Anna and Lucio's Trattoria — Restaurant in Vaughan

My family and I saw this place a few times and finally decided to go in. Their website was cute, a true Italian family owned restaurant.

I read the menu about the history of Lucio and Anna, very touching and admirable.

We came in at around 3:30 pm for an early Dinner. Restaurant was empty except for a couple people in the back and someone at the bar including the server.

He sat us at a table, and left back to the man at the bar. We sat about 15 minutes before he came to ask for our drinks. Just a few ginger ales, coke and water. He came back a few minutes later with the drinks. We gave our orders and he went to send it in to the back. The food came fairly quick, and huge portions also. Food looked good. The taste however, was nowhere near what the food looked like. All 3 of my children and wife did not finish the food.

Ome of our daughters ordered Gnocchi with their vodka tomato sauce. She had two bites and almost gagged. Texture of the Gnocchi was definitely waaayy over cooked not al dente. My other daughter had the Spaghetti chitarra woth basic tomato sauce, absolutely horrible, mushy and sauce was extremely tart, like it came from the microwave. My eldest daughter had the margarita Pizza. She might as well ordered a slab of mozzarella melted with undercooked dough. My wife ordered a mushroom risotto, which tasted more like a can of campbells mushroom soup. I ordered the orechetti rapini and sausage. It was decent, no salt or seasonings, pasta overcooked and more water than oil.

The server did not come to check on us once during our meal, only at the end to clean our plates. I mentioned (and he saw) our daughter didn't touch the Gnocchi and it was horrible, he just silently picked it up and asked if we wanted dessert or coffee. We declined.

Honestly, I gave 2 stars instead of 1 because the atmosphere was amazing. Beautiful little place that seemed full of history.

I have been a server, bartender, cook and manager at a restaurant (many ions ago) and it was sad to see this. As an Italian (born here in canada) maybe my expectations are higher for a true authentic Italian food and experience. This was definitely not one of them. Even taking the Gnocchi off from the bill would have been a small saviour. But they didn't. We paid for the extremely overpriced food, and most likely will not recommend or go back.

Truly dissapointing.

Sorry, forgot to mention, we also had Calamari Fritti as an appetizer...not bad, little oily...but for that price, should have been a lot more. Portion...

This is our first and last dining experience at this restaurant. The Mixed Vegetables appetizer was cold and some undercooked. An embarrassingly meager portion at $18.00. Menu stated mushrooms included, you only get one? The Calamari Fritti we wondered if this was a frozen product? Our main order of two pizzas was an hour wait. We observed numerous pizzas brought to other tables of diners who had arrived long after us. The wait was so long and I was so hungry I resorted to eating the complimentary bread basket. My partner had lost his appetite from the long wait. Our server arrived twice apologetic with no pizzas? The owner I assume informed us she would remove an appetizer from the bill due to our ongoing wait for the pizzas. When the long lost pizzas finally arrived we requested take out boxes as we were no longer hungry and our evening ruined. I did taste one slice of my Margherita pizza it was bland and tasteless with barely any tomato sauce, just cheese on dough and several tiny basil leaves sprinkled on top. My partner's Meat Lovers Pizza was mushy and unappetizing looking. Finally, to add to our poor dining experience there are ventilation issues that has kitchen smoke seep into the dining area. My eyes burned with discomfort and another diner was coughing from it. The bill was $123.32 including tip. Despite removal of an appetizer and a tiny cup of cappuccino from the bill, this in no way compensated for such a terrible non dining experience. We would have been much better off dining at a Pizza Pizza restaurant.

PS:

After posting my review the owner of Anna and Lucio’s Trattoria reached out. The owner was apologetic about our disappointing dining experience. We were offered a complimentary meal. The owner blamed their faulty pizza oven which needed repair as the reason for the poor pizza quality we experienced. Eight months have since passed and the promised complimentary meal invitation has not transpired. Perhaps the faulty pizza oven has not yet...

First time attending Anna and Lucio’s with family and would HIGHLY recommend and will definitely be coming back!!! From the atmosphere to the service and food it was phenomenal. The photos are the Calamari to start, amazing not to salty, very flavourful. The special was straciatella with spinach and tortellini. Amazing soup and the portion was filling for an appetizer I was quite shocked. They also gave us 2 servings of bread (which many places do not do that). For the mains we had the mushroom risotto, very rich, flavourful and creamy perfect amount of seasoning. Not too watery like most places. The veal chop with a SIDE of penne alla vodka was mouthwatering and cooked to perfection. I wanted to try 2 different dishes so they accommodated for me to get 2 different pastas (shows in photo 4) for the price of one dish. The handmade gnocchi with meat sauce was amazing and full of flavour and my second choice was the penne alla vodka and I was very happy and satisfied with my choice. I have never been to a place where I could get 2 great portioned and flavourful dishes for the price of one!!! The veal Parmesan and penne à la vodka was to die for and was cooked perfectly not full of fat like some other places that I have been toO!! The tiramisu dessert was amazing along with the pistachio, lemon and tarrone was very light, yummy and sweet!! The service was amazing. The accommodations that we were able to make along with the portion size sizes is very rare to find and made the experience 100% better. I would for sure recommend doing a party or coming here for special occasions or just...