Porzia's — Restaurant in Toronto

I had been looking forward to Porzia’s for months and booked a 6:30 PM reservation to reconnect with a close friend. We were excited for a relaxed evening of good food and conversation, but instead we were rushed out in a way that felt dismissive and deeply uncomfortable.

We ordered a full meal and a bottle of wine. Around 8:15 PM, we decided to extend our night and ordered a second bottle. No one warned us of any time limit. The staff brought the wine, opened it, and poured it as if we had the time to enjoy it. There was no heads-up, no courtesy reminder, nothing.

Shortly after, the waitress returned looking visibly frustrated. She told us we had taken too long to eat and they could no longer keep our table. When I asked how we were supposed to know that, she told us we should have read the listing on OpenTable. That was her response. No warning at the time of booking. No mention when we sat down. No comment when we ordered that second bottle of wine just minutes earlier.

When I asked why they would sell us another bottle if we were about to be asked to leave, the only offer was to cork it. They packed up our food, handed us the wine, and left us standing outside the restaurant. No apology. No solution. Just a clear message that our time was up.

We were not overstaying without ordering. We had just paid for more wine and were mid-conversation. The way it was handled made us feel like we were in the wrong for simply enjoying our dinner.

I fully understand that restaurants have time limits. But that only works when it is communicated clearly and respectfully. We were given no such courtesy. Instead, we were rushed, dismissed, and blamed.

Porzia’s food was good, but hospitality is about more than what is on the plate. It is about how you treat people. And in our case, we left feeling embarrassed and...

Porzia’s menu changes frequently with a focus on seasonal ingredients, which allowed me to try one of the sweetest cantaloupes I’ve ever experienced. If you’ve ever had musk melon, the two slices in the prosciutto and melon ($18) rivaled the prized melon in sweetness and went wonderfully with the freshly shaved Parma prosciutto, which was especially delicious when I sampled a slice covered in olive oil.

One dish that’s constant on the menu is their lasagna, offered in a “classico” or “bolognese” format. Given I like my pasta saucier, we ordered the lasagne bolognese ($26) a hefty brick of pasta with so many layers of pasta and cheese that sat in a pool of meat sauce and was covered with finely shaved cheese.

The fresh pasta was silky and soft except for the top layer that’s broiled adding a crispiness to the otherwise soft dish. If you like pasta, you’ll swoon over this dish. And while it was delicious, it was also heavy and could use more sauce between the layers.

What impressed me was the tagliatelle with red shrimp al limone ($29), a lighter pasta that’s nonetheless a flavour bomb. I had to ask for a spoon to properly enjoy the sauce: a combination of chili peppers, rich olive oil, and slivers of garlic that ends with a lemon note that’s not overly acidic. After having bites of lasagna, I found the dish so refreshing and the tagliatelle chewy but still silky. Porzia’s you need to make this a staple.

As a secondi we shared the acqua pazza sea bass ($38), which consisted of two fair-sized pieces of perfectly poached fish cooked just to the point of flaking. The broth had a rustic feel to it with chunks of stewed onion, tomato, and artichokes amongst a host of herbs and white wine. If you like fish stews or bouillabaisse, this is the...

I normally don’t leave Google reviews, but this one is so bad that I feel like I have to leave one so that I can warn anyone else to not try their lasagna or not to come, because it’s such a waste.

I heard of this restaurant from other people online so I booked marked it and was so excited to come here and try out their lasagna. So my bf and I went there for lunch on Saturday, we ordered the fried calamari and lasagna bolognese. The fried calamari was okay, but the lasagna was really, really, really bad. First, we got the corner piece, the corner part was burnt and outside of it turned completely dark. Fun story when they were making the order me and my boyfriend smelled something is burning, turn out was our piece of lasagna was burned…. Not sure if other people had the same problem..

The lasagna itself was pretty flavourless and salty at the same time, The outside part which is covered with cheese and sauce is pretty salty ( just salty, without any flavour of the spice), but the inside is really soggy and flavourless, if there is no sauce, I feel like eating a plain dough. And these cost me ard $65 before tip. This is The WORST lasagna that we have ever had in Toronto. Do you guys know the feeling that you really don’t like this but because you spent money on this, you have to finish this to make it worth? (We still could not finish it at the end because it was BAD). In conclusion, I wasted my quota of a meal and wasted my money at this place. I don’t know why there are so many people hyping about their lasagna, my advice is -DON’T.

And the waitresses didn’t even ask us how did we think about the food during the whole meal, maybe they already knew the answer so they...