7 Enoteca — Restaurant in Oakville

I've been a loyal fan of this place since it opened, so it pains me deeply to say that I agree with the lacklustre reviews of late. I drove over an hour to get there tonight (from Holland Landing) and incurred tolls because that's how loyal I am, even though I now live far away. No matter where I've lived in Ontario (from Toronto to Niagara) I have always made the trek and stayed regular. Tonight, I brought someone who's never been before and is visiting from outside the country. This was meant to be a special occasion, as I'm moving out of the province and this was very likely my last time eating here.

It's a Saturday night. The website (and the host at the door) say open till midnight. The website (and host at the door) say the kitchen stops serving an hour before closing. Simple math tells you the kitchen then closes at 11pm. I even made a point of acknowledging the slow night with the host (we were the only patrons inside when we arrived at 10pm sharp). He assured us they were open till midnight. Kitchen at 11. We ordered a first round of pizza, intent on ordering more after. Imagine our surprise when, at 10:30 we attempted to order more, only to learn that the kitchen was already closed and the staff had already left. Absolutely floored! Experience ruined! This is the kind of place where ordering a few pizzas and sharing is fun to do. Now, I get that some places close up the kitchen early on a slow night. Fair. This wouldn't be the first place to do so... but it is absolutely the first establishment in all my 40 years to be totally disrespectful of the patrons who are present. How hard would it have been to approach us and politely ask if there's anything else we'd like, because the kitchen is going to close early? Even the crappiest of pubs knows to do that. Why would you take our order, serve the pizza, and then not come back until you assume we want the bill? What happened to checking in and asking how the food is? Asking if we want more water? Up sell!! We were poised to spend upwards of $150.00 on pizzas for the table tonight, and another $100.00-$150.00 more to bring home and freeze since this was my last visit... That is, unless I visit family in Ontario in near the future.

Sadly, I will not go out of my way during those future visits. How can I? The kitchen changes their hours arbitrarily, with zero warning to the patrons as they enter — and more importantly while they're already paying customers. Instead of a $300.00 bill tonight, they made $68.00. Pathetic. Especially given the slow night. You'd think they'd want to make as much as possible. Alas, they didn't even try. It's not that hard to check on a table and see if they want anything else. And given that we were the only patrons tonight, it's not like they were too busy to get around to us. Hell, I've been to a Pizza Pizza that had enough sense to ask if I wanted anything else before they powered down the oven.

Drove another hour home in total...

After a few poor experiences, and a long time away, we decided to try 7 Enoteca again (since most other Oakville restaurants are closed Sunday afternoons).

We arrived at 1 PM to find the restaurant hadn't changed much: Still dark (despite the fact that it was 1 PM) and extremely loud (the low cave-like ceilings don't help). I get the concept of ambiance during the evening (although this place is maintained darker than most), but in the middle of the day? I should not have to take out my phone's flashlight to read my menu at 1 PM.

We ordered flat water ($22). a prosciutto board appetizer ($18), and "house bread" for $6 (yes, there's a charge for water and bread - the bread being more akin to Pilsbury dough than true Italian bread).

After exactly 55 minutes, we received our main courses, which consisted of a few "Roma" pizzas, lobster risotto, grilled halibut. As in the past, the pizzas were good, and a decent size for the price. The risotto was so salty we had to order more water to drown it out a little. We told the waitress it was almost inedible due to the high amount of salt. She apologized but we heard nothing back. Hungry, my guest forced it down with lots of water.

The Atlantic halibut was superb - good sized piece of fish, perfectly cooked, with good sides and for a reasonable price considering (about $30). If you find this on the menu, go for it!

Because I'm on a diet and trying to eat lots of vegetables, I had next to no options. I ended up with a salad of "organic greens" (which was a few pieces of head lettuce), topped what promised to be pickled vegetables olives, and cheese. The veggies and olives turned out to be - literally - a half of a slice of an olive and about 4 "bits" of pickled vegetables drowned in so much vinegar that I had a burning feeling at the back of my throat. Small as it was, I only ate 1/2 of it. $18.

We opted not to have wine as, despite the decent wine list, the lowest price glass of wine was $15 and I just didn't feel like gauged today. In reality, I often spend that and more on wine but the experience to this point just put me off, so I didn't want to give them any more business. We were celebrating a birthday yet we opted to not have dessert or coffee because it was just too loud and not very enjoyable for anyone.

If you're a hipster with some cash, want "to be seen" in "downtown" Oakville, and are comfortable shouting conversations as if you were in a night club, I highly recommend this place. The food is generally very good if you can put up with the rest. Their salume and cheese plates are quite qood.

If you want great quality food but in a less pretentious environment - and be able to actually converse with your dinner companions - there are plenty of better options...

We came by for dinner on Friday and expected the wait because they do not accept reservations. We waited for about 20 minutes when the hostess asked if we'd like to sit by the bar while we wait. We ordered two drinks and witness a whole lot of unprofessionalism. When the bartender was taking our order, another server rushed over and started barking at the bartender and the bartender immediately snapped and said "can't you see I'm with customers?" with his hand inches away from the server's face. After placing our order, the bartender drops a bottle and breaks a glass and was completely not put together. We waited 10 minutes and didn't get our drinks but was seated at a table. The server who sat us didn't ask us if we ordered a drink so we thought our server would. We sat at our table for 15 minutes without a server because no one knew who was responsible for our table. Finally, someone asked us if we ordered drinks at the bar and said she'll bring it over. Our server (same one who barked at the bartender earlier) brought our drinks over but it was so watery because it has been sitting at the bar melting. We asked our server to make a fresh one which he did and brought over within a few minutes. We ordered the funghi pizza and veal ravioli which were both incredibly underwhelming. The funghi had so little mushroom and the onion was such an odd choice. I think if they caramelized the onion, it would bring much nicer flavours to compliment the lack of mushrooms. The veal ravioli was literally 4 pieces of tiny ravioli for $28 but the walnuts added a nice texture/touch. The price for the food, definitely not worth it.

Our server was so unprofessional. He kept addressing us as "guys", "so guys" and "okay guys". We even had to ask him for water. At one point, a wall decor fell down because he ran into it and hit someone, he quickly shoved it back in the wall and acted like nothing happened. I think he should have placed it away and fixed it at the end of the night to ensure it doesn't happen again.

We asked for our bill and waited 5 minutes for it. At this point, we wanted to just get out. He brings the bill over and doesn't even come back to check on us. Another server came by and kindly help us check out and even asked if everything was okay. We told him the food was subpar and we lost our server.

We do not recommend this place nor will we return. There are better wood fire...