Restaurant Da Emma — Restaurant in Montreal

Overall the experience was great, with room for improvement. We called for reservations at around 3pm for dinner the same night and the earliest time available was 8:30pm, in case you were wondering if reservations were needed (Saturday night). The place from the outside looks really posh. They have valet service, but there was ample parking on a side street just steps away. We came a bit early because we didn't know the parking situation. Got to our table, where the waiter took our orders for drinks. Soon after, we were each given a plate of bruscetta, before even ordering, which came as a pleasant surprise. It was nice, though a bit salty for my taste. The menu was actually really extensive (maybe even too much so) with a huge variety of meals to choose from. We choose the eggplant parmesan to share as an appetizer, my wife took the fettuccini al funghi and I took the tortellini al gorgonzola. These were all fantastic, with the highlight being the tortellini. The only disappointing thing about the evening was the dessert, which comprised of only two options: a generic store bought tartufo or a home made tiramisu. We tried both, the former was what you'd expect from literally any Italian restaurant that serves this dessert. The tiramisu was essentially a very thin layer of cake soaked in espresso with a mountain of marscapon cheese on it, with cocoa sprinkled over it. It was way too much cheese, to the point that it felt like I was just eating cream.

Overall, it was a pleasant experience. The price is high but the food is good. Skip on the dessert and go literally anywhere else.

Will not go back because of price, but that is not to say that it wasn't good. I just can't afford to eat there more than once when Montreal is filled with so many...

BEWARE! I never leave restaurant reviews but I really felt a responsibility to post about this place, since it's very likely that it's relying on review farming for its high ratings online. This was probably the worst restaurant meal I have ever had in my life, which was painful enough given the exorbitant pricing but with the added humiliation of it being my birthday dinner. The meal started off decently with the complementary bruschetta, but as soon as the dry, pre-packaged table bread came with plastic butter tub packets things started to take a turn for the worse. I had the fettuccine with porcini, which was literally tasteless, oily, and to my utter amazement cooked improperly (the pasta was tough and uncooked at the ends). My partner ordered the lamb, which came as a huge hunk of bone with a tiny thin strip of meat in the center (barely enough for a couple of bites). His order came with a side of tomato-sauce fusilli, which somehow was also undercooked. Both pasta dishes tasted no different (maybe worse than) grocery-store variety boxed pasta and sauce. We were also disappointed with the service; our waiter was inattentive, slow with our plates, and unprofessional, including essentially dropping our plates in front of us and rushing away, and snatching up our wine glasses without offering to bring us another glass.

I'm not a picky diner, but it is deeply insulting to the customer to charge so much for so little. Please be aware of this place and spend your money elsewhere. It's clearly a tourist trap taking advantage of its prime Old Port location to charge as much as possible for a painfully...

Terrible service. Bland, overpriced food. Waiter was very rude. Was upset that we didn’t order a bottle of Chardonnay he recommended (my wife likes white wine, I like red) and walked away in a huff. Came back with a board with the menu on it in Italian and left for the longest time. When he finally returned, he told my wife that he didn’t want to read off the whole menu, so she had to tell him if she wanted pasta, meat or seafood. Real nasty attitude.

When the waiter finally brought our dishes, he instructed my wife not to ask for grated cheese on her dish because, in his opinion, it would ruin the flavor of the dish. What flavor? The dish was merely Puccini mushrooms over pasta that tasted like it was out of a box with some olive oil on it. I got a veal dish with a side of pasta. The sauce on the pasta tasted like ketchup. The veal was tender bout the dish was bland.

The waiter never returned. We had to hail down another waiter to get coffee and to get our bill after a very long wait.

The worse part is that it was my wife’s birthday and the restaurant did nothing to acknowledge it. A friend had made the reservation and told the restaurant that it was my wife’s birthday. I had called the restaurant to confirm the reservation and remind them of my wife’s birthday. Didn’t even get a cookie for her birthday.

When I got back to our hotel, I realized that we were charged for a dessert that we never ordered and never received. I contacted the restaurant about the error on our bill. They did nothing about it.

I really regret taking my wife to this dump on...