Locanda — Restaurant in Milton

I recently moved to Milton and a colleague highly recommended this restaurant, so we were excited to have a great experience. I made a reservation and when we walked in, we were told to take a seat by the window so we did. A few minutes later the same guy asked us to move because he had a party of 6 and needed the space. Without hesitation, we moved. A few minutes later he came by (balancing plates he had cleared from a table) and asked if we were ready to order. I found this odd as usually you would be asked if you want water for the table and or drinks. But we went ahead and ordered. Then we noticed the party of 6 people we had been asked to move for, arrive, and be seated. What I noticed next was the same guy who took our order introducing himself to the ladies as Marco and proceeding to explain to them what the specials of the day were and offering drinks. This was in complete contrast to the reception we had received. So my partner got Marco’s attention and asked the question why the difference in reception? (By now we had received our Calamari starter, wine, and water for the table). His response was that he was busy and he was doing his best. So too busy for us but not too busy for them had no logic? We asked why we were not told about the specials for the day to which he responded, “they are all on the menu so you can see them yourselves, you are not missing anything”. At this point, we asked him why he was behaving like that and with a lack of apology? My partner told him that we would prefer to end our experience there to which he was told that Marco was going to box up our main, he fumbled to try and pop a cork back in the wine and stormed off to the kitchen to tell them. My partner got up and followed him to let him know that we did not want food in boxes and an open bottle of wine to leave with, we just wanted to leave. Marco is co-owner with one of the chefs who gave my partner the dirtiest look which also seemed threatening. Then Marco proceeded to drop a bill for $79 on the table and asked us to pay and leave. We told him we were happy to pay for the starter but not for a bottle of wine that had just been opened. At this point, he crumpled the receipt, grabbed the wine bottle and the two glasses he had poured, and stormed back to the bar. During this we were extremely polite, the rudeness and bad energy on display were like nothing we have seen before. We are foodies and have eaten across all continents and have never seen this type of behavior. Such a shame as the starter was nice and looking over at other tables it would have been nice to sample their cuisine. Whilst we appreciate restaurants get busy (it wasn’t full) without customers you don’t have a business. I hope Marco and his partner read this and at the very least appreciate this was poor behavior and an experience they really wouldn’t want diners coming to their restaurant to have. I hope the reasons for the behavior were not for issues we are trying to rid the world of. Extremely...

To be honest I would not even give them a star. We had a reservation for 6PM and our party did not fully arrive until 620PM. Fair. We had already ordered some appetizers at this point but had not placed an order for the mains. We were “aggressively” warned by the owner of the restaurant that we had to order because there was a large party of 26 that was coming and all reservations were informed that they had to leave by 730PM.

We had made a reservation 2 months before and were NOT made aware of this stipulation. When we questioned the owner and explained our situation, he was defensive and chose to blame it on his co owner for managing the reservations. He also had the audacity to come over and let us know that it was Saturday and we should have at this point already put in our orders because we as patrons should be mindful of the limited time we are to be seated. After his attempts of gaslighting us, he proceeded to pathetically patch things up by making it seem like he was now doing us a favour by accommodating us and that he would find a way to serve us all while attending to his 26 person party. In all honesty, a little kindness would have went a long way and his initial response to attack rather than explain was not well received, leaving a sour taste in our mouths.

The food that we did receive was subpar at best - the calamari was overly salted and the Caprese salad was served with unripe tomatoes and what tasted like the mozzarella I had just purchased from the supermarket for 10 dollars.

DO NOT RECOMMEND. Only go if you’re looking for a cramped space, with a fire code violation waiting to happen and a hot-headed rude individual, who does not seem to understand the first rule of customer service....

Terrible experience

Where do I begin. I have been to this restaurant before and delt with the owner and found he was a bit rude. So I haven't been back. But I decided I would give it one more chance. I went with my friend and the same owner dealt with us ,as well as a younger women. We both noticed he was a bit rude with us....again... there was only the 2 of them and the girl seemed really frantic and did not check on us and made several mistakes. I did not mind that as much.

I ordered the rack of lamb with potatoes and salad. They gave me my salad on the plate with the lamb and sauce, with almost no salad dressing, instead the gravy on the place went all over the salad. The potatoe was literally one mini potato cut in half. The lamb was so chewy I could not even chew it I was swallowing large pieces of meat. I ate half of one.

I told the owner the issue and he looked super annoyed, did not say a word, took my plate and walked away. He came back with a takeout container with the lamb in it and gave me my bill with the lamb on it. I told him I can't eat it as it was not edible and he refused to take it off the bill. It is restaurant standard to remove an un edible item off the bill as I did not even eat it. He was extremely rude and refused to remove it. Told me the lamb was high quality. I've eaten lamb many times and this was not high quality.

After much arguing he removed it off the bill but then over charged me for the small salad and 1 mini potatoe. I paid it and we both left.

It was one of the worst experiences I have had at a restaurant and I would never go back. Save yourself the trouble and go to the other Italian restaurants in milton which offer way better food...