La Piazza Dario — Restaurant in Vancouver

Absolutely disgusted with how my experience went. From the start of the reservation to the end of the night. Where do I start...

I have gone to Piazza for many years, my family is Italian on my father's side and this restaurant has always been held in high esteem. Over the past 10-15 years myself, I have always gone and had amazing experiences. Today, this experience has made me choose to avoid this place, and to tell others to avoid it at all costs.

Originally had a reservation that I put in, I explained that I wanted a 7:30 reservation. They agreed, took my info and it was booked. 20 minutes later I started receiving calls from random phone numbers (apparently this was from the owners) explaining that I could only reserve from 8PM on. Not an issue but have had concerns with spam callers and don't pick up the phone if a voicemail isn't left. I picked up the phone on the 2nd go and they explained this to me. They said an owner would potentially call for confirmation later in this day (I thought this wasn't going to be an issue but it was).

Fast forward to 8pm. I get to the restaurant with my fiance and I asked the hostess about our reservation. She looked to have a blank look and couldn't find our reservation. She ended up speaking to a gentlemen in his 30-40's (I believe the owner's son) and asked for the reservation. I explained that we had a reservation for 8pm - he then mentioned that he had called and tried to confirm with me (I thought my reservation had already been confirmed by two other people that I talked to at lunchtime??). Apparently without his confirmation, our table wasn't ready and they didn't take out reservation at all. Off to a not so good start.

We waited 15 minutes to be sat down - we had multiple waitress' and hostess' serving us. Service seemed extremely erratic. It took 15-20 minutes to put in a drink order (of a pop and a coffee), over half an hour to get our starter and close to an hour and a half to get our main meals. Absolutely unacceptable. We were treated by the waitress (who I believe is one of the owner's of the restaurant) as an almost nuisance. We felt uncomfortable, rushed and treated with an almost disdain of being there. We came close to leaving before our main's arrived.

Once our main's arrived, our food was ok - my dish had been sitting I felt, and my fiance's dish was boxed pasta? We ended up confronting our waitress re: this and she explained that it was "our taste" and that she could make us something else - we passed as it was quite late and didn't want to wait another hour for different food to be made. She also allued to the fact that it was my fault re: the reservation as my voicemail box was full? Even if that were the case (which I checked and it wasn't) then why not email, text or use any form of communication besides this. This felt like pure laziness to me. At this point, it was already quite late and we wanted to leave. We went to get the bill - we were charged twice for the pop - 6$ as apparently refills aren't free and this felt like highway robbery at this point.

I retorted thank you to the waitress that it was my fiance's fault that it was her "taste" and not the boxed pasta. I was genuinely upset. The waitress at this point said "goodnight" and abruptly left. Not at one point did she try and make things right for us. I paid and told them i'm not recommending anyone to come here and that this is some of the worst service I've had ever at this place.

There was little to no social distancing, no barriers put up between tables, and no extra tables blocked off due to COVID. With a pregnant fiance, this made us feel extremely uncomfortable. This is a serious health concern that needs to be noted to Vancouver...

Horrible service on my mother's 62nd birthday (party of 6 people, reservation for 5:45pm on Oct. 11, 2024). My man's mom joined us and kept speaking highly of this place since she has been there many times. She was shocked, along with us, to have received negligent service. The food & ambience were great but our server was rude from the beginning. It took us forever to ask for his attention, we ended up leaving between 8:15-8:30pm; as we were never checked on. No "is everything ok?" ever. It seemed like we were such a bother to him every time we tried to speak with him - he never apologized for making us wait so long in between each interaction and even said that he has to attend to "priority." Kept walking away responding rudely, while we were still talking to him. We waited forever for the dessert menu, and even longer for all of us to pay so we could leave. We wanted to split the bill especially because someone had to leave to go to work early. We were told, "we usually don't split bills and if you wanted to split it more, you should tell us" as an excuse to why we waited for so long. How could we have told him if we were waiting for ANY communication in the first place, for forever? We were one of the first tables there & we saw soooo many others leave much earlier than us because they got more constant attention. Such a shame, my mother really wanted to try this place for a while and now we never want to come back. I also wanted to come here for my anniversary next month with my man, and now we don't want to - in fear we might get the server again. He was bald (I'm not trying to be rude but just descriptive of who he is), and I think his name is Roberto; my father heard someone call him that name. Most of us at the table have worked in customer service and were appalled. The manager was nice, but our server was not welcoming.

