Sprezzatura Restaurant — Restaurant in Vancouver

We went to this restaurant on April 30th, 2021. When we arrived for our reserved outside table, the wait person for the patio was deep in conversation with a friend and waved us vaguely towards the inside of the restaurant, barely pausing in her conversation.

We went inside and were brought back out and seated by someone else who gave us only one menu. When the wait person outside finally finished her chat with her friend, we flagged her down to get another menu. She mumbled something about using the QR square on the table but there were no QR squares on any of the outside tables. She returned with a second menu, wordlessly handed it to us and left.

We had the pork belly pizza which was served (by someone other than our wait person) amazingly quickly. It was excellent. In the words of my friend "this should be called something other than pizza": it was that exceptional. I had a very good and very strong Negroni and my friend was pleased with the Rose she had. Our wait person made a brief appearance during the meal to ask if everything was alright but seemed preoccupied and indifferent.

When we settled our the bill, (inside with someone other than our waitperson) the card machine gave us three choices for a tip: 20%-22%-25%. I know this has been a tough time for wait staff and the expected tip amount has increased in most restaurants. However, being forced to give a 20% tip to a wait person who did little more than bring us a menu after being asked was a hard pill to swallow. Little wonder she wasn't motivated to render anything approaching professional quality service if she's guaranteed a tip of this amount or higher whatever her performance. Despite the excellent food and drinks, this issue will make us think twice about returning to this restaurant.

Restaurant owners in general need to grasp that while their diners may be understanding about the drastically increased cost of eating out, they're not going to put up with being forced into paying an increased tip percentage for...

This is a rare case of me wanting to try a restaurant because of the atmosphere more than the actual menu. I would always walk by here and think it looked so relaxed, classy but laid-back. So I decided to treat myself and get it a try. I sat outside on the patio, very nice atmosphere. I almost wish I’d stayed inside just to get a better look at the inside of the restaurant, which I thought was pretty in the short look I got. The service was excellent. My waiter was super friendly and the food came out quickly enough. The drink menu has some cocktails/mocktails featuring Italian drinks that are less common here as mixers, which is cool, and I will want to try a mixed drink if I visit again. But at the time I was feeling beer, where the selection is more basic. They have 3 mainstay beers on tap, and 3 rotators, but the rotators looked very similar to the mainstays (same type of beer, different brewery). I got the rotating lager, the aptly-named Laser Lite Lager by Rewind Brewing, very clear and light for easy, pleasant drinking. The food menu is all very classic dishes. I got the pasta pomodoro, which could not be more basic in composition, but I was actually really impressed by it. The simplicity made the quality very obvious. The sauce had a super bright, fresh flavour and the pasta was very al dente. I got the amaro brownie for dessert. The brownie itself was a good fudgy brownie but nothing remarkable, but the sauce and nutty whipped mascarpone were REALLY good. I think the food is a little overpriced - it was good, but relatively simple and portions aren’t huge (the brownie was big enough to share, but at $15, that was an expectation). However, the prices are similar to prices at other semi-high-end Italian restaurants. That aside, I had a great experience so I’d happily recommend...

Went there for a couple drinks with friends before an event on May 18. At first the service was welcoming however as we got our drinks, it turned very sour very quickly. Server (brunette in glasses) was arrogant and rude and the bartender was not knowledgable, which was a disappointment.You'd expect such an establishment to train their staff well. Ordered a traditional/classic cocktail and had to send it back twice. The first time, server agreed it wasnt what i ordered and it got sent back. Then another 10 min later, it came out again, upon which I asked the server what the bartender put in there, because again, it's not what it was supposed to look like. It's a traditional cocktail recipe and whilst a bartender won't know all the recipes for classic cocktails, a quick Google search and they'd find it. However the server insisted - no this is the bartenders recipe with no apology and acted rather very arrogant and condescending. I tried to nicely tell her perhaps the bartender can either search up the actual recipe online or I'd be happy to tell her what to put in it. For reference, you wouldnt give someone a classic negroni without campari and insist that's how you do it - because that's NOT the cocktail. Server still kept arguing saying this is the bartenders recipe and wouldn't let it go so I simply told her to send it back kindly. she gave a huff and and noted "okay, then." She was passive aggressive the rest of our short visit there. :( It was such a let down, we were so excited to try this place and yet i was genuinely made to feel bad sending back a cocktail that wasn't what I wanted, TWICE, without having to deal with the server throwing a childish tantrum over it to make...