Splendido Restaurant

Rest in peace. Have only been twice but both times i was blown away by how amazing food can be and how far from REALLY GOOD FOOD my daily diet was.

Wow!
We heard that they were closing at the end of the year so we decided to book a table for our 16^th anniversary.
For those who haven’t been it’s a 12 course tasting menu. We added the wine pairing for an additional cost. The menu does not list what the courses are so each is a surprise. What we had was amazing. From popcorn made in bacon fat and scallop powder to caviar, sashimi, venison and 2 desserts. Each paired with wines, saki, beer and cherry. At the end they give you a bottle of 12yr old El Dorado rum with thier own ginger cranberry mix. And yes you can have the whole bottle but good luck at that point!
The service was excellent. The Chef, the sommelier all came by the table and they even gave us a happy anniversary card signed by everyone!
Not cheap but I feel we got great value for what we spent.
Go before it closes!

Have been there for two times. The first time was summerlicious, great price and tasty courses. The most recent visit we had the tasting menu. Really delicious and chef came out few times to check if we are satisfied.
Very impressive dining experience.
The price is high, but definitely will come back for the next special celebration!

I am not a fan of high-​end or fine dining… until I went here! The service was SUPERB! (Thanks Ian). Very respectful, sincere, friendly, helpful, and skilled. The food was phenomenal. The variety was exciting. The quality was exquisite. A MUST REPEAT EXPERIENCE!

Price was too high 500 $ for 2
Service unorganized/​not descriptive
I really didn’t want to do this review, but the day after I started to regret a few things about this restaurant. The first thing I can say is don’t drink any alcohol before or during this 15 course menu, because it will defiantly affect your judgement .
First off I’d like to say I’m no professional in fine food or tasting menus. This was me and my girlfriends first year anniversary. So I decided to take her to a fancy course tasting restaurant.
Being in a culinary family and spending 6 years working in the culinary industry, to graduating from George Brown College in Culinary Management, I think I have a good understanding of food. So let me begin…
Me and my GF booked a reservation at 7:30 pm for Friday and checked in with no problems. Parking was easy to find for my truck.
The servers welcomed us and were very friendly.
We were treated to complimentary champagne on the house (cheap champagne whatever) and a complimentary treat of some tarts with peanut butter and avocado mix of some sort, it didn’t really hit the palate and tasted like each one had lemon drizzled over top.
The first dish was a black caviar with some fruity elements, I can’t recall since the waiter didn’t properly explain what it was… The caviar (me being Ukraine, I know caviar) this was some mush worse then over cooked rice…
The 2^nd dish was a smoked herring. It tasted OK. It’s herring, what else do you want!?!
The 3^rd dish was a sea urchin on top of a brioche dipped in squid ink and wrapped in nori. I can tell you one thing… Have you ever taken a walk alone the beach and you had a fresh whif of nasty rotten fish that died near the shore? well that’s the taste you can expect.
The 4^th dish. Poached crab on-​top of chawanmushi. My gf being Japanese told me this was western style chawanmushi. Not traditional Japanese. However, this was our favourite.
The 5^th dish. Pickled sardine. It was actually pretty good. Unfortunately. Since the waiters kept changing, I had no idea what the other components were. «this here is our pickled sardine» Oh thank you for describing this dish for me…
The 6^th dish. Smoked muscles in ham hock broth. The broth was already high in sodium and the mussels just added more.
The 7^th dish. Salmon from a local farmer who I don’t know and don’t care about. Crisp skin. So original and unique (sarcasm)
The 8^th dish. Gelatine sheets added to a consommé to make aspic. Topped with caviar. Seriously? I expected more creativity…
The 9^th dish. Smoked mignotte or mapleque oyster I don’t know? I asked the waiter, he didn’t know.
The 10^th dish. If my gf wasn’t here I swear I would of laughed out loud when this came. The waiter said (this is our warm tomato salad) SERIOUSLY? He didn’t even bother explaining any of the components of this dish.
Let me explain it to you instead. It’s a slice of tomato with olive oil and some basil pesto paste.
The 11^th dish. This made me most frustrated. Let me rephrase what was said to me. «Here we have a 5 hour roasted carrot with carrot foam, and pumpkin spice oil» WOW. a 5 hour roasted carrot. Not even a whole carrot. It’s like half, no maybe a ¼ of a carrot.
The 12 dish. Now I’m kind of on the edge, my gf is not happy, but she’s trying to look happy, but I can tell. Two types of mushroom. Had no idea was the waiter said… my GF knew the smallest piece was an expensive Japanese mushroom. It was on top of some weird fudge ju… You can see where this is going.
The 13^th dish. Some sort of in house tortilla chip with REALLY REALLY SOUR cherries and shaved foie gras. If the server didn’t tell me foie gras I’d have no idea what this shaved stuff was on top of my chip.
The 14^th dish. Corn filled ravioli. It was pretty good.
The 15^th dish. Two types of endive. Can’t remember one, but one of them was grilled and it was completely soaked in lemon juice. Pure sour, pure disgusting. Coffee coated date, tasted ok. My gf loved it. 8 weeks duck.
Heres the funny part. The duck was good. BUT, unfortunately, the sous chef who butchers, also, forgot to take out the plastic sharp arrow tag in the duck from when it was killed. My gf showed me the tag (I regret not taking a photo) I showed it to the waiter the manager took a while to come to our table. He took the Rose off my bill. BIG WHOOP 40 $ off my 500 $ bill… is 40 $ worth my girlfriends life is she did chock!!! We should of left at this point, but I or neither did my gf want to ruin our anniversary…
I won’t even go to desert…
If you and your significant other want to have a special night for 500 $ after tax and tip, and you’d like smalls dishes such as a piece of carrot or a slice of tomato or a plastic arrow in your duck then this is perfect for you.
(Note to self) NEVER TRUST 4 – 5 STAR REVIEWERS.
Most of these reviewers are just foodies with no knowledge or experience of culinary

