Il Postino — Restaurant in Markham

I will never go to this restaurant again and I will not refer them. Ever.

Let’s start. Mother’s Day. Busiest flower purchase day of the year. Why. ? Mother’s Day. Restaurants are booked solid for Mother’s Day teas, lunches, dinners.

My experience :

The Mothers Day Brunch

My sister and I arranged to take our mom out for a fancy lovely Lunch on Mother’s Day.

Our mom wanted to go to a quaint little town to walk the streets and have a beautiful lunch. I chose lovely unionville. It has a copious amount of wonderful restaurants. After careful review I decided that I’ll Postino was the ultimate experience we were looking for.

I booked our reservation a week ago. 12:30 Mother’s Day brunch. Il Postino (!). Special: Mother’s Day brunch - it was a $65.00 per person brunch. (Not cheap). That price includes choice of appetizers, main courses and dessert. We were happy to pay that to give our mom this wonderful experience.

The reservation tool called open table sent me at least 4 messages by email confirming brunch. Reconfirming brunch etc. The Mother’s Day brunch and dinner menus posted on the open table emails.

Upon arrival I see there is only the regular menu. I ask for the Mother’s Day menu. They send manager. She says some strange obscure excuse like oh our food delivery and transport services are causing our chef problems so we can’t present that menu today. We tried to notify everyone. You see we’re not offering that menu because of delivery issues but you can order of the regular Menu al a cart. Then she does big smile. 😃 don’t worry. All the items that were on the special Mother’s Day menu are on our regular menu except one. .. now I’m sitting there wondering …if you have the same food as on the Mother’s Day menu .. that we can order now …than what was all the blah blah blah about the chef and food delivery and no brunch menu???!

So my sister saw my face and says oh ok but you’ll still give us the same price point.

Big smile 😀 again. Oh no!! Haha. Prices will be as listed as on the menu. Well the Al a carte menu had the following: appetizers were priced from $25-$62. Salad $16-$18. The pizza $27-$32. The pastas $25-$39. The mains $39.00-$56.

This sounds like an exact example for the illegal “bait and switch” technique. I think it was absolutely inappropriate what they did. They never contacted me though the manager said oh we tried to contact everyone. They had my name phone number and email. Zero contact from restaurant. No indication or sign on door that that was the status here re brunch menu was changed. As a matter of fact if you look even now they still advertise the Mother’s Day brunch $65. What a disaster. I could have picked any gorgeous restaurant there in unionville and I picked il Postino because of their Mother’s Day brunch menu.

The server was amazing. The food delicious. That all fades to the background. Unfortunately the manager did not acknowledge how ridiculous this whole situation turned out to be. She had the power to rectify the situation and chose to do nothing. This is what we will remember about dining at il Postino on the most important day of the year.

As a result I am writing my first negative google review ever. I hope future patrons take time to read this post and then they can decide for themselves what experience they are willing to pay for.

Bait-and-switch is a form of fraud used in retail sales but also employed in other contexts. First, the merchant "baits" the customer by advertising a product or service at a low price; then when the customer goes to purchase the item, they discover that it is unavailable, and the merchant pressures them instead to purchase a similar but more expensive product...

I visited Il Postino’s recently for my friend’s birthday dinner which we organized, with a surprise cake that we brought. Unfortunately, because of the poor service here, we were unable to execute the surprise as we wanted.

First and foremost, we chose to go this restaurant after seeing all the good reviews. We thought the food would be great and seemed like a good place to go for authentic Italian cuisine. However, our dinner was filled with disappointment. The first thing to note is that there are hardly any vegetarian options here. For someone who is vegetarian like myself, you are left with only a handful of choices (or less) which left me choosing one of the few things I could have, which was a margarita pizza. I was still excited about it, but definitely was hoping for some more options.

However, when the pizza came and I got to try it, it was nothing like an authentic Italian margarita pizza. It was extremely thin, thinner than is normal for a margarita pizza, with little sauce and even less cheese. Now I understand a margarita pizza is mostly sauce and a few pieces of mozzarella cheese. However, despite its looks, the quality and quantity of the meal itself left little to be desired. I honestly would have preferred if they made the pizza smaller, and focused more on the quality of it than providing such a large portion size that does little for the appetite.

