SIMONA — Restaurant in Toronto

$300+ NIGHTMARE!!!

Unfortunately I’m back to write a review I really didn’t want to ever write. When this place opened I really enjoyed it and sang its praises to everyone I knew. When friends from out of town came by I knew where I wanted to take them - but I’ve never been so disappointed. Upon entering it took 5 minutes to even be greeted. There was no line and as I’ve been here before and the greeter’s booth is right as you walk in, I expected a prompt hello to our group of 6 but instead we stood there waiting. Since the weather was good we asked to be sat outside and could see that there was ample room on the patio, but we were refused. Confused, we accepted to be sat inside. Our waiter came and took our preferences for water, brought them out, and then promptly disappeared for over 10 minutes. He didn’t take our drink orders prior to leaving - just dropped off the water. One of my guests had to go and find him so that we could order our drinks. By that point we were also ready to order appetizers but he said he needed to go find a pen and then disappeared for an additional 5 minutes. One of the guests in our party wanted a drink with gin and asked what kind of gin was available and was told that Simona only carries two kinds. Bit i had ordered a drink that comes with empress gin so i questioned the validity of that statement and the server admitted that he didn’t know what was actually available. Instead of checking he just waited for us to choose from those 3. After that he only took the appetizer orders and then we were left to wait. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been to Simona before and though I understand we had a larger table of 6, we waited an unusual amount of time, but we assumed it was so that they could bring all of our appetizers out at once but that was NOT the case. The calamari came out cold, rubbery, and without Simonas signature sauce. We also ordered the arancini but were told that the kitchen made a mistake and gave it to another table but that it would be out within 5 minutes. By the time that came out everyone else was done with their appetizers (though the cold calamari was left because it was inedible). After waiting a while for our mains, one of our party was told that the steak he ordered was no longer available and was offered a lesser cut for what ended up being the same price. He felt pressured by our host to say yes and asked for his steak done medium. Fast forward to the food coming out, the steak was medium rare. We waited for the server to come back around as they usually do to ask how everything was but our server NEVER came back until the end of the meal to collect the plates and the untouched steak. Again he disappeared for 10-15 minutes before we could ask for the cheque. I have never had an over $300 meal that was of such poor quality and service. This left me feeling quite embarrassed as I’ve constantly been talking up Simona and I had to bring my guests back to my place for dessert - we couldn’t handle any more...

Today, me and my wife went to the restaurant to celebrate our wedding anniversary. It was not our first time at Simona and we absolutely love the place, the decor and the food. One of our favourite dishes in toronto is at this restaurant. We called the restaurant and a man said that the patio was open, that we could not make a reservation for that, and the patio is pet friendly… so we decided to bring our 2 dogs with us. Everything was good at this point.

On our way to the restaurant, we noticed a light rain that could last a couple of minutes, so we decided to call Simona AGAIN to check if it was still was okay to go because it was raining, at this point was super okay to go back home if the patio closed due the weather.

A man answered the phone again and said that was totally fine, patio was still OPEN, they had BIG UMBRELLAS to make us safe from the weather… Super nice, so we continued our way extremely excited to our date… After we arrived, two young girls welcomed us with smiles and a “Sorry, the patio is fully booked now”.

We said that the website clearly says: the patio CANNOT handle any reservations, “first welcomed, first served”.

One of the girls leave and came back with a man, with the worst customer service we ever saw. With a cold, unbothered face he said straight to our face that they would not accommodate us, that the PATIO WAS CLOSED DUE THE WEATHER (a lot of people was seated at the tables, eating and clearly having a good time), and they would not give us a table (even though we could see a good amount of empty ones) because of health concerns of the employees (we could see at least 3 of them walking around the patio).

After sometime saying that we called less than 10 minutes before arriving, that someone said that everything was okay, he said (extremely cold again) that was the new training employees fault, that they were closed and he couldn’t do anything for us. And if in case we wanted a table, we should wait outside, until the rain stops, to have a table. At this point, i was so disappointed by his attitude and lack of consideration with us. After the argument, we said we would wait with our dogs on the side.. Surprisingly, after 5 seconds he called us to have a table near the entrance, saying that we were “lucky” because the rain stopped.

The rain didn’t stopped at all at this moment for him to give us a table, it just stopped after we started eating. Food was so good but this doesn’t mean we aren’t extremely sad by what happened to us, we even decided to leave early than the normal. The situation just stressed us out and the guy didn’t even said a single “sorry” about every lie they told us. If the problem was dirty tables, we would wait until they cleaned that up. We saw a couple walking inside of the restaurant with a dog to have a table as well…

I’ll think twice before going there again, even though i love the food and the...

Came last night with some friends, after another friend mentioned this new spot that opened up close to home and had good reviews. Reviews looked great and was looking forward to a good meal and new Italian spot close to home.

Table of 5. Decor is nice. After seated waited 5 minutes for waiter to come to the table, then another 10 minutes for water, and then 10-15 mins after to take the order. The place was not packed and it was a late meal (8pm) so not sure what was going on.

We got a few apps to share (calamari, meat/cheese platter, focaccia). Platter was fine. Calamari had no salt or seasoning. Foccacia was fine but pretty small portion. For the mains we shared one of the red pizzas, and the beef wagyu pasta and funghi pasta. Food didn’t take too long to come. No one came by asking for pepper / Parmesan for the pasta dishes.

ALL the dishes were underseasoned. The pizza was supposed to be spicy but no heat and neeeded salt (the crust was great though). These mains were apparently favourites but all were a miss. The Wagyu beef pasta was completely unforgettable and tasted like canned ingredients. The beef was cold. The fungi mushrooms on themselves were good, but with all the components it was missing salt.

We mentioned the lack of seasoning to our waiter who said he’d let the kitchen know. Reading reviews it seems like you’ve gone from over seasoned to fully under seasoned. It doesn’t seem like the kitchen is tasting the food as a whole dish.

Then waiter just disappears and we need to flag him 15 minutes later just to pay.

Subpar service and food. Embarrassed I chose this spot instead of other local spots that I know are good.

Friends will never be back, but I will give it one more chance as you can see there is good technique (good dough, good pasta texture) but need to dial in the seasoning and service - we need more good spots by the water so hoping the next visit is a complete...