Retro Gusto — Restaurant in Ottawa

I went to this restaurant on a weeknight with a friend. It was our first time going to this local restaurant in Little Italy. I had ordered one of their drinks, and it was the Negroni Sbagliato ($18 dollars plus tax). It tasted good. I also ordered one of their wood oven pizzas called Crudo. The pizza had enough toppings on it, but I don't think that it should be priced at $31 dollars before tax. That is expensive for a personal size pizza. My friend and I got an appetizer each from the menu. I chose their Insalata Di Finnochio salad. Oh wow! I would definitely order that again, but it was on the expensive side ($19 plus tax) for a small bowl of salad.

The restaurant makes you feel like you are in a scene of the Godfather movies or a Martin Scorsese movie because of the retro decor inside, and I love that. It is a small restaurant that can only take 40 people. You do need to make a reservation, and they have set times that you can choose from. There is free parking behind the restaurant building, and the entrance is on Preston Street. If you take the bus, then the stop (85 Bayshore for OC Transpo) is right in front of the restaurant. If you book your reservation for two people, then you are only given one hour and 45 minutes to sit at the table. It takes a while to get your bill, and we did wait a while to get our pizzas. I thought at one point we were forgotten. The staff are knowledgeable about the Italian menu.

The restaurant is not wheel chair accessible. There are steps to the main entrance on Preston Street.

Between my friend and I, we spent over $100 bucks.

The food was good, but it isn't worth the cost. The customer service can be a little bit better in terms of greeting the customer when they arrive and not letting them chase a waiter or bartender down to say you have a reservation. Also, not to take forever to bring the bill to...

My three friends and I went to Retro Gusto for dinner last night. We had a such a great time, I forgot to take pictures!

We shared the Retro Caesar as an appetizer and we ordered three pizzas to share: the Salamino, the Zazzich, and the Zucchine. For dessert, we shared the tiramisu and cannoli.

All the dishes were delicious and the ingredients were fresh. I'm not much of a pizza person so for me to say this was one of the best pizzas I ever had, means a lot! I love the thin crust and the authenticity of the ingredients. The size of the Caesar and the pizzas was enough to share with four people.

When we arrived, we were told they were short staffed and it might take awhile for us to get our food. The only wait we had was for the dessert-it took about 20 minutes but my friends and I were so busy talking that we didn't mind the wait, especially since the desserts were AMAZING! Best cannoli ever! The staff is very friendly and there was someone going around always topping our water glasses.

I have one small criticism when it comes to the bathrooms. The bathroom sinks are long but narrow. The designer chose a faucet that is too long for a narrow sink. As a result, when you turn the taps on, the water is really near the edge. When I put my hands under the water to wash my hands, water splashed all over the floor, including my toes (I was wearing sandals). Very poor design planning and the designer should have known better. I'm an interior decorator and poor execution bothers me. I didn't take any stars away from my review for this because this is the fault of the designer/contractor and nothing to do with the owner or staff of the restaurant.

Would highly recommend...

The pizza is only great by comparison to the rest of the city's. I found it difficult to enjoy the charcuterie knowing there was zero effort on the kitchens part, other than plating. The strips of pepperoni were tough and dry, the wine list fairly limited and the service was uncomfortable. Gotta love having long, fake nails parading around the food you're about to eat.

Asked to leave our table after declining ordering desert, moments after we had finished eating main course. When pointed out other tables were open, the timelimit for two people, stated in OpenTable was referenced for why we were being kicked out. I guess even with 10 minutes left on our ticking clock, of 90 minutes, where a solid collective 50 minutes was dedicated to waiting to be seated, ordering, waiting for food and drinks, we really needed to have our last sip of wine slammed instead of an attempt to enjoy. With a time constraint like that, I don't think there would be time to even consider a third course.

I would recommend either telling tables about this time constraint, or, having servers directed to encourage placing orders with the kitchen a bit more quickly. Or maybe, not run your restaurant using guidelines from a generic reservation app?

I'll still do a pick-up pizza from Farinellas, but the service, both FOH and BOH here was not worth the extra money.

Edit for response to owner; the bread had to be ordered separately. And there are other reviews (here and open table) complaining about the 90 minute time...