Castello Ristorante — Restaurant in Vaughan

AVOID CASTELLO. If you're doing a party or a large gathering here, we HIGHLY DO NOT RECOMMEND CASTELLO.

we did our wedding rehearsal here back on July 6, 2021 and we had the worst experience from Josie, the operations manager.

I had connected with Josie on June 21st to get a menu for hosting our wedding rehearsal dinner with 16 guests. i had also requested photos of the outside tent because I've never been to the restaurant before. Keep in mind, i tried to book everything beforehand as it was COVID and there was a lot more organizing than usual. On the phone on June 21st, she confirmed she would send me the menu and photos of the outside tent. Even after my wedding planner tried to touch base with her via text message and emails, we never heard from her, never got the menu or pricing options until June 25th. we also never received any tent photos even after asking her several times. We still decided to go ahead with this restaurant because it was rated "best restaurant in woodbridge" and because of covid, we needed 6 tables during that stage as there can only be 4 people per table during that time of planning.

On july 5th, she emailed us to confirm our guest count for our rehearsal for July 6th. we had emailed back immediately to let her know of our guests' dietary restrictions (we had 4 guests with dietary restrictions) and wine/alcohol consumption expectations as the party all had long distance to drive back home for the evening.

On the evening of July 6th, our server was Gary. Josie had never informed him of the guests' dietary restrictions. this was extremely frustrating for us as we were trying to entertain our guests and inappropriate meals were being served at the same time. in the middle of dinner, I had to ask him and he said he had to speak to the kitchen because he was never informed of any dietary restrictions. Josie never informed him of the wine or alcohol consumption either. In fact, he left the wine bottles on the table for the guests to pour and after that evening. we had specifically instructed to Josie only one glass of wine per guest as they were driving home. in total, there were 13 bottles of consumed alcohol on our bill. Our sister even mentioned that after she declined to receive more wine (she was driving home), gary proceeded to fill her glass with more wine. we were quite disappointed with this but didn't want to make a big fuss about this in the restaurant in front of family.

Following July 7th, we called the restaurant 2 times to speak to josie; no one picked up. Our wedding was July 8th.

On July 9th, we sent a detailed email to Josie expressing our concerns of July 6th evening. we never heard back from her, so we had to follow up with ANOTHER EMAIL on July 15th.

She emailed back immediately and said, "Thank you for your feedback as I really do appreciate it and will definitely look into this further as keeping my clients satisfied is what I do best.

On a separate note this is the first message/ email I received from you regarding feedback from the evening you attended the restaurant on July 6th., unless of course you felt the need to post a very disrespectful/ negative review online without discussing the evening with management first. Please specify if that is what you mean by you expressing your concern"

In her email to us, she never addressed any of our concerns. She never looked into our concerns and she definitely did not keep her clients satisfied. When she mentions that the first email she got was on July 15th, that is wrong; we had sent it to her back on July 9th. Josie accused me of posting a horrible google review online. In fact, I never did this; this is my first post on google review for this restaurant. she is incredibly rude, and after our wedding planner responded to her email on July 16th, we never heard from her. Until this day, Josie has NEVER responded to us or our wedding planner and our concerns have never been addressed. The customer service is extremely horrible and Josie is an absolute nightmare to work with because she ignores...

FUNCTIONS AND PARTIES BEWARE!

I just attended my cousins engagement party the past weekend and i was so excited about it knowing that majority of Italian restaurants in the Woodbridge area are very classy, well priced and have exceptional customer service. I never would have thought walking into this place that, i would have had one of the worst experiences at a restaurant ever. Regardless, for my cousin, we made the best out of this disappointing service. please read carefully. Backstory: the engagement party was from 6:30-10:00pm Open Bar.

FOOD & ALCOHOL For being a large party, i agree that there is a lot involved in making sure the portions and quality is satisfactory. However, starting with the antipasto, we had 10 people sitting at the "HEAD" table and we had one platter, a couple inches longer than a normal dinner plate to share amongst us all. when about 5 minutes have gone by, and everyone at the surrounding tables received their platters, i quietly asked the waiter if we could get a second one as we had already dispersed the platter amongst us all leaving some people at the table with 1 piece of prosciutto on their plate. After the waiter ignored myself, my cousins fiancé had to ask (which is preferably embarrassing). They finally brought it out after the the waiter gave us attitude. The quality of the antipasto was rather premature. however, it was the first dish. The second course couldn't come any sooner, by this point, a lot of the older crowd were getting told that Amaro Montenegro costed 17 dollars a glass which with tip were almost reaching 25 dollars (when a bottle of this at the liquor store costs 28 dollars?). The second course was LITERALLY one palm full of pasta and i wish i had a picture so i can accurately depict this... and i don't rather eat much pasta anyways. On top of this, no flavour and cold. it was utterly disgusting. The main was veal and vegetables which the vegetables were not cooked whatsoever. The veal was a whole other story. The veal other then being colder than my glass of water, had a rubber texture and honestly almost made me gag. At this point the bar was calling last call at just before 8:30 even though my cousin paid until 10:30. At this point, writing this, thinking of the food is making me sick, I'm pretty sure you guys get the idea.

