Fancy Kafana Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Mississauga

I never write restaurant reviews, but this one was so poor, I feel compelled.

I was here as part of a party of 16 adults in December. Dinner service for the group was prearranged and reserved a couple of weeks prior to the event. The entire experience was an abomination; in summary:

The restaurant had accepted 3 party reservations of about 20 persons/group. There were 2 waiters, with a couple others who were in training. Needless to say, service was atrocious.

We received one plate per person (for appetizers, main, and dessert), they were placed in the middle of the table so that we could help ourselves. As for the cutlery, we had to go to the kitchen to get enough for all our guests.

The food was about the worst representation of Balkan fare I have ever tasted. The calamari appetizer were most certainly from a prepackaged box bought at any grocery store, or more likely Costco. The grilled meat/fish that seemed to take 2 hours to prepare was moist and barely warmed up after it arrived from whatever other Balkan food service they use to source. Nothing was prepared on site! The little breaded cutlets, or Karadjordjev schnitzel, were also boxed.

Luckily all our guests were of Serbian origin, so they shrugged it off as the unfortunate standard of our culinary establishments in Canada, but I feel incredibly ashamed of anyone who is not of Balkan origin, to whom this might have been presented as "standard Serbian fare". This isn't even representative of our worst street fare. My sincerest apologies to you.

For dessert, we were supposed to have crepes. At some point in the evening, the waiter came to inform us that the kitchen did not have enough for the entire group and would serve us roughly half the amount.

FYI Basic crepe recipe: flour, eggs, milk, water, a pinch of salt, mix, ladle onto frying surface, flip, apply fruit jam, chocolate sauce or toppings of choice, serve! Really, the kitchen didn't have enough? Any home chef, much less a professionally trained one as a place like this should have would be able to whip these up in 10 minutes.

FYI 2: There are no professionally trained chefs in this place. There were no trained personnel whatsoever.

We served out own cake. Refer to point #2 above for plate and cutlery details.

The music was extremely loud, never mind the poor quality. This is a restaurant after all, not a concert hall.

To the best of my knowledge, the owners were onsite that evening. But instead of helping out the clearly understaffed venue and kitchen problems they were experiencing, they took turns belting off-key cheap tunes into the microphone. Sadly, they were the better replacement to the band vocalist.

The price was roughly $100pp, with an 18% group service charge. I know that a service charge for large groups is standard, but for the quality of everything we received and didn't receive (Ref #2 and #4 above), this should have been priced closer to, $50pp including drinks, and that is a generous approximation.

Save your money folks. Toronto has one of the best culinary scenes I've experienced the world over. It is full of diversity, creativity and the landscape is constantly improving and surprising. This is just not worth the time or money. Advice for those looking for an authentic Serbian meal: keep visiting your friends for dinner (they will likely be thrilled to have you) until Serbia or the Balkans actually make it onto your...

GOOD FOOD, NO RESPECT FOR CUSTOMERS We went for dinner at Fancy Kafana last night after having made a reservation at noon that day. The phone call was surprisingly polite but when we got there, there was no reservation sign on any table and there were only high tables left.

We were eventually seated in a corner close to the bar, which was fine until we ordered when they started putting up some poles. When we asked our waiter if they were going to block it off, he said they wouldn’t but then they started putting a curtain up later anyways. I then expressed my frustration at being in a corner with our view of everything else, including the music being blocked, but our waiter said he was just following instructions from the head waiter and nothing was done except an offer to move us even though we were well into our meal at that point. The restaurant was half empty at that point, Saturday at around 10:30pm. Any other restaurant would have moved that curtain but they refused.

Honestly food was great but we will not be coming back again. This was not our first time there but we had stayed away for awhile due to their head waiter who does not understand boundaries between customers and friends. He makes stupid jokes and addresses customers as if they weren’t just that. We decided to give Fancy another chance and last night we were really glad when we weren’t seated in his area. Our waiter was very good and polite but clearly whoever is above him and giving these instructions does not care for customers. When I asked to speak to the owner or a manager, they weren’t there and there wasn’t even anyone to complain to.

I have seen the replies to negative reviews on here and I can see a lack effort to retain unhappy customers so I know that I am done with this particular restaurant but I do want to avert future customers.

For any potential customers, go there if you’re looking for a good meal and a gamble on the service you’ll get. Just know that if you happen to get unlucky, like we were and many of our friends and acquaintances have been, there will be no effort on management’s end to make you feel like an...

I had two encounters visiting this place, so let me elaborate how it unfolded.

The very first night we came, the group of us spent $1000 on the food and drinks. It seemed like a good experience. A few weeks after, I decided to bring my parents for Sunday Serbian dinner. The food was an average, the platter of Serbian mixed meat was ordered. While the food tasted fine, the left over bread seemed so hard, so probably left over from the Saturday night. There is nothing wrong with charging higher prices, but you better bring some fresh bread. Us Serbs are huge on the bread. You gotta know that.

Another issue was the pancakes ( palacinke). We ordered the pancakes with nuttela. It was so strong that I could not even have the quarter of it. I think they used the melted chocolate over that Serbian eurocream nuttela. I suspect they wanted to save a buck or two, but the Serbian nutella is not that expensive either.

I can go on forever, but the other night, we went to three brothers restaurant just near by, just to compare. We paid half the price of what we paid in Fancy Kafana and the food was better. I think the Fancy kafana is starting to cut the corners because with these prices, this is unsustainable venture. For us from Toronto, three brothers offers much better , private ambience and food at half a price while all that in Toronto. I would not...