Padella Italian Eatery — Restaurant in Toronto

Bland food. Bland decor. Average service. Had the Pizza Margherita ($17), and the panko-crusted Halibut ($48). Grilled octopus didn't really have a char or smell smokey. Caprese salad was good. The most flavorful thing was the free bread served.

Next part added after the owner replied:

The owner did ask how the food was but at what point do you accept that this is just how the food is. You cant magically change the flavour of the dish. There seems to be an aversion to using any kind of seasoning or spices to bring out the flavour.

It was a friends birthday so we brought a cake, owner looked perplexed as to why/how we would bring a cake. Told us it would cost $5/person charge and I said it was fine. Then he said cake would melt, and I said it was fine. Then he brought out the cake at the end of the meal, and had to be asked to provide us with a knife and bowls/spoons to actually eat the cake. I get that maybe you want customers to eat your specific dessert but it's not unheard of for people to bring birthday cake to a restaurant, and we agreed to pay as well. Owner treated us like lowbrow for having the audacity to bring cake, and has replied to this review saying that perhaps I need improvement in the restaurant world.

My friend, please season your food and don't get worked up about someone bring cake from outside when they already paid $70-80/person plus $5/head charge.

Your strange attitude, the lack of explanation of prices for your daily special dishes ($48 for bland halibut), and the miscalculation of the auto-gratuity (which I hadn't mentioned earlier) are the reason for the service being 3 stars. (the review was originally 3 stars but its been changed due to the owners...

After reading the reviews I was looking forward to be blown away as I always find it hard to find a great Italian restaurant.

I made reservations and upon coming into the restaurant there was no host in sight. We waited for about 5 minutes before being seated. The place is small and it was very packed.

Took at least 10-15 minutes to finally order. I’ll be honest the service could have been better. They seemed understaffed for a Saturday night. We finally place our order and we tried the Octopus, grilled sardines and fettuccine de mari. They do bring some Flavia beans and garlic bread. Bread did not seem fresh and it was very salty.

The octopus was very undercooked and chewy. It was hard to swallow. It was nothing special, it was basically white beans with some onion and parsley with olive oil and red wine vinegar. Basic dressing. I have had better elsewhere. Again, Sardines were nothing special either. It was just grilled, with wedges of lemon no seasoning whatsoever. And for the main dish, pasta de mari. Sauce was good but definitely not fresh. Too much sugar I would have liked some type of fresh cherry tomatoes to give it a nice acidic taste to balance the sweetness of the sauce. It wasn’t bad but definitely something I can make better at home.

The staff could be a bit more attentive and would have liked to see more Italian culture in the atmosphere. Overall it was OK. I have had better Italian elsewhere so with that being said I don’t think I’ll...

To avoid sounding repetitive, I found Padella best suited for people who enjoy under seasoned dishes, which allows an ingredient’s natural flavours to shine, but was too plain for me. Some restaurants add a lot of toppings to their beef carpaccio ($16), the only garnishes at Padella were well-drained capers and shaved parmigiano; even the greens were left undressed. Indeed, we could taste the beef, it just doesn’t taste like much without seasoning.

Similarly, the pan seared octopus ($16) and cannellini bean salad barely had a lick of salt so the flavours were derived from the herbed olive oil. I just couldn’t get used to the octopus’ texture, which was too soft. Sure, you may be thinking tender octopus is a good thing. Yet, when the seafood flavours disappear and the springy texture almost becomes mushy, it no longer tastes like octopus.

The clams to linguine ratio in the vongole ($19) was impressive: equal amounts of seafood to pasta. Moreover, both ingredients were prepared to perfection – the clams just cooked through but still juicy and the pasta retaining that lovely chewiness. If only the sauce wasn’t so acidic – it’s like the chef forgot he added lemon and did a second squeeze, then the person at the pass added a third helping – rendering everything so sour that even the garlic and white wine were masked. This could have been an amazing dish with a quarter of the lemon and...