CUSTOMER SERVICE The customer service was all sorts of ridiculousness. Just to paint everyone a picture, while we were there, there was normal dining people (couples and families) in the room adjacent to us. While being a party of 57, there was 1 bartender for everyone in the restaurant. There were times where people including myself, asking for a glass of wine and the bartender would have to come back and ask me again what i ordered after already waiting 5 minutes. I was not impressed. There was the customer service at dinner, where each time we would ask them for simple things (another bottle of wine at our table, no dressing on the salad, more portions) the manager was unbelievably rude to make the request. Even denying the bottle of wine even though we could get a glass at the bar at any time (just didn't make any sense). it made dinner rather uncomfortable to even approach them.

MANAGEMENT! This one was a big one for me, probably the most important because without the right staff, you won't have a good night. and for me, this was probably one of the worst staff and management (Especially Josie who was extremely unprofessional and rude amongst most). I had put together a movie for my cousin and her fiancé and brought a projector and speaker for it as well. After not satisfied with the spot, i brought up to the manager Josie that since the party set up for tomorrow is not using the space and had a more empty wall, i could perhaps use it? Rudely, with a disgusted look on her face said "Absolutely NOT" and unexpectedly asked me if i needed a glass of water and expressed that it looked like i had drank too much? AT this point i walked away and was disgusted with this whole experience. PLEASE DONT EVER PLAN...

Let me begin by stating that I have never felt strongly enough about a dining experience to the point where I felt compelled to take the time to review it. However, I was so utterly appalled at the experience at Castello Ristorante so much so that I felt a tremendous need to express my disdain.

I read some rather negative reviews but they seemed mostly directed at the restaurant’s inability to handle large functions. Knowing this, I felt comfortable with my decision to still go for a nice intimate dinner for two.

When we walked in, there was not a single soul at the restaurant (2 hours after the restaurant opened). Perhaps that should have been our first clue as to how the evening was going to go. However, I received a GIFT CERTIFICATE for $100 and decided to go and use it. On a second thought, maybe I should have regifted it.

We were seated promptly, though I would have been shocked if we weren’t given that the restaurant was a ghost town. A few more people trickled in later.

We received only 2 pieces of bread barely drizzled with olive oil to start. We were then served our meal and, though the food was not the worst I ever had, it left a lot to be desired (another table sent the food back as it had no flavour).

During our meal, we had to ask to have our glasses refilled with water. We then ordered a dessert and after it was delivered to our table, the server did not check on us for another half hour. Our glasses remained empty yet again, only this time we couldn’t even ask to get them refilled as the server was nowhere to be found.

The table next to us was also trying to flag down the server for water with no success. They too expressed their displeasure with service. When the server finally came to our table, I showed her the GIFT CERTIFICATE and asked for the bill. (The table next to us tried to get her attention then as she was right there, again to no avail). We were then given our bill and were informed that gratuity was added to our total. I was utterly confused. Most establishments have a disclaimer on their menus that they will be adding gratuity automatically and this is mostly applied to parties of 6/8 or more. I did not see anything of this sort on their menu. I asked for an explanation as to why gratuity was added by the restaurant and was told that it was added because we brought in a “COUPON” (making it seem like we came in for a 40% of deal or something - not that there would be anything wrong with that or that this would justify them adding the gratuity. Perhaps they should have a coupon advertised to drum up some more business as service and food don’t seem to be doing the trick). I could not believe what I was hearing. I proceeded to explain to her that what we had was a GIFT CERTIFICATE and not a COUPON and that someone paid in full for the certificate at an earlier date. I also expressed my shock that the gratuity would be added as it is normally up to the customer to decide, based on food and service, how much tip to give. I asked how much was added and received a response of “oh like 15% or something”. With quick glance and calculation, I realized that it was in fact more than 15% - shouldn’t the server know exactly how much was added?

I then also realized we were charged for a more expensive dessert when they informed us they did not have that and we had to choose another one. I also noticed that a higher price was charged for the main dish than what was on the menu. When I asked that this gets corrected, the server seemed shocked that I was in fact correct regarding pricing. Start to finish, we were completely unimpressed with both food and service.

If you are in search of an authentic Italian meal, do yourself a favour and cross the street. There is a perfectly fine establishment within 1 minute walking distance and it has infinitely better service and atmosphere. Needless to say, we will not be returning to...