Mercatto — Restaurant in Toronto

Went to this restaurant with a large group (27 people) from our meeting. We had a reservation so we were sat immediately. The table was already set with cutleries and water. Bread and oil was brought almost immediately upon sitting down. A platter of cheese, pretzels, Italian toast, and cured meats was brought a little while after. I had the pretzels with cheese, which was really good.

For our entrees, we had Artic Char garnished with fingerling potatoes, Burger with fries, Potato and Rapini Pizza, Orecchiette pugliese (Fennel sausage pasta), Flat iron steak with fries, Funghi pizza (mushroom), and Linguine de mare (Pasta with mussels).

The Artic char was absolutely amazing, the fish was properly seared and the skin side was crispy not burnt. The taste was superb and no fishy after taste. Unfortunately, the garnish was completely underwhelming. I felt like it was just fish only, with some misplaced pieces of potato and salad on the plate. I definitely will be cooking Artic char for myself later on, as I enjoyed the fish very much.

My party had the other meals and I relay their opinions below. For the burger with fries, the taste was good, but not great. It wasn’t worth the price of the meal. They can improve the patty by adding savory spices and ingredients.

For the potato and rapini pizza, it was well baked, seasoned well, but the chilli honey made the pizza a little sweet. Had to add some hot peppers to the pizza.

For the Fennel Sausage Pasta, the Pasta was well cooked and the meal was just okay. Not bad, not awesome, but just fine. Might even say mediocre or bland.

For the Fungih pizza (mushroom), it was well baked, tasty, and satisfying. No complaints about this dish.

The steak with fries was ordered medium rare and was cooked as it should be. The steak was pre-sliced, which wasn’t preferred and the jalapeños garnish was a little overwhelming. They definitely need to scale back on the jalapeños and not ruin a good cut of steak. The fries was good, provided with aoili sauce.

The pasta with mussels was probably the most disappointing of the dishes. The pasta was al dente, but the sauce was too thin and not creamy as it should be. The mussels were very small and well under seasoned. The dish was very bland, very forgettable. This is a dish that the restaurant need to nail 100% of the time.

Had the tiramisu for dessert, the taste and the consistency was great. The mascarpone was nice and well set, but ladyfingers were unfortunately missing from the dessert. I found a little close to the bottom, but alas it was too late.

Overall the service was great, and the servers was courteous. They answered all my questions regarding food preparations and were very attentive. It was an OK experience, but I would like to give them...

Just ate here today with a colleague for a business lunch, however being casual Friday, we were not in regular business attire. Why does this matter? Because the table of suits on our left and right, who both came after us, received better and more attentive service. Have also dined here with my entire department and can see the difference in the level of service.

1. Appetizers arrived and then mains came 5 minutes later, so by the time I got to my pasta it was cold. Our server asked if we were ok because the mains came early, but by the time she came by it had already been sitting there for a few minutes, so no point in sending it back under the heat lamp
2. Had to wave someone down to ask for water though all the tables around us received their own bottle of tap water
3. Had to ask for bread though all the tables around us received bread
4. Had to request a spoon to eat my carbonara
5. Had to ask for cheese to put on top of my cold carbonara
6. Found some brown cardboard-looking flakes in my water. When I asked a gentleman for another glass because there was something floating in it, received no apology and he looked pretty annoyed I asked him for something - I'm sorry you're not my server but you helped other tables pay their bills so I presumed you are there to assist customers
7. Stacked our own empty plates because it took them too long to notice we had barely any room to eat our mains
8. Dessert torte was pretty underwhelming. Grilled calamari was good & maybe the carbonara would have been good if it wasn't cold. My colleague's rigatoni was quite salty - good thing we asked for bread or else she wouldn't have been able to keep it down. Food has been much better in the past, really disappointed with today's quality.

All-in-all a pretty lackluster experience. If I ever find myself here again I'll make sure to wear a ballgown and maybe receive...

Worst experience and food we had in ages. My friend arrives and asks for a table for two. Hostess says will have to be seated at the bar because there are no tables available. Not many but there were some so my friend insists. Hostess showing some attitude calls the manager, not my friend, and he comes with cheap excuses about reservations and such. My friend, smart one, gets to OpenTable on her phone and shows him that according to the app there are tables available at the very moment. She finally gets table but the attitude from those two was despicable to say the least.

I ordered seafood pasta and what I got was watered down overcooked pasta with some flavorless boiled seafood in sauce that was not a classic emulsion, proper tomato based, not even the typical cream based sauce Canadians like so much. Just water with a bit of tomato sauce and two scallops, three shrimp tails and four clams. Any Italian nonna would put to shame whoever perpetrated that pasta crime.

I didn't ask the waitress to take it back to kitchen because after the bad beginning I wanted to focus on having best time possible.

The only positive note was the waitress, she was nice and professional.

"On the principles of Italian culinary tradition" Cosa dice?🤌🏼

Will I ever set foot here...