The Grand Pizzeria and Bar — Restaurant in Ottawa

Went for a family birthday celebration. And because it was such a big party we had only a select menu we could have .... think family style meal , one bowl to serve your table of four or a few bowls placed in between groups of people. which was fine and a cute idea! however, with a big crowd comes diversity and there were a few vegan / vegetarians, two of the family members also just had dental surgery and when asked.for substitutes they could eat they were told whatever they ordered would be on top of the meal we.didnt get to choose.. There was a delicious salad to start followed by chicken fingers great for the meat eaters and a veggie spaghetti .. but the vegetarians didn't have an option when others ate the chicken fingers ... even bread would have been njce to offer while others are eating ..

Yet we all payed the same price for a shared family style.meal.. where some people didn't eat the food..

Last but not least the pizza came out!! The meat looked great. The veggie one had raw veggies on it .and the dough was very soggy! Might have just been my tables 3 pizzas because other ppl absolutely loved it.. I would have loved the chance to have chosen another pizza as some of the other veggie pizza opions looked amazing !!

All in all I'd give it another chance where I could pick my own meal and really try the food!

edit to say we did call before hand to specify there were vegetarians etc. the organizer and a few other people called to ask questions about the set menu! we were told several different things including you couldnt make accommodations other than adding extra veggies to the spaghetti! Being busy isn't an excuse for dietary needs or...

It used to be good but lately it has been deteriorating at both food and service quality levels, yet with same prices and higher for some items.

We were there last week, they changed the bread of the chicken sandwich to a tasteless pizza dough. They removed the burrata salad from the menu and made the burrata cheese as an extra for 12$.

We went back today thinking we won’t let one tasteless sandwich affect our opinion about a place we used to like.

We ordered a pizza and a chicken parmigiana, waited for almost 1 hour watching other tables being served. It is only when we asked how come we were not served yet that the waitress checked and came back to tell us with unapologetic tone that there was a mistake asking us if we would like to wait more. So unpleasant and unprofessional.

We decided of course to leave and didn’t want to make a scene about it out of respect for other clients.

UPDATE: The manager took the time to answer this review which is a good sign that they still care. Thank you for that.

Even though the answer qualifies it of “exaggerated” stating that we were there for 25mn while it was precisely 47mn from the moment we stepped in till we left (I know that because I received a message while waiting to be seated, to which I answered while leaving), and there was no promo food offered other than literally saying “I can try to get you the food asap” which we chose not to trust considering the unapologetic tone and that we were informed of the error only after we asked.

Nevertheless, respect for reading and answering, it shows the care for future clients. Which serves the purpose of...

I’ve been to The Grand Pizzeria 3 times now and every single time my experience was great thanks to the server! 😊

I’ve tried 3 different pizzas, and my personal favourite is the Diavola pizza which has mozzarella, hot cacciatore salami, and chillies. I’ve also tried the meat lovers but I found it was really salty for me, but it might have just been that day or the prosciutto was a bit on the salty side. The Calvini pizza was good as well but I would’ve preferred if the sausages were abit more crisp, and maybe a bit of spice.

I always get a regular size Caesar salad to share because they have very generous portion sizes. And lastly, my favourite dish would have to be RIGATONI AL POLLO... it has chicken, crispy bacon (which is what caught my eye), basil in a cashew cream. I was abit skeptical about the cashew part of it, because I was unsure if I’d like the flavour. Turns out, it was my favourite dish!! Rigatoni was cooked perfectly and the cashew cream had the nicest touch of flavour, I was very surprised how good it tasted!! I highly recommend that dish because I will be getting that every time I go back to The Grand.

Lastly, for drinks, since I was there during happy hour, I always end up getting the sangria with the white wine because the red one comes with banana liqueur which I’m not a fan of. I somehow always get seated at the same booth but it kind of makes the experience even nicer because I’m always at the same table. It’s a nice place, good service, good food, and great portion sizes to share...