Sapore by Zafferano — Restaurant in Vaughan

I want to start off by saying the restaurant is beautiful and clean with lovely decor and well presented staff. The food was also phenomenal. The service however, not great by any means from my personal experience. Valentine’s Day 2018 my boyfriend and I visited sapore and had reservations for 630. We were seated by 6:30 and offered sparkling or flat water immediately and had a short tan skinned waiter who looked middle aged and wore glasses. He then came back shortly after to take our orders. By 6:45 we had ordered appetizers and the mains and by 7:05 we had finished our starters. We then waited and waited and waited and then waited some more and our food never came. After countless attempts to wave down our waiter and just ask him what was going on he kept saying it’s coming it’s coming but never went back to check out order. He repeatedly tried to get other waiters to check on our food which never happened since they were all very busy with tending their own tables. Three tables who arrived after us and with larger numbers had already received their starters and mains and were almost ready to lgo ave when finally I forced the waiter to go check and he came back minutes later and said oh the kitchen missed it now it’s coming. After that he stopped at our table everybody few minutes saying he feels so sorry for us but never properly apologized. He never once offered to give us a refill on our waters. Once the food came at approx 8pm (an hour and a half after our arrival) he never came to check on how our meal was going. My boyfriend ordered a 12oz steak and the side it came with was cold. My stuffed gnocchi was great. After all this we asked for the bill and waited another 30 mins. 30 mins for the bill.... like is that a joke.. still no refill for our drinks. We asked to speak to the manager and he very generously gave us our whole order that came to $108 for $50 and apologized for the service we received. Once we paid the waiter we asked for all the change back since we felt our service was not worth tipping and he gave us attitude and was very clearly displeased with our choice to not tip. I feel that you earn the tip you make, had the food been slow but his service better he still would have earned a generous tip. My boyfriend and I will be returning to sapore but will not be tolerating the same waiter again. For an expensive place I expect nothing but the best but did not receive it. Would’ve earned a 5 star had the service been as good...

Good food (one of the better Italian food places in the area) but we were not happy with the customer service at all. Seems to be recurring pattern here - have come in the past and received poor customer service, likely will not be returning. I recommend it for take out if anything. Booked a large party (15-20 people) for a friend’s birthday; we asked via phone and confirmed that they split the bills and staff on the phone advices it is possible so we made reservations. First, the staff did not remember (or pay attention) to who ordered what and the serving was disorganized. Some in the party had to guess what was being served and figure out who got what because they left the plates in the middle of the table, as opposed to serving individuals their dishes. After dining and paying the bill was the real nightmare. The same staff who we had spoken to over the phone to make the reservations, served us one large bill; saying we can either pay it all together or split it 15 ways (people would be paying for food they did not eat) and she did not want to do singular/split bills because “…otherwise we’d be here for 45 minutes”. Did not make sense for someone to pay $80 and cover food that they did not consume, if the only thing they got was a $20 pizza. And if you can split the bill by the EXACT number of guests…what’s the difference between just having someone pay their own bill? As was advised to us over the phone. Had to speak to manager; who said we can split and everyone paid their own bills in under 15 minutes. More time was wasted going back and forth with the server, having to go talk to the manager, and ensuring they split the bill - than the actual individual payments. This is also the second time this has happened at this location. Larger...

Had the penna gnocchi alla Nonna. The gnocchi was very good (ie obviously freshly made) with soft almost creamy texture. I have also never experienced gnocchi in any other form than the standard rubbed (with a fork) football shape. So, that was interesting as well. The veal tenderloin pieces in the sauce (in a cacciatore like sauce) tasted a little off, stringy and like it was boiled in water beforehand. The bocconcini was just ‘plunked’ on top, straight out of the fridge (ie still quite cold). I’ll reserve final judgement until I try some more of their dishes. Lastly, on our way out, it seemed like they were running a Day care in the smaller room, where there were no customers and a few screaming toddlers running around 🙄. After my second visit, I’m reducing my rating from 3 to 2 stars. Specifically, the beef carpaccio had some slices still partially frozen! The arugula was old (ie brown/black streaks) and the truffle oil did not exhibit any of the usual flavourful characteristics, but was more vinegary/pungent instead. I also had one of their ‘specials’ - rainbow trout. The portion of filet was good, but it was only accompanied with some tiny cut up pieces of green beans and some seeds in an unimaginative sauce (ie no real veggie or starch) for $34 😳. Not going...