Mezza Notte Trattoria — Restaurant in Toronto

Came here for my birthday celebration on Father's day weekend and had one of THE BEST dinner experiences. I want to start out by highlighting our amazingly awesome waitress, Jenny, who went above and beyond in making my birthday dinner spectacular. There were 8 of us and everyone adored her.

Things started out a tiny bit unpleasant, as there was a bit of a confusion in regards to a matter that was originally approved by the restaurant and then later flip flopped on. The misunderstanding was cleared up by dinnertime with the manager, but nevertheless, a few of my friends suggested I cancel and head somewhere else to save myself the headache of dealing with "bad service", especially since it was my birthday. But I really wanted italian! And those who know the yonge and finch area would know that good non-Asian food is really hard to come by in this area, much less a good Italian restaurant that has the classy and elegant ambiance I wanted for my birthday. So I stuck it out with Mezza, and boy am I glad!

As soon as we sat down, in comes our super attentive, enthusiastic, and helpful waitress, Jenny, who single-handedly turned the boat around. She was just such a bundle of delight, patiently answered everyone's questions, came back over and over to give us more parmesan for our pastas, went out of her way to make me feel special as a birthday girl. Just all around phenomenal customer service. Besides Jenny, the few others who poured us sangria, brought my birthday cake over, and sang happy birthday with my friends were fantastic too. No complaints about service.

Next up, food. Between the 8 of us, we ordered pastas, risottos, pizzas and everyone enjoyed their food. I had the pappardelle ragu and omg, it was absolutely delicious. Fresh pasta cooked perfectly with the right amount of al dente chew. The sauce had great flavour and the lamb melted in my mouth. It was so good that one of my friends ordered one for herself on top of her risotto. My bf's squid ink pasta was quite special and I liked the pasta flavour. I also had a bite of my friend's risotto, which I thought was decent but did not compare to the pastas imo. I did notice that all the pastas seemed to be red sauce, so it would've been nice to have a cream or white sauce variety in the future.

Overall, the restaurant really made my birthday super memorable. I can keep raving about the food and service. My friends and I are already talking about...

This was the first Italian restaurant I visited way back in '98 when I first came to Canada and stayed nearby at the Novotel. It's been sporadically visited through the years mostly as I had moved to Durham Region since landing in 2002. It has been over a decade since the last visit.

Having walked by recently and decided to visit again, I discovered this location was closing shortly, so last night we went to dinner. Another Condo project claims another victim but that is Toronto these days.

Dinner last night was a hit and miss event. Not that if we had what we had, it would draw us to come back unfortunately, but as this is the night before they close up the location for good, the misses can be forgiven to an extent. This was for me a bit of a nostalgia visit before it closed after all.

The Margarita Pizza and the Rapini were hits. She says this was the best rapini she has ever had. The INSALATA CAPRESE was superb also.

The FETTUCCINE SICILIANA was good, but nothing truly special. One Mushroom. One. Extremely light on everything including the 5 mediocre bits of chicken. The fettuccini was very al dente. So that much was on par.

GRIGLIATA MISTA DI PESCE was good also, but only 2 shrimp on the plate. She was disappointed, but the salmon may not have been good, as she was not feeling well last night afterward.

We also had the Homemade Tiramisu, and Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake. The Cheesecake was everything I enjoy about Cheesecake Factory. The Tiramisu was a serious disappointment. Bland and dry. As I make my own based on the Olive Garden recipe, I know what it should be, and often order it out elsewhere. Even the Capaccino was disappointing. Oh the Mezza Notte Martini to start off the night was fantastic too.

All in all 3 out of 5 stars, as we never got a visit from the owner/manager, who was busy with another table all night. There was some sort of event on and we can forgive this, given we are not frequent customers maybe these folks were. But we also had to chase down to get our check just as the restaurant was closing, Service had been superb up until then.

We know they are moving to a new locale, in an area of the city neither of us have ever visited. We wish them well at the new location, and will probably in the near future visit them again there, so to hopefully improve the overall experience, food, and...

Dining room was full which was ok for timing. ordered the jalapeños with bread (don’t, server said it always takes a while and we received in about 20m) if they knew it was gonna take a while (always) give the timing otherwise give the side order at the same time as the bread as said on the menu. If you order something on the same menu item, it should arrive at the same time or not at all.

Calamari diavola was good, radicchio salad was ok. And we got our quality check, and let our server know.

Ordered the nduja pizza which was good, and orecchiette which was pretty horrible and overcooked (boiled everything, no pan, watery plate, no browning on meat ). Server did not do a quality check and we ate 60% of it (we were hungry, full dining room, and no quality check to inform our server).

After about 30m server did a QC and we informed him, and sent to the kitchen. Server came back, said nothing of it and then asked us about our dessert choices, he let us know of the specials which we ordered (pistachio cannoli, don’t order it’s just cannoli with pistachio on the sides, mini 3 pc, and not very good too acidic; no pistachio in the cream just on the sides)

When we got the bill and I asked if the kitchen wanted to do anything about it they said that we ate most of it.

1. you did not QC so how are we suppose to inform you
2. tell the kitchen you messed up and not QC, the diner is not going to deal with your mistake 3)what are we suppose to do, it’s not our fault dining room is busy , only 2 servers on 40+ room with no support on SA/ manager (which was seen at BOH). 4)no real resolution and did not bring it up to the table.

I also asked if anything got comped out of it and they said yes the pistachio and then when I tried to pay it was still there. I didnt push anymore and I just left after paying. Tipped $20

Bill was about 200 post tax, we got wine, bread, calamari diavola, radicchio salad, orecchiette (don’t get), nduja pizza, and the “special” dessert pistachio cannoli. They didn’t make it right at service so I don’t really expect them to make it right after...