Even so, I was trying to give this experience the benefit of the doubt. However, this changed when it came time for the cake. For context, we had brought a cake with us and gave it to the waiters ahead of time along with a candle with the simple request of lighting the candle and bringing the cake out and the end of our meal.

We had a reservation for bowling after our meal, so it was important that we were able to leave on time to make it there. However, despite having finished our meal the cake didn’t come. My friend pretend to step away to use the bathroom and requested they bring out the cake and they said they were working on it. 10 more minutes passed and nothing had happened. So then I got up and made the same request, and from where I was located, I could literally see the cake just sitting there on their counter, still in box, so I didn’t understand what they were working on. Another 10 minutes pass and we are were now running late for our reservation so my friend goes up AGAIN, for a third time this night, to ask for the cake, when finally, 5 minutes later they bring it out.

I understand that there are other diners to tend to and that they could have been busy, but I find it hard to believe that it takes up to 25 minutes to simply light a candle and bring out a cake. Also, because me and my friend kept getting up to ask them to bring the cake, the birthday girl (who it was supposed to be a surprise for) figured out that something was up, and the surprise was ruined.

Along with the food not being up to par, it was just a disappointing experience all around. Alongside improving the food, I really think the customer service you get here could be significantly improved.

If you are considering dining here, especially if it’s for a special event like a birthday, I really would NOT recommend dining at Il Postino’s. Unfortunately, the hype is not worth it, there are few vegetarian options, and the price point for a meal that wasn’t that great is way too high. Please consider spending your special...

Came here on Sunday for a birthday dinner with my boyfriend. It was last minute as we originally had other plans, however we decided to switch the plans up and he mentioned Il Postino as a friend suggested it. Took a look at the online menu and decided to make a reservation for 5:30pm (It was already 3:20pm that time).

Parking was very accessible. We arrived 20 minutes before our reserved time, however the hostess was able to seat us. We sat outside and we got a fairly spacious table (4 people) but my boyfriend and I got to sit together which was very nice and the bench had pillows which was very comfortable. Our server was Alessandro and he was very friendly, polite, and very efficient. After taking our order, we were offered free appetizer bread with olive oil and rosemary, as well as chili oil. The chili oil was really good. We had the Burrata and Prosciutto (Italian burrata, 24 month aged prosciutto di parma, Sicilian pistachios) as an appetizer. For our mains, we had the Seafood Linguine (mussels, prawns, scallops, calamari, white wine, crushed tomatoes) and the Pappardelle Funghi (roasted mushrooms, truffle & porcini cream sauce, parmesan). We also had the Mushroom and Truffle Pizza (roasted mushrooms, caramelized onions, fontina, truffle oil). My boyfriend got the Summer Sangria and I got the Strawberry Lemonade (non-alcoholic) to drink. Everything was so good and Alessandro said that pretty much everything we ordered were the best things on the menu!

The music that was playing was absolutely our vibe and it was not too loud. The environment was lively and we were still able to have a conversation without having to yell. After our meal, we asked for a takeout box for the pizza in which Alessandro helped us pack up. We asked for the cheque, and Alessandro asked if we were celebrating a birthday. My boyfriend mentioned that it was for my birthday and Alessandro asked if we had some time to spare and we did. He asked if I would prefer toast or dessert and I said dessert. We waited for a couple of minutes and then Alessandro brought over a Blueberry Cheesecake with a candle lit. He even offered to help take pictures of my boyfriend and I together. Alessandro was wonderful and super attentive. He had a lot of tables and he was truly amazing and provided superb service! At the end when my boyfriend was dealing with the payment, Alessandro still topped up my water. He consistently came by to top up our waters. It was our first time at Il Postino and we will definitely be coming back. The food and atmosphere was so good and on top of that, the service that Alessandro and other staff provided was phenomenal. I highly recommend and we will definitely come back to try...