I’ve been here twice. My first time was for the Winterlicious 2015 Dinner ($ 45).
My second time was on a regular tasting menu ($ 180).
This review will cover both experiences.
This place is definitely high-​end so you should be willing to spend when coming here.
The interior is actually not that fancy for a high-​end place but the mood and atmosphere is.
TASTING MENU ($ 180)
The overall experience was a hill.
It was uphill (good) from start to mid, but then started going downhill after.
First thing they did when they sat us down was they gave a complimentary glass of sparkling wine. A win!
All the seafood courses were great. Vey fresh and flavourful, and they really gave the good stuff!
There was only 1 meat course and the meat was so small. I was very disappointed. I thought this was the course that would at least fill you up, but unfortunately no.
There were also 2 courses that were just veggies, which was also disappointing for me.
The desserts are where it really disappointed the most.
— The macarons didn’t have the chewy merangue. It just crumbled upon bite.
— The toasted mashmallows had a very rancid oil taste. And what was so bad about it was when we told the server about it, we were simply brushed off like we didn’t know what we were eating. They just told us that they don’t expect everyone to enjoy every dish. They didn’t bother replacing it with something else, and took away the dish.
— The silver lining during dessert time was they provided a whole bottle of El Dorado Rum (12 years) to accompany the desserts. It’s up to you if you want to finish the bottle or not, which totally did to make up for the bad ending.
I really expected top notch service, not a snobby one for such a high-​end restaurant.
WINTERLICIOUS 2015 DINNER ($ 45)
The overall experience was a disappointment.
As this way my first time here and I heard so many things about how creative their dishes are (bordering molecular gastronomy), I didn’t find anything special about this at all.
To be honest, after this experience, I wasn’t planning on coming back.
APPETIZER:
Victor’s Foie Gras Parfait — Apple, Celery, Raisin & Brioche
— This was my favorite for the night in terms of the courses. The foie gras went amazingly well with the burnt bread that came with it. Mix that with the sweet flavors of apple and raisin, you really get a different levels of taste.
Lobster Mac & Cheese — with black truffle
— It was good but not worth the supplement price since the lobster pieces weren’t much
Duck Poutine
— Irremarkable
MAIN:
Smoked Pork Belly — Sweet Potato, Beet and Granola
This was OK. It started out good, but it becomes too heavy and oily in the end.
DESSERT:
Lemon Meringue
On the Winterlicious website, they had posted a different dessert menu. So the one I really wanted wasn’t actually being served. This was also irremarkable.

I’ve been wanting to try Splendido for a very long time… even way back when they still had an a la carte menu.
I came here for Summerlicious as it is the only way I could afford to eat here =p Regular menu is a steep $ 180 p/​p
I’ll be honest I had low expectations as I know SL Menus are often mediocre.
This was not the case with Splendido, their food was MONEY every dish that came out was on point.
–Appetizer
Salmon sashimi served with an avocado cream, sesame and rice cakes. I could eat a whole plate of those rice cakes, they were so goooood.
–Main
Salmon belly served with mushrooms ad green onion. The skin was crispy while the meat was still rare hmmm it was so tender and juicy.
–Dessert
Blueberry and lemon curd with pistachio crumble. very refreshing not overly sweet, perfect way to finish our meal.
–Drinks
$ 10 each
The Salem and Manhattan were both nice and boozy no water down nonsense here.
Will come back for Winterlicious!

