La Bocca — Restaurant in Whistler Resort Municipality

Oh la bocca.. after 3 years of coming regularly and bringing all friends / family to eat here everytime we come up to whistler, I’m ever so disappointed by my experience for the first time to the point where I will not be returning. I’m going to give people reading this review a fair understanding of why I went from a regular to a 1-star customer.

June 4th - I came here for my birthday with my friends (who I raved to about la bocca) and my little pup. we were greeted pleasantly, waited for our table, and they accommodated us with their pet friendly table and even allowed our pup to be under the table. She was happy and we were really grateful for the initiative taken to make us feel comfortable and enjoy our experience. We ALWAYS (and I’m not exaggerating here) order the same thing... the gnocchi with the cream sauce (the wild mushroom sauce subbed with gnocchi). I’ve made this dish so viral that 3/5 people at the table ordered the same dish and the 2 remaining people regretted not ordering it. It was bloody delicious and made the end of our whistler day PERFECT.

Fast forward to September 1st - we walk up to la bocca and a sour-faced hostess doesn’t say hi or anything. I ask to put our name down for the pet friendly table and she says “there’s people eating there”. I said... “I know, I wanted to put our name down for that table”. She said 35 minutes and we went on our way. We return, that same hostess looked at me blankly and another girl said “sorry you’re not on the list but we’ll place you there”. weird... but okay. My boyfriend asks the server how much the beers on rotating tap are and she said “the same price as the others...probably around $7” and we looked at the others on the menu and they were priced at $5.75 so she clearly didn’t even know the menu. The white wine I ordered tasted like a watered down Chardonnay. Nonetheless, we continue and try to order our beloved gnocchi. She says “we have a new chef and he won’t sub mods but let me check”. She comes back and says “yeah sorry he said no”. Not only were we... shocked because we’ve been eating this for 3 years now and have very kindly been accommodated — as you should expect to be in restaurants that charge $23 for a plate of pasta. So I settled for whatever gnocchi sauce I was forced to consume. While deciding this, a couple next to us got their food and looked so dissatisfied with their pasta and meat dish. I asked them what they ordered so as to avoid those dishes and because they were so unhappy, they left. Not a great impression, but reassuring that we weren’t alone.

In the meantime, our plates arrive for our salad and 2 of them are dirty. I ask for new ones. They’re also scratched and dirty. As expected, I’m not happy at this point. To top it all off, a server, not ours, who already made our SAME DOG (still a pup) be tied at the edge of the restaurant with our table right by the exit, had the audacity to rudely come and tell us “guys can you keep her on the outside” because she happened to walk one step and landed under our table NOWHERE near another table or person.

So... thank you for ruining my experience of showing my mom, who is visiting, my favourite restaurant with my favourite dish and thank you for being extremely inhospitable...

Booked in for a later 7:45 dinner for a group of 7 adults to celebrate a birthday, which was indicated on the reservation. From the start our table was not ready for us, this can be understood on a Saturday night (Dec 16th 2023) After a 10 minute wait outside we were seated at a tucked away table just behind the corner from the hostess and given the customary water and menus. No problem with the location. One person was missing a water so when our waitress appeared we simply asked for it, again no problem. But when you have to remind and ask 3 times , it is. We put in our drink orders, not all at once, since some had not decided. She asked if this was all together for charging purposes and we said no. She then commented that she can figure that out later. We were a lively bunch, but not overly. Finally all drinks came and we ordered dinner. Still going okay, although the waitress seemed "off" somehow. Dinner arrived, was delicious for the most part, although the Winter Menu snowcrab spaghetti with chilli infused oil had way too much chilli in it and it overpowered the dish and left mouths burning. Drinks were overpriced as well as the food for the portion size. Limoncello was ordered by 3 of the dinners for a birthday shot. It was served warm in non chilled shot glasses (I believe it was $17 per shot) As an "Italian" restaurant you should know how to serve this properly, it shoul be ice cold. The real concerning issue arouse when we asked for our bills at 9pm as we had plans for 9:45 close by. The waitress came back and forth several times confused. Some of the group tried to lighten the mood with some jokes. The waitress asked so many times who was with who etc...then to clarify what drinks each of us had...she looked like she had been crying and was flustered then disappeared for good.and a male waiter appeared with no explanation to sort out the bill. Keep in mind, it was 3 couples and 1 single so 4 bills. This new waiter could not get it right either with printing the bills 3 to 4 times before they were sorted. This took 40 minutes. At no point was an explanation given, apologies or.even a comp or manager coming over. 2 of the couples still ended up with 2 separate bills each. It was completely ridiculous and the atmosphere was like we had done something wrong, which we had not. We asked if she was okay and the waiter said "she's having some type of mental breakdown" and he had never seen anything like it before. Thr poor girl. We dont know her circumstances but where was her manager to oversee the staff and patrons? She should have been pulled and replaced. When we finally gathered our coats to leave (some of us were outside already) the manager finally came over to.say "so I'm.the manager if you want to speak to me". How unpleasant and unprofessional. We had to go as we had other plans for 945 and did not have time for a conversation anymore after 40 minutes of this unacceptable service. We didn't tip at all as it was so awkward and ridiculous! We hope the waitress is okay but the service was truly terrible and really put a damper on the birthday dinner. None of us 7 would ever eat there again! So...

In a nutshell: average food, high prices, tiny portions, bad service. Felt like we were ripped off by the restaurant!

No matter how good the food is (which it was average in this case) when your waitress is rude and impolite the experience will turn out to be awful!!! Our waitress was passive aggressive!!! She brought the wrong food (meat balls) for our friend and when we asked to bring the right one (calamari)she said you are “definitely” wrong you “definitely” ordered this one not that one! My friend was in a keto diet and she could not eat meat ball (because of the flour in it)! I explained that I myself said two calamari and my friend also mentioned it to you! She just said nothing and left!!!!! She then brought the calamari of course but her behaviour was shocking!!!

At the end when we asked for two separate bills she asked us if we wanted to pay the bill in half!!! It was the first time in my entire life that a waitress would ask me such a ridiculous question after asking for separate bills!!!! If we wanted to pay the bill in half and not pay our individual bills we would have mentioned it specifically!! We felt very awkward when she said that!! Especially because some of us had ordered much more than the others!! She then brought one bill with two amounts on it!!!! We had to pass the bill to each other for payment which was another awkward situation!!!!! I had never seen such a thing in a restaurant!!! I said we asked for two separate bills and this way we see each other’s totals and it is wrong! She then pointed to the bill with her finger aggressively and said no this is two separate bills! I have never ever seen such a rude person let alone a waitress. She kept smiling in a passive aggressive way when contradicting every request we had!

About the food: my quinoa salad was sweet and the portion was small compared to other restaurants!!! When someone orders salad they do not want sugar in it!!!!! They want to eat healthy or are in a diet!!!! The calamari was an appetizer and was oily and the portion was ridiculously tiny for the price ($20). There were no more than 10 tiny pieces of calamari in the plate! The pasta portion ($33) was so small that my friend had to order garlic toast as well ($10). Pasta tasted good. All in all, You cannot make your restaurant fancy by raising the prices and reducing the portion sizes! You need to offer an impressive food with good service to be able to do that! Average food, high prices, tiny portion, and bad service is a disastrous...