Casalinga Ristorante — Restaurant in Mississauga

After many referrals from friends, co-workers, etc. we had the opportunity to try Casalinga last night. Let me start by saying we've been told reservations are required for a Friday or Saturday night, yet we still tried without one. With a short wait while management took a conscientious look at their current situation and expected arrivals, they were able to accomodate us, I might add with genuine appreciation, despite the additional effort we caused them.

The service from Jenny was great... she quickly picked up that we were on tighter than normal timelines and accelerated things without feeling rushed. I was looking for something slightly off menu and was pleasantly surprised to find the menu openly encourages customers to ask for something even if they don't see it listed! I explained to Jenny in generalities what I was looking for and with a smile she responded "No problem. Trust me". I felt that we were in good hands.

In short, all the food was delicious. The caesar salad was perfect, with cold crisp romaine, lightly dressed, with parmesan and a circular piece of strip bacon. Seems obvious, but so many restaurants drown wilted room temperature lettuce in commercially prepared dressing, toss in a few bacon bits and charge $10 - but not here! The pasta dishes were equally well done, in their preparation, presentation, and taste! The Linguine di Mare (no mussels) with white wine butter cream sauce was awesome - the sauce was rich and flavourful without being heavy or overwhelming, and the shrimp, scallops and calamari were cooked just right. The Penne al Ragu di Coltello was also very well received and with just one taste will probably be my selection next time!

We don't have an opportunity to go out for dinner without the kids all that often, but when we do next, we will certainly return to Casalinga!

Thank you for a...

Very disappointing visit due to food and cold atmosphere. We went to Cassalinga last night to celebrate two birthdays. We made reservations a week before the birthdays and specifically asked the manager if they served veal parmigiana. He said that yes that would not be a problem. We told him that we all would be having veal parmigiana. We asked him to write that down. We also requested a specific table or at least a specific section since the restaurant is very small and the location of some tables is not the greatest. We arrived and were directed to a table opposite to the area we had requested. Disappointing but not a big deal. We told the waiter that we wanted veal parmigiana and after he checked with the very same manager who told us we could order it we were told that they were too busy to make it. We then tried to order chicken parmigiana and were told the same thing. (By the way at the bottom of their menu it states that if something is not on the menu just ask. Well that does not work). We ended up ordering penne alla vodka and a pizza. The penne was OK but not great and the pizza was mushy in the middle. The birthday girl didn't even finish it. The waiter was very apologetic but the manager or whoever was in charge last night did not even find it necessary to come over to talk to us. We left without ordering coffee or dessert deciding to end a very disappointing birthday celebration. None of us will be returning. By the way the air conditioning was blowing on us so much that we were very cold. Our friend had to go out to the car to get jackets. We asked if it could be turned down a bit and it was but only for a short time and then we were...

Went for a nice meal with a party of 6 friends. We arrived for 7:30 and got drinks to start. We were notified before our apps arrived that the kitchen was closing at 8:30. The night felt progressively more rushed and the server did every non-subtle thing to indicate to us that our dinner needed to wrap up and we needed to get out. The kitchen closure (at 8:30?!) was announced. The desserts and coffees were pushed. But water stopped being refilled, the open sign was turned on, lights all went on before 10 pm, they started their cash out and bills were dropped with no finesse or conversation, without asking if we needed anything else. It was a steady build to a feeling that the hundreds of dollars we were spending was not only unappreciated, but that it was a hassle to look after our table. A polite or gracious conversation could really have made this much better. However, they collected our payment and then ignored us. No one said anything when we got up to go. When I walked over and mentioned that the experience had left us feeling unwelcome and rushed, the response was ‘no you weren’t’ . I have worked in service in the past and wanting to wrap up your night is understandable but there are polite and warm ways to do this without alienating your guests. I definitely wouldn’t return since our group felt pretty turned off by the ‘welcome’ we...