Summerlicious @ Splendido is amazing value for what otherwise is an expensive restaurant. Since this is probably flooding with summerlicious reviews I’ll keep it short.
–Salmon sashimi is a hit. The rice cakes were lovely.
–I was hoping for the sea bass as I saw on the preview menu. This is actually salmon, but was cooked so perfectly there wasn’t a hint of graininess.
–Hanger steak is probably one of the best cuts, this was cooked to a perfect medium. It comes with slices of fresh tomatoes and romesco which surprisingly compliment it. Who would have thought.
–The strawberries and cream & blueberry/​lemon curd/​pistachio crumbs are both delicious, not overly sweet, refreshing deserts.
We also had four cocktails (manhanttan and salem x2, both their summerlicious specials), but seriously contemplated a bottle of wine which was very reasonably priced at $ 45 – 60. The regular tasting menu at Splendido is $ 180 pp. Our 3 course meal and cocktails between two came to below that. I’d suggest anyone who can get a summerlicious reservation here to so do!
The only gripe I had was we were forgotten early on and it took about 20 minutes before anyone served us — but service was otherwise excellent.

To start off, I ate here as a guest at a wedding reception. Wedding reception good is usually always standard/​average, I’ve come to expect that. But the food that Splendido served was above that standard. The main I got was a steak and it was thoroughly enjoyable. Service was also great.
Despite this experience, I don’t know if I would come back. Prices might be a little too steep than my ideal.

SUMMERLICIOUS 2015
have been meaning to check out this joint for years but my lack of a paycheque has really been cramping that dream. thank god for ‘licious, cause i would never get to eat anywhere with cloth napkins otherwise.
the BF and i were super excited but then super sad. granted, we werent expecting american diner style portions but we were both left hungry after three courses. the food wasn’t bad but not amazing. his steak was the same as we make at home. and my pasta was less delicious than the one at café dip. we also felt like the dessert was a misnomer — i guess they were going for a fancy deconstructed shortcake but please dont call it cake if there is no cake. if you sprinkle some crumbs on cream and strawberries — that is not cake.
i’m glad i didnt pay full price for my meal. and i dont think i’ll be back.

Splendido was simply splendid (heh). I came here for summerlicious dinner with one of my best gal pals, Sinyi, so her input will be part of this review as well.
First of, is this worth the price you pay? I’m going to say yes. Flavour-​wise, their dishes are wonderful, multi-​dimensional, and well thought out but not perfect. Hence the four stars, you see. But this is not why you come to this restaurant. Note: I have not tried their multi-​course tasting menu so I cannot speak for it. Splendido is not just about food; it is about sitting down and being taken care of. Their service is professional and classy — don’t expect your server to be cracking jokes and laughing. But sometimes that’s what you want! And of course, their plating and presentation is to die for. Makes for some amazing instagram shots (yes, yes, judge away.) Some of it was a little sloppy but well-​intended none the less. I ordered the salmon belly and it looked hilarious next to the amount of negative space on Sinyi’s hangar steak plate.
Our favourite course, I think, would have to be dessert. We ordered the strawberry shortcake and blueberry + lemon curd. All modern interpretations, of course. Delicious, fresh and really just fabulous plating! So many little details. The small addition of those tiny pea shoot sprouts just add so much.
I went to the bathroom and noticed the cellar downstairs for private functions! As I washed my hands, I think I may have overheard a conversation I wasn’t supposed to. So if you’re going to book that space, just know that the things you say are audible from the ladies’ room!
All in all, I’m very happy we chose this place and will definitely return next time.

A carrot as a course? Not even one whole carrot, it was a quarter. How creative. Other courses were just ok. But we have to admit they are good at making a good look of food.