PS. I noticed another review from 2 months ago saying a male server was rude to them & they think it's because they were people of color. Wouldn't be surprised if that was the same server we got. Sad to say, we noticed this server being very smiley & friendly to other tables who are white-passing. He never cracked a smile with us. I NEVER go looking to complain about being treated unfairly being a POC, but this is what we unfortunately observed. Our whole table was Filipino, for context. We still tipped nicely but made it clear we were not happy with our experience.

I truly hope that server feels better from whatever is making him so unpleasant to be served by. He seems very informative, but choosey with whom he is kinder to while working. By no means am I looking to be unkind, but transparent about our experience, and praying that he seeks to be kind to all customers himself. We did confront, and nothing was really resolved or apologized for. No remorse.

If you check my overall Google review history, I enjoy giving good reviews out to businesses. Of course I've experienced not the best service in other places before too, but I give them the benefit of the doubt most of the time - people are human and make mistakes. However, I felt I needed to write this review in hopes this restaurant can be open to changing something. But seeing other reviews and how they respond, I'm not sure if I can have my hopes up that much. This is the first low review I've ever done. La Piazza Dario has so much potential...

My wife wanted to try La Piazza Dario Ristorante Italiano for her birthday. I made the reservation online with the restaurant and called them to confirm since the booking system was convoluted. The fellow confirmed my reservation for 8 people and the fact we’re celebrating a birthday.

Upon our arrival, we were greeted by the staff. The hostess did not acknowledge or ask who was celebrating their birthday…..disappointing.

The ambience was very romantic and classy but concerning. When we arrived at 6:15pm, there were 2 other tables occupied. As the night progressed, they left and others arrived but never exceeded 3 tables.

Our hostess was super attentive and ensured all our questions addressed. We also advised her my daughter has a peanut allergy as stated at the bottom of the first page of their menus – please let your server know of any food allergies.

We finally decided on our appetizers and entrées. The Calamari Fritti, Calamari Gridliati and tomatoes & mozzarella cheese were GREAT!

When the hosts delivered our meals, they asked each of us if we wanted fresh ground black pepper or parmesan cheese. My daughter loves cheese and she asked politely for some parmesan cheese sprinkled on her Risotto ai Funghi Misti. The waiter responded by stating it’s NOT required since there’s cheese cooked into the risotto. At home we purchase blocks of parmesan cheese but at La Piazza Dario they serve the powdered parmesan……..I’ve never seen this before except at the smaller Italian food chains where it’s on the table so you can sprinkle onto your food. I expected real parmesan served from a grater not scooped from a bowl in powder form.

After the food was served, our waitress was nowhere to be seen but she was still walking around the restaurant but never stopped to ask how our meals were. It was like our table of 7 adults was invisible.

I order the special pasta with game meat and my daughter ordered the Risotto ai Funghi Misti. The pasta noodles for my special pasta with game meat tasted undercooked but I just ate it and decided not to bring it up as an issue. There was NOTHING special with the game meat…basically game meat ground up no more than a couple ounces.

My daughter was unable to eat her risotto because it was under cooked……the grains were soft on the outside but crunchy on the inside. I brought it up to the waiter and he basically told me it’s supposed to be like that - sometimes it soft and sometimes it has a crunchy texture depending on how it’s cooked. Can you imagine if you had a problem with undercooked meat and you brought it up with the waiter and given the same response? Not a good situation.

After our meals we ordered desserts from the waiter and not the waitress – she’s MIA. We asked if any of the desserts had nuts and he was unable to advise and ran off to the kitchen to ask or look at the packaging – since they don’t make their desserts. The waiter was definitely NOT aware of my daughter’s nut allergy……….waitress did not share the information with him.

Would I go back?? Nope. We can definitely have higher quality authentic Italian food for the prices we paid at La Piazza Dario for their cafeteria quality dinner entrees – appetizers...