Eataly - Toronto

Eataly opened in Toronto last fall. For the longest time when someone mentioned this place I thought people were talking about the country - but nope, it's a restaurant. As a foodie who likes new discoveries, I wanted to check this out.

First impression was when I walked past the restaurant and it wasn't even open to public yet. Yup it's located very very centrally at Yonge and Bloor, so you are bound to walk past it at some point if you roam around the city, for work, for school, on your way to somewhere. It seemed very bright and large on the second floor of a massive condo complex. From the outside, it seems bright and busy. Well they weren't open to public yet, and I didn't have an invite (ouch), so we were turned away.

After my bruised ego of not being special enough to have an invite, I waited another.. 2 months or so before I decided to give it a go again (Dec 2019). I guess curiosity got me, so I followed many others and decided to participate. Quick disclaimer though, even on an off-hour non-peak day it's still packed. I guess many others wanted to experience this place (good job Eataly marketing team!) like me, so there was A LOT of people everywhere the moment you walk in. If you get claustrophobic easily, maybe wait a while before going there. In the mean time, maybe you'd like to check out their website to see their concept: https://www.eataly.ca/

Second impression: the set up is a bit confusing when you walk in. The Eataly experience has many levels: some will have shops, bars, restaurant, brewery, sweets, cooking class, grocery, bakery.. it's a lot going on. We went to the basement brewery first but it doesn't seem like there are a lot of food options there. as hungry as we were, we ventured upstairs to the 2nd floor where most of everything is. Again, swarms of people everywhere.


It's really hard to walk around, you are literally being blocked by carts and people stopping to look at displays, a lot. We wandered around for a short bit and settled on La Pescheria (aka the fish shop). Here's the regular menu and the specials menu. Not sure how the regular menu items are but I always loved oysters and grilled whole fish - guess this was a no brain-er. We got a dozen of oysters (half lucky lime and half fanny bay) and a grill whole B-Liner snapper. Their seafood seems to be from Diana's seafood (which will definitely have to be another separate post).

So the oysters came, they are very fresh and beautiful. They some how gave us an uneven number of the oysters (one type more than the other, not what we ordered) not too sure why but delicious non-the-less. I was however a bit disappointed with the lack of horse radish to go with the oysters. I really wish they had fresh grated horse radish which would go so well with the seafood. 

The grill fish was done just right - not over cooked which is amazing. The skin however ended up being a bit soggy/not as crispy as I would have hoped.  Perhaps a few more seconds in the oven would be better. The potatoes were very delicious which was a plus!

And this was our view - given how busy the place was we got a seat at the bar. It's not half bad though, and also recently I've developed a love for the bar seats generally. No wait(well, less wait) and you get a behind the scene look at how the chefs perform their magic :) just fantastic. Another miss was the lack of balsamic vinegar for bread dipping - was not expecting that and was rather surprised given this is an Italian experience. In the end, while the seafood was fresh there were quite a few misses during our visit. I'm not sure if the hype (and crowdedness) is worth it. 

After dinner, we went to look at the rest of Eataly (I'm tempted to call it a restaurant but it seems to be a lot more than that). Didn't get too far unfortunately - but got a gist of what the designers wanted to do here. I ended up picking up some "rustic orange" bread which had little dried candied orange pieces baked in the bread - that was pretty tasty for breakfast for the days after.  

So here's the verdict - I think it's a neat idea to bring a whole Italian market experience to Toronto. The shops, the cheese wheels, the wine, the pastries, the "made in Italy" knic-knacks. I think the space is also way too small for what it wants to be and too much going on. Maybe I'll give this another chance - and try some pasta instead when the hype dies down a bit. In the mean time, please get horse radish and some balsamic vinegar.

Thanks Eataly!