***Splendido is an impressive fine dining restaurant that utilizes mostly Canadian produce to create a delicious, memorable and generous tasting menu***
On my recent Toronto trip, I was looking to try something local to the area so I opted for Splendido, which offers contemporary cuisine focusing on seasonal produce and local Canadian product. Splendido offers a tasting menu and it is exceptional; there is no doubting the team’s talent as they excel at producing all different types of meat, seafood, pasta, and vegetable preparations.
The dinner started with a series of bites like sweet corn soup paired with a goat cheese gougere, a roe cone, an oyster with mignonette, a warm lobster bite, caviar paired with potato ice cream, an exceptional bite of crispy and salty salmon skin topped with smoked salmon, sweet and sour tamarind and jalapeño, and a warm corn croquette topped with truffle. It was one delicious canapé after another as Splendido definitely reaches the highs of some of the top U.S. restaurants producing fun, delicious and contrasting texture canapés like Quince and Providence.
More great presentations followed like a light and airy porcini crisp topped with mushroom purée. Very moist halibut was simply served with fresh herbs. Halibut can go dry very quickly, but the team here delivered a cod like experience. One of my favorite courses came next – smoked Ontario trout with cultured cream and pickled cipollini. The trout was amazingly moist with a medium rare center but still cooked enough so the fish easily flaked. The cipollini provided a sweet and tangy addition to the prominent smoked flavor of the fish.
The next course was obviously inspired by The French Laundry as it combined many elements of that restaurant’s signature course – oysters (smoked here), chives, caviar, and a sabayon. The tapioca pearls were replaced with creamy potato purée and potato chips. Like that Thomas Keller course, this preparation was delicious.
A variety of beets came next including a hearty and potato-​like golden beet and thinly sliced ruby red beets (the presentation was modern with light horseradish espuma and a dusting of spruce ash). An exceptional carrot course followed. The carrot was nicely charred so it was soft and sweet on the inside and smoky and crisp on the outside. The carrot was garnished with ginger and crunchy seeds. Creamy egg custard topped with shaved truffle followed.
One of my least favorite courses of the night came next – yellowtail wing topped with fermented black bean and lemon verbena. It was perfectly fine, but I felt the other fish courses were more memorable because of their simpler preparations.
The restaurant has an incredible attention to detail and it really comes across in their bread service, which featured a very hearty bread (soft on the inside with a thick and crunchy crust). The bread was served with a delicious foie gras butter.
The next course was spinach and ricotta agnolotti lightly bathed in an indulgent parmesan sauce and topped with fragrant truffle. The meat course was one of the best beef preparations I’ve had to date. While the garnishes like heirloom tomatoes, shaved parmesan and basil were all fine, the real star was an aged beef rib cap, which had an exceptional meaty flavor. The bark was amazing too as the fat around the edges was met with high heat, which turned it into a flavorful, smoky and crispy crust.
Given the generous variety of savory courses, it was no surprise that dessert was served as a series of courses including a refreshing gin and tonic dessert with gin espuma, cucumber sorbet, fragrant basil parfait, and an addictively sweet but also salty and savory nori crisp. The next dessert was strawberry panna cotta paired with strawberries, strawberry sorbet, and black sesame. Like the canapés that started dinner, the final sweets were bites like chocolate truffles, mignardises and a mini pecan pie.
Service was exceptional. The restaurant host/​server was very polished and professional but also very friendly and welcoming. The barwoman was also very pleasant and, like the rest of the restaurant, showed a great attention to detail, which contributed to the restaurant’s excellent beverage program.
Prices are high, but I do not know if I’ve been to another fine dining restaurant that has produced such a great variety of flavors and presentations utilizing premium ingredients.
Splendido is an excellent fine dining restaurant and a great way to experience the bounty of vegetables and seafood Canada offers. It is difficult for me to compare it to a U.S. restaurant since it excels at creating food that reminds me of Quince, The French Laundry, Saison, Providence, Manresa, Atera, Niche – all great restaurants but all very different. Splendido’s ability to operate at that elite level while integrating Canadian produce makes it a must visit if love fine dining and find yourself in Toronto.
Nearby pay parking is available though expensive.

The.food.doesn’t.stop.coming in this place. The portion sizes are small (obviously to accommodate how many there are) but I was beyond stuffed. They had some really interesting dishes that I enjoyed and others I simply couldn’t get into. The staff were great and this is a very intimate style of venue — not very many tables, spread out nicely. It’s rare to find space in restaurants in the city!

This is as good as it gets.
They were able to find one (just one left) table for 4 for 9pm. We ate until 12:30.
Four of us had the tasting menu, and 3 had wine pairings.
I had a food-​allergy, and they accommodated it in the tasting menu.
There were some 18 to 20 courses /​amuse-​bouche /​extras, all excellent to fine. They wrapped it up with a ginger mix and left a bottle of rum at the table so we could «dilute as we pleased» :)
For the tasting menu most dishes were excellent, rest were good, and only 2 sort of ‘average’ (did not care for grilled fava bean with the parmesan broth). But no stinkers.
The wine pairing was VERY GOOD to EXCELLENT and went with the dishes. Some pairings were excellent and really magnified the experience. No wine pairing was weak.
Staff is very professional, sort of formal, but in a very playful and fun way. Could hardly be better.
A shout-​out to Arthur Bond! «Have Some Madeira M’Dear!»
Most importantly, my guests had a fantastic time! One remarked it was the best meal they ever ate! (and they’ve traveled the world).
Highest recommendation!

