Stelvio Toronto — Restaurant in Toronto

The worst service of any restaurant I have ever been to. The managers don’t care about your experience, only about making money. We booked Stelvio for a 75th birthday celebration (which we told them when we made a reservation) and we arrived to the majority of the restaurant being taken up for a corporate event. It was unbelievably loud & crowded. They prioritized the event all evening—hosting maybe 50 people in a small restaurant, all the staff were focused on them, and none of the remaining tables that had been cast aside. I have never been to a restaurant, at least not a small one of this size, that hosted a large private event integrated with the regular diners. I emailed the general manager, Anna, regarding our evening and she made zero effort to reconcile this issue. Below is the email I sent to Anna describing the evening.

“I just wanted to relay our experience last night from the customer's point of view. We found it in very poor taste that you chose to host a corporate event while keeping the restaurant open for regular customers. However, I respect your choices if you choose to operate your business in this manner, but what I do not respect is the fact that I was not notified whatsoever that a large corporate event would be occurring during our reserved time in the restaurant. When I booked the reservation, I explicitly stated it's a very special event––a 75th birthday celebration. Should we have been informed that this event was taking place, we would have rescheduled it for a different date, because we were really looking forward to dining at your restaurant for the first time.

I'd like to walk you through our first impression of your restaurant. Upon arrival, we had to squeeze through a one-foot gap between the wall of the entranceway and the chairs of the diners that were blocking it. After passing the large promotional materials of their event and many idle wait-staff, we were not greeted by anyone except for our own server when we reached our table. We were not offered to have our coats hung, and we asked, we were told "I'll see if I can find some room for you". This initial impression immediately made us feel inferior and less of a priority than the event you were hosting. From then on, smaller incidents, which on a regular night might have been brushed off, became apparent and compounded. Several of the guests from the event hovered near our table, incessantly waving around bright LED panels while taking photos of their risotto dishes at the bar. It was invasive. At one point, my husband had to simply raise his arm to tap the rear end of a photographer bent over at the bar, less than a foot away from his face, to ask him to move. With the overwhelming presence of the corporate event, mixed with a clear discrepancy of service, our entire night was tense and uncomfortable.

Our server was sympathetic to our experience, and tolerated our complaints throughout the evening while trying to be amenable. We are grateful that he was able to comp us on desserts, and when he was finished his shift he told us that a manager would be over to check on us. When your floor manager came over, she did not address any of the problems we faced throughout the evening. I was even more surprised that you were able to monitor the corporate event by the bar for most of the night, but that you did not come to check on us once yourself, having been aware that you had unsatisfied guests. But perhaps it's simply due to your being preoccupied with such a large party.

I must say the most disappointing aspect to this all is the fact that my family and I are Northern Italian (we spend half of the year at our home in Como) and we were thrilled to come try this restaurant for the first time. And for the most part, the food was great. It's such a shame that you and your staff's priority for this evening did not reflect much consideration towards us. We feel as though a couple of free desserts did not in any way make up for a spoiled evening, especially one of such great importance being a...

I came to Stelvio for my birthday dinner tonight. I was ready for a fun and celebratory dinner at a restaurant I’ve wanted to try. I have never been more disappointed. The evening did not start off well with the server not introducing himself, ask us how we were, etc. nor being able to identify for my partner which of the 2(!?) wines they offer by the glass would be drier. We asked him what appetizer would be gluten free and his suggestion was their meat and cheese plate, or deep fried mashed potatoes. We clarified: the deep fried mashed potatoes are gluten free? He says actually no we don’t have a single appetizer that is gluten free - contradicting his suggestion of the meat and cheese plate which is in fact gluten free (and doesn’t come with bread??) That waiter never came back to our table and avoided us the rest of the night. His colleagues seemed to take turns filling his spot. Water glasses sat empty for extended periods of time, not once did they ask how we were doing, etc. Unfortunately the power went out in the kitchen - totally not their fault. But no effort was made to help us pass the time (perhaps suggest another cocktail, a coffee, something?)… and despite being informed their would be an added delay for food, there was no effort to compensate for this. The food, when it finally did come, was underwhelming. Apparently rosemary is a novelty there because they put it on and in everything - my sage butter sauce even tasted of it. The pasta did not hold together (it was not the gluten free kind in case you’re wondering) polenta was under seasoned at best… not worth the $20+ per dish. Finally when we finished, we asked for the bill twice. It took easily 20 mins to come. Then no one came to accept payment. 30 minutes later and after physically walking up to their POS station were we finally able to end this horrendous experience. All in all, go to Terroni instead. Hell… go...

The ambiance is absolutely gorgeous, but unfortunately the experience wasn’t good as the design choices. The restaurant was relatively empty (around 4 tables on a Wednesday night) and we were in a big table with 10 friends. First, the waitress told us to only order everything together, that they couldn’t accept orders for appetizers first and main dishes after. So, we did order everything together hoping to have all the food together, which obviously didn’t happen. The food took around 1 hour to arrive, someone ordered an orecchia as a main dish and received with other’s appetizer. Some couples ordered an orecchia and a pasta to share, but we all received the pasta dishes 15min before the orrechia so one person of the couple would have to wait 15 minutes to start to eat together or both would need to wait in case they wanted to eat together – which was the case and we ate the past cold! And even when the oreccias started to come, we need to wait around 15 more minutes until the whole table had the food ready. Finally, because it was a big table, the 20% tip was already included in the bill. We didn’t want to discuss about that because it was a friend’s birthday but the whole experience was so no worth of 20% tip! It would be a 5% maximum! The orecchia itself was really good, but the whole experience was awful. Not recommended at all – really bad experience and the cherry on top is that it was expensive (82 cad for only 2 dishes and no drinks, a couple wait 1h to have the food and...