Piano Piano — Restaurant in Toronto

A newly opened restaurant often generates buzz – for a while, anyway, which can more often than not lead to hubris on the part of management. A friend of mine and I recently shared a meal at Piano Piano on Dundas, where three of the four dishes we ordered were sub-par, and one of the three was missing half the intended ingredients, which we only became aware of at the end of the meal when we saw another table receive the same dish loaded with the toppings it was meant to be served with.

While driving home we both commented how underwhelmed we were with the meal. I dine out a lot and although I have had less than stellar experiences in the past, it has never bothered me to this extent. Rather than write a bad review, the next morning I chose to let management know what the experience was like, in great detail. I was clearly upset at forking out my money for something I could have made better at home. Rather than solving the issue with the most basic of business 101 solutions, the manager invited me back, where I was to ask for her in person so she could personally guarantee that I would be wowed by the impeccable cuisine they are known for. Huh?

Apparently, my infraction was that we did not address the complaints while at the restaurant, but instead dealt with them the next day via email. I was surprised myself that I was still so irked by the experience by the next morning. So, after we felt like we threw our money away, the restaurant’s remedy was to have us return and spend more? Sit on that for a while. Like I said, business 101. They could have so easily remedied the situation - offer me a free cocktail upon my next visit…a complimentary appetizer….anything to make up for my bad experience, and as long as you don’t repeat the initial experience, you have a customer for life. Instead, they induced me into giving a bad review and re-telling the story to my fellow dining friends. Absolute hubris. Piano Piano left a bad taste in my mouth – not...

I have now been twice here, and I want to state clearly that our server the second time was wonderful and very sweet.

The food was okay for myself the first time I went and much better the second time. I went with two different people each time and both my table partners enjoyed their meal.

I have two issues in particular. Please do not advertise dairy free on your menu when only a couple of options are actually available to be made as dairy free. I went in before I went to eat and asked about this and each time I have been met with “yes! We can!” But the reality is that this place is a dairy heavy Italian restaurant which is great for the majority of people, but if you are not able to have dairy, it’s not worth going. (I only went for the people who I went with as they are not dairy free and had not ever eaten there). The service. As mentioned our server tonight was wonderful as there a mix up with the kitchen and my meal but he was quick to fix it. However, both times I have gone you can tell that they are understaffed and the servers are unable to pay attention to their tables. Not only that but the first time I went I had difficulty communicating about dairy free options as our server barely had time to stand at our table and tonight found out that one option, in the limited options, is to switch out a sauce with basic tomato sauce, which completely invalidates the price of the dish as essentially you get tomato sauce, pasta, and sausage. For over 20 dollars.

I could go on about how disappointing I have found the service, but I do think they are deliberately understaffing their restaurant.

Also, I don’t think the manager knows what she is doing as she interrupted our server when he attempted to speak to a table. I found that incredibly rude and unprofessional.

Looking forward to see if there are changes...

Unfortunately I had high expectations.

I’m a self proclaimed foodie, I know good food and I love trying new places so was really looking forward to this dinner out. The reviews online and from friends had me expecting a wonderful experience. We came to enjoy happy hour drink specials (aka average priced drinks) the sparkling wine was decent but not very “sparkling” more like a white wine. The food was okay, decent servings but kind of expected with the price tag... The bread was delicious, the burrata was a decent size to share but cold and with spicy grapes was a weird combo. The grapes were slippery and overall odd in pairing with the burrata. We “enjoyed” two pizzas, which come served as a whole pizza and you need to cut yourself with oddly shaped “fancy” scissors. Please just cut my pizza for me, I’m not paying $30 for a mid size pizza to burn my hands. Sure, I can wait until my food has cooled but also… then it’s cold. Just felt prestigious and unnecessary trying to be unique. Back to the food, the pizzas were OK not much for toppings and very little spice. I got the hot rod and my partner got some hot honey pizza which was unique but also not hot? The honey flavour really came through. The few olives that were on it were tasty. We ordered a bottle of red to pair with our meal and the staff on service were very attentive and kind. Lots of water provided which was great and staff were ways quick to fill our glasses. Didn’t love the menu, it’s a cute story but again, felt prestigious, struggle trying to open and read it on a small table. Too much going on.

I usually take lots of photos of my meals but this one wasn’t super memorable.

We drove into the city and there’s a big parking garage within the same building as Piano Piano so that was great it was so convenient....