Defina Wood Fired — Restaurant in Toronto

Absolutely terrible customer service! My family and I went out for dinner to celebrate a birthday. Our mistake, we made the reservation for the wrong day, but the manager who greeted us said "he'll take a gamble" and sat us down. We ordered food and drinks all together so as not to impose too much trouble on the staff, knowing they were extremely busy. Drinks and apps came out and everything was fine. We had not yet finished our apps and a waiter brought out one of the 5 mains we had ordered. We explained to the waiter that we would like all the mains to come out together so he took the plate back behind the bar. We could see the waiters and manager discussing something while holding the plate of pasta and we could tell they were irritated by our request. We continued to enjoy our dinner. A few minutes later, the manager brings over the plate of pasta again, with no sign of the other 4 mains (pizzas) ready to be served to us. The manager said it would be about 2 minutes until the pizzas come out. He left the plate of pasta on our table. Something seems off with the plate, we all tried a small bit and agreed that it did not taste very good. We waited another 10-15 minutes for our pizzas to arrive and asked to speak with the manager so we could explain to him our concern. He immediately lost it on us! He went off telling us that we're being rude (because we did not like the taste of the dish), they're short staffed, busy and he is stressed out. We were very confused by this reaction as there was no ill-intent on our behalf. From this moment they had stopped serving us. Not one waiter came by to see if we needed more drinks (which we did), or if we needed anything for our dinner. Not a single person approached us for the remainder of time there. The waiters and manager would tend to all other table around us and were blatantly ignoring us. This was a very disappointing experience. All the staff successfully ruined our birthday celebration due to lack of professionalism and the ability to work in a high stress situation. Lastly, we never imposed nor insisted that the manager give us a table. We knew we had made the mistake of making a reservation for the wrong date, and were simply standing by the front door deciding what we should do for dinner when the manager approached us again and said he will "take a gamble" by seating us. That should have been a red flag from the start, as he had the ability to deny us the table. He chose to provide us service and made it our problem/fault for this terrible customer service. All that needed to be done is offer us the option to order a different main instead of embarrassing us. Worst customer...

Great service, great dining room, patio and bar but not so great pizza unfortunately. The flavours were OK but there were some disappointing features ...

First off, they offer the crust in either "Napoletana" or "Roma" style - when we asked our server what the difference was, he said they were "basically the same" ... I was hoping for something like al taglio for the Roma but didn't really think that would be the case. We ordered one of each style and the difference was that the Roma style had a slightly thicker crust but that didn't matter because both were way too "wet" and floppy to hold up to the toppings. The middle was almost uncooked, in fact. I'm not sure why they offer the Roma style when it's pretty much the same as the Napoletana (and nowhere near what you get in Roma which is either Pinsa or Al Taglio) but if you want to try to get your pizza from Defina with less flop, go for Roma and ask them to cook it for longer than usual - it might work out!

The Red Hot Chili Pepper pizza was supposed to have roasted red peppers but it had regular sliced red pepper and while the other toppings were present, they did not seem like the highest quality. Overall, this was a good flavour combination but it could have been a lot better.

The Pretty Margherita was a nice combination although the "confit tomatoes" seemed to merely be marinated cherry tomatoes - not quite what we were expecting but decent flavour. This pizza was also very floppy and had the same problem in the middle - almost uncooked.

Both pizzas were much, much better the next day out of the fridge - no more flop!

The only other thing I will mention is that my draft beer was served in a glass that would not qualify as "beer clean" (bubbles sticking to the sides) - perhaps they need to service their glass...

TLDR: Defina is a perfect acceptable, but with so many better pizza options in the city, don't go out of your way.

Located on the rapidly changing eastern end of The Junction. This is Defina's second location (the original is on Roncy south of Howard Park), dinning room is modern industrial chic which fits with the building over all, unlike the pop-country music that played all night. Portions are generous so an appetizer could easily serve as a main (although they're a bit one note). The sweet potato fries are crispy and clearly hand-cut. They need about double the portion of truffle aïoli, especially since ketchup isn't an option. Pizzas are the main attraction here. They're well sized and could be shared. As with all napoletana pizza, better to stick with fewer toppings. The Bello Diavola was salty and spicy, as it should be, and was the better of the pies. The special steak pizza was a complete miss, literally and figuratively. It was forgotten, so it came after the other mains. The pie itself was way over topped, with the steak weeping moisture on to base making it pasty and hard to eat. The gorgonzola wasn't well melted either, The gluten-free pizza was as good as could be expected. No cross contamination, which is about all à celiac could ask for at a pizza place. The mushroom and kale bucatini was well made and satisfying. Again the portion was generous. The jerk chicken seemed very much out of place on the menu. Neither Roncy nor The Junction are particularly Jamaican, so even in the context of other nods to the neighbourhood, it is odd. It seemed to be a popular choice though since it sold out. Served with sweet potato fries, the chicken was juicy, with a...