish was lacking the sausage and rapini she ordered. After taking my meal away the waitress came back and explained that they had a mix up and replaced the meals with the ones we ordered. No apology for either the delay or mixup, just a look of disgust as she realized my wife had picked at her meal (looking for the sausage and rapini). The food itself was very good but the service was very poor. I would recommend this place only if it is empty and you are warmly dressed if you are...