Novita Italian Cuisine — Restaurant in Markham

I want to start by saying, I have never sent back a dish of food at any restaurant or bar until yesterday at Novita. I am one to simply just eat it out of politeness and mention it after, or not at all. However, yesterday was an exception as I let my other party members try it and they insisted on telling the staff.

I ordered one of the pricer things on the menu, the halibut, thinking that it's something that I would enjoy as I don't get to eat it very much at home. biggest regret and mistake. the "lemon lime butter sauce" tasted sour and was completely inedible/unappetizing. If it was just me who felt this way, that would be one thing but two members of my party (we were a table of 6) also tried it, and thought and I quote "tasted curdled, was disgusting and could not and should not be eaten". I was one of the first at our table to get food, so as the waiter was getting everyone elses food, myself, and two other members of the group had a couple bites of the "salsa" that was on top of the fish. The salsa was chunked, under ripe, hard as a rock avocado and chunks of mango COVERED in the nasty sauce as was the fish. I'm not going to go into how I feel salsa's shouldn't be covered in sauce, but I'm going to mention that the avocado was not at all ripe and actually extremely bitter, which led my party member to ask the waiter for some riper avocado, which only got worse from there. I did not even get to the fish, because the sauce was literally on half the plate and was touching almost everything (if the sauce was good, that's one thing, but it wasn't, so really, the dish became inedible).

As they are bringing the remainder of our food, everyone who tried a piece of my dish starts drinking water and commenting on how the sauce is unappetizing and "tastes curdled". When the waiter comes back and asks us if we are enjoying the meal, the three of us who tried the dish pipe up and tell him that its not good at all. The waiter then proceeds to call the chef who comes out angrily and becomes extremely defensive when we said that we didn't like the taste of the sauce. He tells us, "everyone loves this sauce, i get orders for this everyday, it's always prepared the same way etc.". As he's explaining, I cannot reiterate how rude, condescending and arrogant he comes off. He is essentially belittling you, guilt tripping you and telling you , you know nothing. He then begrudgingly asks us if we want to change dishes, and we said yes. He then proceeds to guilt trip us into how big of a waste of food that it is because it really was just nasty. We insisted on changing, and I end up sharing with my other party members.

So, the bill comes and we pay, and leave an average sized tip. As we're finishing off and packing up our leftovers, the waiter comes over, and says to us, "In the future, I was told it company policy that if you send food back, we only give you a 50% discount. This time we removed it for your bill, but next time, its only the discount". I have SOOO many problems with this, as 1. I NEVER SEND FOOD BACK, so for you to say that, is just plain offensive 2. you did this, after we paid our bill as to not affect your tip (that's just shady practice) and 3. to end our meal with that comment, just leaves a foul taste in one's mouth (the meal had already done that).

I will end by saying, if the waiter is Artur (as per receipt), don't sit in his section. His jokes are not funny, and come off as rude (1. he told us not to interrupt him while he was going through the menu, 2. he kept asking us to repeat the menu item because we weren't saying it properly, and was telling the Italian in our group to correct us - some of us didn't even say the name because we didn't want to embarrass ourselves so we just pointed at the menu and 3. he too was extremely defensive at times)

Safe to say, we will not be going back. If you like average food, and terrible customer service, then this...

I’d like to preface by saying this is the first time I’ve felt the need to write a review of a restaurant online and I am a very lenient customer, even in the face of negative experiences. I usually walk away and brush off a personally bad dining experience, but not this time. What prompted me to write this was the fact that my mother and I were harassed by who I assume is the owner or manager as we were leaving (he made no formal introduction). He was aggravated because my mother sent her risotto dish back and declined to pay for just the risotto (rightfully so). He started off by rambling indirectly near us as we were walking towards the doors. He was very hard to understand, until I picked up the words “you didn’t pay!” As he continued to ramble and point to the kitchen. I was APPALLED. My mother and I have never been belligerently approached by an owner/manager before (again ASSUMING this is who it was). Shame on this man. I immediately responded loudly “Are you complaining to your customers?!” And my mother noted she would be contacting the health department, as we walked off.

For context, we walked into a nearly empty restaurant on a Thursday night between 9:40-9:45 PM. My mother ordered the calamari (subpar, she noted, and served with a side of mayo, unusual dipping sauce). She ordered a risotto main and I ordered a pasta dish. My pasta was cold and subpar at best. My mother had to send back her risotto main after a couple of bites. In her words, “I’ve never had risotto like this, it tastes and feels like they mashed this in a blender”. She noted that the flavour and consistency was awful and simply couldn’t continue to eat it. She felt immediately sick. We let our server know, who took it back after attempting to see if my mother would prefer to order something else. My mother declined to order anything else altogether. When we requested the bill, they did not take off the risotto (this is just poor customer service). We noted this to our server, who came back with a new bill minus the risotto.

To conclude, bad food and atrocious customer service from supposed management. I feel sorry for the employees who work for this rude man. I took a deep dive into this “restaurant’s” prior reviews and am surprised by its positive ones. The negative ones sound very similar to our experience, so I’m led to believe most of their positive reviews must be fake. How this place managed to get a 4.2 here and 3.5 (this one makes more sense) on Yelp is beyond me. I wouldn’t recommend this place to my...

I have special dietary restrictions and was very precise and clear about my order. Still, they totally screwed it up and I waited a good 20 minutes before they brought a new correct plate of food. I’m the meantime, my companion’s food was stone called because he didn’t want to eat without me. Uggh he ate cold fish. When the owner came to our terrible to ask how everything was (after we had finished eating), we told him what happened and all he did was say “I’m sorry “. No complimentary coffee, dessert or anything. In fact, I was surprised that he didn’t know of the complete mishap at our table. After all, it wasn’t that busy.

Sunday April 12th /Mother's Day I had been a frequent customer at Novita Italian Restaurant until my list visit (hence above review) in which I was utterly disappointed. However, I decided to give it another chance as every business has an off night. I took my 90 year old mother and my son to Novita for mother's day and prayed to the restaurant God's that our experience would be memorable in a "good" way! Well, let me tell you, to my surprise, it surpassed my wishes. Sandy , our waitress was both delightful, and reassuring that our meals would be more than up to par! She actually thanked me for giving Novita another go. My mother and son both ordered their wood fire oven pizza's and they looked scrumptious. They were a nice size and loaded with toppings of their choice. My son who had just came back from Italy, commented that the sauce was excellent and he could really taste the basil. His only request to improve the pizza was more cheese! My own meal unfortunately, once again was not done according to specifications. However, they redeemed themselves when they brought it back within moments to the way I ordered it. I ordered scallops which were not exactly on their menu. They made a special dish for me. It was cooked to perfection! The scallops were moist and not overcooked (not an easy task to do on a very busy day) and the veggies were fresh with a nice crunch to them. Sandy went above and beyond to make our experience memorable. I don't know if she is the manager, but she should be! I will definitely put Novita back on my list of go to...