Terroni — Restaurant in Toronto

Terrible experience at Terroni on Queen street. This was our 1st time at their Queen St West location but we had been at Bettola di Terroni 3 times in last 12 months. All four of us order cocktails and the selection of house cured meats to start while we talk and look at menus, shortly thereafter the waiters comes to the table to remind us that it is Saturday night and that it will get busy so pizza's would be the fastest! He seems stressed while a bunch of 20 year old girls are seated at table next to us, we are mid 50's. We order a few more appetizers and I let him know that I will be picking a bottle of white. he picked plates and drinks that were unfinished, again as if there was a rush, the place was not full but then again more 18-20 year olds are seated in our section. We ask for more bread and Olive oil and he seemed distressed by it and emphasizes that the second one is not free. He really did not belong in that role and we felt for him but by then the place is really loud and unpleasant. We order more appetizers and then our main, all the food is on point, and very good but as we get to finish our mains, he picks again plates that are not quite finished and one of of is far from finished their plate. When he asks if we wanted desert, we ask if we could finish the meal in a different area of the restaurant, he immediately said he did not think that would be possible but that he would nevertheless ask his manager. By then the noise was unbearable, all the 20 year olds were very loud. We were relocated to the front of the restaurant, restaurant half full, it's now 9:30, we order deserts and 3 cappuccinos, the manager comes back to tell us the 2 deserts we chose were not available, we opted not to take any but then the cappuccinos arrive. We ordered them to have with the desert but now NO desert, might have been a good idea to offer them on the house! In any case the food was great, the atmosphere was terrible and so was the service. Never...

The Pizza: I don’t know if you noticed but basically half my pizza is not eatable because it’s BURNT and it tasted very bitter. All the pizza tasted super bitter and nasty because of it. ($24) Side not: none of the pizzas had any cheese (so sad)

Now we had a party of 12 here. Mostly everyone who ordered the pizza had it burnt similar to this.

The Drink: We also didn’t stop there! We ordered a cocktail ($17) and 100% of the glass was ICE! Thats crazy. I’m not sure if anyone has ever saw that video online of someone pulling the ice out of the glass and the liquid itself is literally 1/3 of the glass.

Our Server: Never introduced her name….Every. Single. Time she passed by my chair (about 10 or so times) she kept bumping my chair and it was so annoying. People at the table were laughing but I wasn’t. I moved my chair in so much to the point where the person sitting in front of me kept knocking my leg by accident lol. Lastly, at the end, my wife was sitting next to me, you know I had my arm around her shoulder and the server bends down over in between our heads, is pushing on my arm and locking it into place. I legitimately could not move. She did this to pull the dirty dishes from us and move them between our heads! Like why. I’ve never had such bad food and service at once.

Overall: This is my first time at this location, but 3rd time to Terroni and it was never THIS BAD. Normally from my other experiences I would rate Terroni an overall 1/5 if you order the pizza and 2/5 if you order pasta. Value for money here is terrible.

I personally would never go back and I would need Terroni to invite me back all paid for to change my mind. If that ever happens I’ll give another honest review.

Oh and we also brought them a cake to cut for our friends birthday.. they must have left it out the fridge and the cake came lopsided !

Final review:...

I have sat on writing this review because Terroni USED to be terrific dining experience and I wanted to give them the benefit of doubt. Unfortunately my past two visits (Queen location) have left a lot to be desired surrounding the quality of the dishes. During my second to last visit, my friend and I ordered a pasta dish and pizza which we had decided to share. The pasta dish came out barely warm, unseasoned, and the portion was barely enough to feed a child. The pizza (MAMA MIA!) came unevenly baked - How does a thin crust pizza flop when lifted??? How is the crust near burnt but the rest of the pizza is slightly under-baked??? The pizza was also very bland tasting. The place was loud and very dimly lit and lent nothing to an Italian style dining experience. This is a far cry to the Terroni I used to enjoy going to. The place just felt like a large industrial kitchen with somewhat nice design elements.

The food and drink prices are absolutely ridiculous when compared to portion and quality of ingredients. There is, in my opinion, zero value for dollar for the dining experience. The entire time I was eating my going-cold-fast meal was how I could recreate the dishes better and cheaper at home.

My most recent visit, with another friend, had the very same outcome. This time I said not a word of complaint, but it was my friend who commented on the poor quality of the food throughout the drinks and meal.

I am sure that the owners will mention all sorts of reasons/excuses but maybe if they had put in less money on what was likely a very expensive reno and instead put that money into maintaining high ingredients and dining standards, there would be fewer of us noticing a huge decline in what was once a very nice restaurant.

I would give each of my last two dining experiences a zero...