Cafe Landwer Front — Restaurant in Toronto

Disappointed at this place. I'd been to the Cafe Landwer on University a couple of times (a few years ago...) and had fond memories. Maybe this location is different, or maybe my standards have changed since then. Neither the food nor the service was up to par. We walked in around noon on a Sunday. The place was packed and there were a few groups of people waiting. There was an iPad by the door. I asked the hostess if we should put our name on the waitlist on the iPad....lo and behold, this had not been communicated to the other groups that had arrived before us. So, suddenly there was a wave of understandably annoyed people trying to get on the waitlist...what's the point of a hostess and an iPad if neither is being useful?

Anyway...we sat down and our waitress (who was pleasant) brought plates and cutlery. One of the plates was crusty with dried food. I asked for and received a clean plate. No problem.

I ordered the merguez shakshuka and truffle fries. The shakshuka was terrible. The sauce was watery and looked and tasted like canned crushed tomato - no onion, no pepper, no hint of seasonings, at least none that I could detect. To be fair, there were a few pieces of grilled onion on top. Other garnish on the shakshuka consisted of raw halves of cherry tomatoes - I kid you not, the tomato sauce, ostensibly out of a can, was garnished with raw tomato! the merguez sausage tasted and looked like half-cooked pork breakfast sausage. The focaccia bread that came with the Shakshuka looked and tasted like anything but focaccia. The truffle fries...just a handful of mediocre quality frozen fries with a side of truffle mayo. I know I'm not getting truffle shavings on my fries for $7.50, but this was just sad looking.

My wife got the sinia shakshuka. This was also not particularly flavorful, but at least it was less watery and not garnished with raw tomatoes. (My wife's shakshuka pan was noticeably hot to the touch, while mine was just warm...I assume hers was cooked longer). She also got the crushed potatoes which were delicious. Although, they were in remarkably good shape for potatoes which were supposed to have been "crushed" - maybe they were emotionally crushed from seeing the sorry state of the food leaving the kitchen.

To sum it up, the food is inconsistent and mediocre, service too could be better. Would...

We came here on a whim around lunch time. It was a pretty large establishment when we walked inside, and it was packed. There was a tablet by the door so we just put our names on the wait list. We waited for a couple minutes before we got seated, so wait time wasn't too bad.

I really liked the ambiance and design inside. Originally I wanted to get a tiramisu, but the waiter told me that they were already sold out. It was around 11:30 in the morning and they were already out of tiramisu? I was so disappointed, but I knew that I had to come back because I'm sure their tiramisu was that good.

For drinks, we got a London Fog with oat milk and I got an Iced Latte with oat milk. Both drinks were good, the oat milk blended well with the espresso. It was rich yet creamy.

I forgot what exactly my boyfriend ordered. But it had eggplant. I think it might've been the Sabbich Bowl. His entree was very good, it was flavorful and savory.

Since I had my heart set on the tiramisu and something along those lines, I just ordered the Belgian Waffle. That was pretty good too, the waffle texture was crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. All the components were great, I loved the sliced bananas and nutella with the waffle. There were so many different textures on this dessert plate but it came together so well. It definitely satisfied my sweet tooth.

Lastly, service was excellent. I was actually impressed. Though they were very busy and the staff were running around the place for a good couple minutes, we got seated quickly. Our server was awesome, he was helpful and funny. We were taken care of and had a pleasant experience. This was actually my last meal before heading to the airport, so I'm happy that my trip ended on a good note. I look forward to coming back again and trying other things on their menu, and...

My friend and I passed by here for dinner on a Saturday evening. I’ve never been to this location despite me working in the actual building it’s located in. My coworkers have said really good things about this place, so I thought we would check it out.. finally. When we got there, we were seated right away. After we got seated, more folks started to come in and that’s when I guess a wait started happening. Service was decent, we went through a few waiters throughout the entire dinner. So to start, we started off with two apps to share, the Roasted beet labaneh and Roasted eggplant in tahini. The labaneh dish didn’t come with bread, so you will need to add the type of bread of your choosing on the side. It was pretty good! I ate labaneh growing up, so it’s one of my favourites. The roasted eggplant was ok, wish they just did it baba ganoush style instead. We also got the Veal schnitzel Parmesan to share with the crushed potatoes. This dish was such a miss, it was very chewy and not a big fan of the spices being used. The crushed potatoes weren’t really crushed and some were under cooked and under seasoned. Wish we had ordered something else, but maybe we will go back at some point and give it another chance. To drink, the mango margarita was really good! My friend got the raspberry sour and didn’t really enjoy it, nothing sour about it and it reminded her of a sangria. Overall, it was a decent experience but I wouldn’t go out of my...