Villa Risi — Restaurant in Newmarket

Valentine's Day special dinner! Not so special! Caesar Salad, very good. 1st Course Pasta with Rose Sauce, Very good. Main. Chicken, my husband would give a 4/5. My sea bass was good but the sauce, olives and capers was much too oily and not very tasty. Vegetables were ok. The ambiance of the restaurant is nice but it was cold in there. And now, The Service, OMG terrible. They were very busy with this special and they must have hired new help or conversely have no idea how to train staff. Our waiter didn't come to our table for at least 20 minutes after we sat down and then he started abruptly asking "Do you need anything?" Yes, to order our meal! He did such a poor job of asking what we needed, cutting us off when talking and rushing away abruptly when we spoke. When food came it was hot and came appropriately timed but he almost threw it on the table. He rarely had eye contact and had absolutely no ability to speak with us or ask what we needed or wanted. We tried to give him the benefit of the doubt as we went on but honestly, he was bad. He often was passing by our table but never looked at us to see if we needed anything. He took forever to clear our plates and eventually brought dessert menus. We sat with our dessert menus for 1/2 hour! We had decided on something but then decided we didn't even want anything it had taken so long. We eventually asked another waiter for our bill because we finally gave up expecting anything from him. No one came with our bill. Finally we thought we would put our coats on and go up to the front to pay. Well that grabbed his attention! He came running after us as if we were dining and dashing. Simple awful. When we had paid I asked him what his name was and he said Fernadez. I looked at the bill in the car which said his name was Peter! And the bill charged us $1.81 for GST which was suppose to be zero. I don't think we have ever had such bad service and gone away from a restaurant so disappointed....

We celebrated our anniversary at Villa Risi this past Saturday evening and couldn't have asked for a better experience! Food, service, atmosphere-everything was top notch from beginning to end of the evening. The restaurant has been refreshed since our last visit many years ago. I wish we had returned sooner and will be back again soon! We had Mandi as our server and she was wonderful and attentive and really made our evening extra special...we shared mussels in white wine reduction and being from the Maritimes we thought they were some of the best mussels we have had and were comparable to the ones we have had when home. We both had the french onion soup and it too was as good as we had hoped. My husband had the seafood pasta dish and I had the steak with peppercorn sauce and both again exceeded our expectations! The chef did an amazing job, everything was very flavorful.They had a great pianist and singer as well which added to the already wonderful atmosphere and we happily danced during their set-they were awesome! What I also loved was that the dining room is well insulated and although there we a few other tables occupied it was so nice in that it wasn't loud and was pleasant on your ears, something that I find most restaurants fail to take into consideration when they design them but it wasn't lost on us. I truly can't say enough how much we enjoyed ourselves and it made our night a very special one...thank you Mandi and Villa Risi staff-you're the best! Hope to see you...

I have been here at least 10 times, I have NEVER experienced anything less than excellent for both the food and service???, EVERY single bite of food has been amazing, from appetizers to main course and desert!

My fav is the oysters Rockefeller and the White wine garlic butter oysters. I constantly bother the owner for these and he has never let me down. The soup, salad, pasta, meat all amazing. I try something different EVERY time, along with my oysters. He makes a huge effort to get them for me even if not on the menu.

I truly have NEVER to date after 3 years had any bad experience there. Im shocked at the one star review and comment, had to double check we were talking about the same restaurant. I am italian and VERY picky that my pasta has to be al dente, if not, I wont go back. Perfect food every time. Wish that guy would read my review and try again. Must have been a different chef or ??? who knows. I recommend this place day and night. Heading there tonight for my oysters BOTH flavors lol. Will try another dish along with my soup too!!!! When I find good food, I always order extra for take home and this is one of TWO restaurants I go to and do that, the other is Via Mercante AWESOME pizza, speaking of pizza, these guys made a great pizza for my husband last week, dayem, may have to have one tonight with as well, too much good food, not enough stomach...