Pagliacci's — Restaurant in Victoria

Great food, but I would not recommend this place for non-Caucasians. We were at the restaurant during the downtime. Plenty of seats available everywhere. Restaurant was mostly empty which is why we asked if we could sit at a bigger table. The blonde lady in pink pants told us that the table is reserved only for party of 4. Reasonable at this point, but when a Caucasian dude who was alone asked for that specific table, she was totally fine to "make an exception" for him. Same exception was given right after with other Caucasian ladies as well. Although the food was good, I am disappointed in this blatant display of race based favoritism. Our waitress was great, but the lady who seats people, I'd say very disturbing.

First time encountering something like this after living in Canada for over a decade.

Food: 4/5 Waitress who served us: 5/5 Pink pants seating lady: 0/5

edit 1: Hi Solomon,

I'm glad to hear that your restaurant strives for inclusivity and zero tolerance for discrimination.

However, please do fact check with your staff member (pink pants blonde lady). Even if she has no malice at heart, her actions convey the contrary: she did seat a party of ONE Caucassian male at the table (for four people) right behind us, and we clearly hear her utter the words "but I'll make an exception for you". If she could make an exception for him, why not us? It's not like the restaurant was crowded. And we clearly felt a difference in friendliness and attitude from this particular staff of yours. We're approaching this matter really objectively and even so we felt discriminated against. As an example, we felt that she made other guests who were seated after us feel very welcome; with us, however, we felt like we were treated like air - not an ounce of friendliness.

That said, we generally liked the amazing food and the interior design of the restaurant, but this incident truly impacted our experience there and left a bad taste in our mouths. To clarify, we'd like to emphasize that we had no issue with the waitress who served us - she was nice and friendly.

Thanks for following up, I hope future customers won't ever be made to feel unwelcome by that...

Mid. As soon as you walk in, the smell of grease and parmasean cheese greets your nostrils. When our waitress seated us, I immediately noticed that Pagliacci's is a homely place, with tables so close to each other that you're practically sitting next to other patrons.

This could be excused if the servce and food were great, but that was also average at best.

Our waiter served us cold, soggy garlic bread after seating us, and we immediately put it down after taking a few lacklustre, chewy bites.

Then, when we were ordering food, we decided to share one regular sized pasta because we were so turned off from the tight dining space and poor garlic bread. When we placed our order, our waiter INSISTED that we order the large, even though we wanted the regular. He kept repeating that "that's not enough for two people, it's not going to be enough. It's only $5 extra, just get the large."

Unbelievable. We only wanted the regular because we wanted to dine quickly and leave. Eventually, we relented and got the large. After ordering, he went over to the next table and repeated the exact same thing to table of 4. I overheard them asking for 2 regular pastas and, our waiter, again, INSISTED that they get 4 LARGE pastas, repeating to them that "oh that's not going to be enough. It's not going to be enough. Do you want to be hungry or do you want to be full?"

The food came, and it was alright. Nothing to write home about. It's hard to mess up pasta.

With nearly 4,000 reviews and approaching 4.5 stars on Google (November 2023), I thought that it'd be a pretty decent place. After dining, I realized that most patrons visiting this establishment were from cruise ship tourists. Dining here felt like eating at an Old Spaghetti Factory, sans the ambiance and friendly service.

All in all, a disheartening experience at worst and average at best. It wasn't the best food, but it also wasn't the worse, either. If management is reading this, consider letting your team know to be less pushy about portion sizes -- it's unbecoming and honestly kind of belittling to be told how much food you should or...

We came here hoping to celebrate my husband’s birthday, but unfortunately had a very disappointing experience.

I originally wanted to book a table, but according to the restaurant’s website, they don’t take reservations and say you should just walk in. They even claim, “this is the fastest-moving lineup in the town.” So we decided to trust that.

We arrived at 7:00 PM, planning to stay until 8:30 PM, as we had other plans afterward. I had allocated 1.5 hours for dinner, expecting a smooth and pleasant evening. When we arrived, there was a line, and the host told us it would be around a 15-minute wait. I also mentioned to the host that it was my husband’s birthday and we hoped to have a nice dinner.

We were seated at 7:25 PM. I also clearly mentioned that we only had time until 8:30 pm. A few minutes later, we were brought menus and focaccia. A server came by shortly after to take our drink orders. We ordered a lager and a cocktail. Drinks arrived quickly, but they brought an IPA instead of the lager my husband asked for.

Then everything fell apart. The staff kept rushing around, and we tried several times to get someone’s attention, but no one came back to take our food order for 30 minutes.

At 7:55 PM, a server finally came to take our food order. I asked how long the food would take once ordered, and she said 25–30 minutes. I explained that we would not have time to eat, as we already had plans and had been sitting there for an hour.

We told her we had been waiting 30 minutes just for someone to take our food order, and she simply said: “Sorry, we are very busy.” Honestly, “we are very busy” is not an excuse. If your staff cannot manage to take orders within 30 minutes, maybe it’s time to consider hiring more servers.

In the end, we stood up and left, hungry and upset. We wasted an hour, didn’t get to eat. My surprise of taking my husband out to a nice birthday dinner was...