FiAMMA Restaurant — Restaurant in Toronto

Avoid if you are going with a group and looking to do separate bills.

We visited Fiamma a few weekends ago for a friend’s birthday dinner. The overall ambiance and food were good however the dishonesty and poor service of the staff left most of us unhappy at the end of the night.

When we arrived our waiter Tony, came over to fill our water glasses. He went to fill the water glass sitting in front of my three month old daughter, so I told him there as no need as she can’t drink it, he replied with it’s ok and filled it anyways. At the end of the night we got the bill only to see that we were charged a ridiculous price for bottled water which no one on the table agreed to. I also noticed that water glasses were being topped up for those who had ordered other other drinks after they received their drinks, almost as a way to just keep increasing the number of bottles charged for. We ended up being charged for 14 bottles of water, when the table would have been happy with tap water which was never given as an option.

Tony then walked around telling the table that he was going to bring out some appetizer for the table, the way he said it made it seem as though they were comped items or that someone had agreed to them. In speaking with the hosts of the event we learnt that they were basically bamboozled into agreeing to ordering appetizers and did not get asked how many items to order or what they wanted. At the end of the night approx $500 was charged for the collection of appetizers that were brought to the table. More disappointing and disturbing, leftover appetizers were removed from the table before the bill was issued without asking if anyone wanted a box to take them home.

Our reservation was for 7pm, but our main orders were not taken until about 8:30pm at which point we kept being told that the kitchen closed at 9pm. I placed my order and asked for a substitution on my plate which I was told would be no problem. My husband asked for further information between 2 items, as he has dietary allergies, and was told to just get the special which was the more expensive item. When my food arrived I was in the restroom and when I got to the table I noticed that the substitution I asked for was not made; I was unable to bring this to Tony’s attention because the next time I saw him was maybe 10 minutes later when he came out and just started handing people boxes for their main dishes.

When it came time to ask for everyone’s bills we were told that the bill could not be split according to who ordered what, which was contrary to the conversation that was had with Tony at the beginning of the night. When asked at the beginning of the night about having separate bills, as well as possibly a second wait staff for the table of 25; his response was that he had 17 years of experience and would have no problem managing the table and keeping track of everybody’s bill. Get to the end of the night and the options we are given is that one person pays the whole bill and we can figure it out ourselves or he will evenly divide the total amongst all the individuals on the table. A waiter of 17 years should have been much better organized and been able to at least keep track of the overpriced alcohol that was ordered rather than having a minor, a pregnant women and others who did not consume any alcohol paying for it.

Also beware of ordering off menu cocktails, you may find yourself paying $25 for one drink. Overall, the restaurant atmosphere and potential is great if you are visiting as a couple or small group but if you are planning to attend with a large group who would like to pay separately I would suggest a different restaurant until Fiamma can establish a better system to keep track of individual orders...

First I must say the servers here are very good. The staff is just as good or better than some fine dining places in the GTA.

So the food. It's good, but the prices are WAY too high for what is offered. Prices are around what you would pay in Italy for meals, but it's Canada not Italy. Got ravioli and there were probably around 15, 3cm x 3cm ravioli on the plate. It was good, but ravioli tasted as well as a Jack Astors type resturant's ravioli. The pricing/portion size for my dish was very pretentious.

The worst part of this place from my experience is the pizza though. They have an amazing, beautiful, wood pizza oven.... but they can't cook pizza nor make good dough. The dough of the pizza was very dense, with no rise at all. Also no char on the crust which is what shows a good wood fired pizza was done right. So this means either they are using VERY old dough with no yeast activity, very cold dough that wasn't proofed correctly, or a dough that was made on the spot with no yeast. Very very disappointing to see such an amazing oven and pizza center with glaring novice mistakes being made.

The decor of the place is BEAUTIFUL, staff is so great, the food is good and other people I was with liked it a lot and had good portion sizes for the price. For me however to advertise and have what amounts to a $15,000 wood fired pizza station in a restaurant and serve pizza like they did is disgraceful. This place has potential though. If the owners see this, google some images of what wood fired pizza should look like: you will see a good puffy (but not dense) crust with pretty char bubbles on it. You need to fix this! There are place in the GTA right around your corner that can make pizza correctly. If I were your cook I would increase the hydration of your dough and use a good sourdough starter.

I will give this place another chance and augment this review to reflect that future visit. I hope they fix some of the basic pizza issues and get a bit more humbled about...

This is a very nice Italian spot in Etobicoke notable for its ambiance. It was located in one of the West Side's ubiquitous strip plazas. As such, parking was no problem. It was a snowy day when we visited so it was not as busy as usual. We were greeted and seated immediately. Our waitress was the consummate professional and did a fabulous job taking care of us. She had a great sense of how often to check in during our meal.

The striking thing about this place, as suggested above, was the ambiance. The lighting, the table settings and the decor were all commensurate with fine dining. However, the prices were not unreasonable given the style that was being projected. The menu was fashioned in a traditional Italian manner with progressive course offerings. But we found the pizza selections quite appealing for lunch. I chose the Diavola Pizza which had a little kick with its spicy sausage, jalapeños and red peppers. I was very happy with my selection. Likewise, my colleagues enjoyed their pizza choices of the Margherita, the Toscana and the Primavera. We also shared a piece of Chocolate Blueberry Cheesecake for dessert, which was quite tasty.

The pizzas were $22 - $23 CAD each. With everything together including a bottle of wine, dessert, coffees, tax and tip, we finished around $35 - $40 CAD per person. While this is an expensive lunch, the quality was good. We also did not have to worry about expense as much given that it was a business meal. One could pare back the expense a bit if they desired to do so.

I was quite happy with my experience at this place. This was my first visit but my colleagues have been there several times and were quite complimentary of this establishment with a much larger sample set. I will certainly look forward to...