Mattachioni — Restaurant in Toronto

A few weeks ago my partner and I went out for dinner at Mattachioni. The atmosphere was casual and not pretentious, a big yes in my books. Friendly staff; they all smiled and greeted us as soon as we arrived. Right away I noticed that there were quite a few tables placed in its small dining area. Please note, if you want to have a private and intimate conversation; sitting at any of the tables that uses a long bench is not it! Ask to be seated at a table with stand alone chairs. We were seated at one of tables that uses the bench; my elbows were practically touching the lady sitting next to me. It was uncomfortable. To make more room for everyone, I was asked to place my jacket on a hook located at the back of the dining area, quite far from where I was sitting. I'm not a big fan of doing this, having had bad experiences in the past with this kind of arrangement (people mistaking my very nondescript jacket for theirs, etc.) I did end up placing my jacket back there though, but held on to my purse (with no place to hang it close to my table, it was on my lap the whole night -- at least it wasn't a big purse)… On to the food; we ordered a pizza and salad. The salad was good considering it had some ingredients that are not found fresh anywhere in Ontario this time of the year (i.e. the tomatoes didn't have any flavour.) The salad was big enough to share between two people. It was also supposed to have some type of seafood but these bits were sparse. The pizza had a thin crust, and was a bit too well-done. I looked underneath it and half of it was burnt-- OK, that's a bit more than well-done! I didn't want to ask for it to be taken back because I'm shy, and by that point we had eaten the other half already (the part that wasn't burnt.) Generally though, the pizza tasted good, too bad about the burnt parts. The dessert: really amazing! Best cannelloni I've had in Toronto. :D To summarize: The menu is simple a 'back-to-basics' type of thing, the staff is friendly, and the atmosphere is casual. Too bad the food was just OK. Again, the sitting arrangement could use less tables for a lot more comfort and privacy for dinner guests. I personally would try other places before going back there, but I would go back to see if the second time...

Just went today with my family for the first time and despite the great environment and good food I think they really need to improve on the service. I went with my husband and 2 year old daughter. First I had no reservation and I was told that it might take some time (20 min) and I said ok and waited. While waiting apparently there were some people who had made a reservation and showed up later so they got the table and we continued waiting without any explanation. A spot became available on the balcony and we weren't offered it so a couple that came after us got sited first. I went to the waitress to try to understand what happened and the answer I got was "they can have a balcony reservation" - 1st of all I know that they didn't have because the lady came to me and asked me if I wanted that spot because she saw my big belly (39weeks pregnant)... I guess she felt bad! So how come the waitress doesn't even know what is happening? So we waited way more than the expected waited time.. but we couldn't go away without eating.. we were starving! So after almost an hour of waiting without any kind of explanation we got to seat at a table. While ordering I was concerned with my daughter who really needed to eat (it was already 9 pm) so I asked if they could please bring some plane bread right away and the waitress said yes.. and we waited more than 15 min for that bread.. looked like she forgot about it! Finally the bread came and my daughter ate! When the food came (took more than 30 min) we ate and it was amazing the only problem was that one of the pizzas was really over cooked to a point where we couldn't even cut it.. but I was over it already because I just wanted to eat and go. I will return to this place with a reservation next time... because I think the food is amazing! However, the service is terrible! There were 2 waitresses that really looked lost..they were having shots inside the balcony and were not attentive to clients. Very poor customer service! Also the food takes too long to get to the table.. if they are not able to manage they should consider to have an extra staff at least during...

This is a really underrated restaurant in a sea of Toronto/GTA restaurants that do awful things, like serve you salads with flavourless tomatoes that have the colour of pale onions. Mattachioni was the exact opposite of that.

Now, I've worked in the food industry with two different Italian food importers and my standards are kind of up there, so.. you can probably ignore maybe the strange way I might word things which are based on my past experiences.

But, this eatery really nails the execution on Italian cuisine. I've been to other Italian restaurants at right around this price range receiving the same ratings as Mattachioni, but they are overhyped - the other guys have pizzas that are undercooked, flavourless, surprisingly low-quality ingredients, or just no real passion for the style of cuisine being served.

Everything here was amazing, I think it's the perfect place to visit every weekend for a nice meal and the perfect place to take a first date. The food was absolutely delicious and it's very clear the staff are talented and the chefs are nailing the execution.

The ingredient quality was very fine and everything was fresh. The bresaola was delicious - the quality of the meat, the way everything combined together was great. The baked black olives on the Carlo & Giulia pizza were great - these were very good black olives. The Saturday Salad was thrown together very well, and it seemed to me at least that the chefs actually cared enough to throw the ingredients together in the right order just before serving them so that the bread would not get soggy with the rest of the salad.

The whole thing felt like somebody actually wanted to bring the dining experience of going to or living in Italy to Toronto. It's...