We had its more expensive version of the tasting menu. There were two, one was $ 120 a person, another was $ 170 a person. The «cheaper» one offered about 5 – 6 dishes with more substantial portion, while the other one had close to 20 courses, but with only a bite size for each. We went away with each person spending about $ 300 after wine and tips.
The dishes were phenomenal, though after 3 hours of dining, we were kind of a exhausted. The wait staff was very helpful as they constantly changing our plate, but at the beginning the main waiter/​butler was actually not very attentive (he disappeared for about 10 to 15 minutes before he resurfaced… and we also found him a bit difficult to understand).
The place didn’t look fancy from outside, and the inside was very clean and minimalist. There was a group of about 10 women celebrating for something, so it was a bit loud from their laughter and chatter, but overall the environment was actually pretty relaxed and laid back (waiters were dark blue jeans, so no official dress code, but don’t show up with flip flops and tan tops either).
At any rate, this is definitely a place for special occasions… and be prepared to spend a few hours to enjoy the good food.

I was at this restaurant a long time ago, so this review may not be very applicable. Also, I know that they deserve more than 3 stars. Good, then let them prove it…
Sure, this is one of the better restaurants in Toronto. And granted, the steak main was excellent. But the tomato salad appetizer was humiliating. It was 4 slices of tomatoes of different colours, with some dressing. I kid you not.

Gorgeous place, stunning food, meh service.
Everything we ordered created magic in our mouth, it was like a little party for our senses.
Service on the other hand was nothing compared to the taste of the food. We got our breadbasket after our appetizer, the food got dropped off while I was away in the washroom :/​we re-​filled our wine all night, the server did not bother to check up on us all night.
All in all, the food was to die for but the service was a little disappointing.

One of the best culinary experiences! We order one tasting menu and one regular menu so we would get the best of both worlds of trying all the variety while get bigger portions of the most popular dishes. It was a great decision because the tasting menu was a must-​try for the full dining experience. Every dish was plated skillfully and cooked perfectly. I don’t think there was a thing we didn’t like out of 20 combined dishes we got (around 20 between the 2 of us, there were so many I lost count lol)
My favorite dish was the black truffle egg yolk ravioli which was an extra add on but SO WORTH IT! Such generous portions of black truffle and the ravioli was cooked perfectly with the egg still yolky and deliciously seasoned.
Definitely a place for special occasions as the whole dining experience lasted for 3.5 hours and is could be quite pricey if you have add-​ons (option to add cavier or black truffle ravioli).
Finally the service was excellent. The staff was so tentative and helpful. They even wrote us a card for our anniversary! Overall wonderful experience!

My summerlicious lunch was my second visit here, the first being a regular dinner last year. This gave me a chance to see the kitchen at work under different conditions.
Splendido deserves recognition for participating in the summer (and winterlicious) promos, which would be called «restaurant week» in other cities (3-​course meal for $ 25 at lunch and $ 45 at dinner).
I tried much of the promo menu options. Everything tasted amazing, but the portions were such that if you are used to a big midday meal, you may want to supplement (and there were some choices available for $ 8: frites, green beans, and one other). I started with a salmon sashimi, then black truffle agnolotti as my main (delicious, but only 8 small half-​raviolis as a main was a little small). The other option, a sea bass, was equally good (and equally small). Lots of flavor and meticulous plating — works of art.
The Desserts reminded me how one shouldn’t fixate on menu descriptions in fancy restaurants (what sounds like a side turns out to be a dot from a squeeze bottle). The panna cotta portion of that dessert was the size of a twoonie. Same with the apricot mousse, so don’t stress much over the dessert choices, they are all fine.
Everything came with lots of herbs or greens and decoration, so it is absolutely worth it for the theatre and quality, but just don’t skip breakfast if you go for summerlicious lunch.
2015 edit: happened to be in area, and just popped in to see if I could dine at bar. It happened to be summerlicious time again, so I got the $ 45 dinner with a Manhattan cocktail for $ 10. My impressions from the last review still hold true. The foie stater on this menu in 2015 is an absolute must. The mains are not as impressive as the «killer app (etizer)», and don’t ask me why they’d want to highlight the small portion of steak by pressing it all up to the side of the plate (see picture). Still amazing presentation and service from my friendly bartender.