Fresco Bistro Italiano

Good time at fresco last night! We had a group of 5 and got to try/​share a lot of different dishes.
Food:4/5 (yummy/​generous portions)
Highlights.
Farfalle pasta with seared scallops, sausage, mussels (crispy with great ingredients and perfectly cooked noodles)
Fried calamari with delicious lemon aioli (light and flavorful)
Fried brussel sprouts with almond and roasted red pepper and parm (unique)
Fresco burger: ground beef chuck, fig jam (awesome!) served with house cut fries
Crème brûlée: just divine
Service: ⁵⁄₅
We were the last table to leave. The staff was very friendly and we didn’t feel rushed to leave. Our server have great recommendations and gave us crème brûlée on the house :)
Ambiance: ⁴⁄₅
Cute rustic décor and romantic setting
Will definitely return in the future!

Best restaurant I’ve been to in Kanata (in Ottawa?!).
We had: the mussels with house fries, the Sicilian chicken, and the Cioppino.
The mussels were delicious — well-​seasoned, with a surprisingly overwhelming quantity. The house fries that came with them were also on point, charred just the right amount with a drool-​worthy garlic sauce. This was an amazing app all around.
The Sicilian chicken was perfectly tender — possibly the best-​cooked chicken I’ve had in a restaurant — and was in an interesting sauce with a unique sweetness from the currants. Top notch. The Cioppino was also delicious (the chorizo was a nice touch in the broth), but was generally outshined by the other two dishes we had.
Overall, I would look forward to coming back to my new favourite restaurant in the area.

Either I’m a pretty laid back reviewer or Ottawa restaurants seem to be on point.
This place is DEFINITELY on point.
I had their fresco club with kale Caesar salad.
The club was outstanding. Fresh Art is In bakery French bread brushed with olive oil, then a tomato relish, arugula, juicy chicken, aged cheddar cheese and aioli and thick crispy bacon. It was one of the best I’ve had. It sounds simple because it is simple. Fresh ingredients is what makes this stand out!
The kale salad was great but didn’t really do much for me. I found the kale too bitter and stiff and maybe there wasn’t enough dressing. The other ingredients is what made this stand out. Crispy seasons croutons, juicy bacon and fried capers and pistachios.
I’ll definitely come back here not just for the food, but the service was friendly and prompt and that’s gotta count for something :)

Had a chance to have dinner here. Great food! Creative showing a true passion for food. One really neat thing I found was on their menus they list where they buy their foods to show the quality of what your food is made from and how fresh it is.
I had a great experience with my wife. Not the cheapest place but a true passion for food.
One small downside if you are not up on all your lingo you may have to ask many questions about the menu.

My husband, my father-​in-​law and I went here for lunch recently. The restaurant is in the strip mall with the Lowe’s. It’s next to the Booster Juice.
I had the Crispy Cod sandwich with a mixed green salad ($ 15). My husband had the Pressed Club sandwich with fries ($ 15) and my father-​in-​law had the Open-​Faced Mushroom Melt with fries ($ 14) — although on the menu in the restaurant they called it a «Mushroom Bruschetta» which is deceiving because it is not like a bruschetta at all, as it has no tomatoes. It is more appropriately named on the online menu, which is «Open-​Faced Mushroom Melt.»
I loved my Crispy Cod sandwich. It was a piece of breaded and fried cod, pickles, tomato relish, baby kale, with lemon aioli on an Art-​Is-​In baguette. The cod was true to its name crispy. The bread was perfectly toasted. And the flavours of all the ingredients blended together very well. The salad was a mixed green salad with some red and green peppers and pickled beets. The dressing which I asked for on the side was a raspberry vinaigrette. If you like fish, I highly recommend this sandwich.
I had a taste of my husband’s Pressed Club and it was tasty. The bread was the same as my sandwich. The chicken was real chicken (not deli meat), the bacon was thick and smokey. And it had avocado in it. The fries were regular cut but a bit on the thick side. However, they were delicious. Very fresh and crispy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside.
My father-in-law’s Mushroom Melt looked good. It had 3 different types on mushrooms.
Service was great. The server refilled our waters often and checked up on us appropriately. She was friendly and competent.
Décor is nice. There is a wood/​tree theme throughout. There is a cork-​board made up of cross-​sections of branches. The menu was wood on the back and had some of those wood cross-​sections at the front. There are also twigs and branches used as decoration. The chandeliers (not wood) are really pretty. It looks a lot nicer than you would expect of a restaurant in a suburban strip mall.
The dinner menu looks a bit pricey, but I would definitely return for lunch.

Beautiful spot! Very «in», very urban chic and comfortable. The service was amazing and our server went above and beyond to accommodate us. Since it is pricey, you expect the food to be a notch above the rest. In my humble opinion, it felt a bit short in that area. Not by much but enough to make me wonder if I would want visit again.
I love independently owned restaurants and try very hard to cheerlead them to success. This place has promising good bones so I am hoping my review will make them strive to the next level and not be seen as poor criticism. On average, our meal was very good. Some items were to die for and others were just a little bit too average. We were a party of four and we all had appetizers. In the awesome category were the zucchini fritters, very yum! The calamari were pretty good although under seasoned and I was not fond of the dipping sauce which had odd texture and left a bitter taste in my mouth. So instead, I happily dove into the zucchini fritters dipping sauce. The scallops, Caesar salad and soup were «good».
Our mains were a bit all over the place. Tenderloin with mashed: amazing! Gnocchi: excellent; Duck (featured dish of the day): not so great. The duck lacked seasoning big time. This dish was a huge disappointment. The bouillabaisse I took was not really that at all and reminded me more of Cioppino and it was, unfortunately very very salty. The seafood was well executed but missed a nice firm fish such as monkfish. Traditional bouillabaisse comes with rouille, a red aioli. This one came with tapenade. Now before everyone screams that I am splitting hair, just know that my hubby hates olives: he would have expected «rouille». Therefore, it was not bouillabaisse! And a side dish to discard shells would have been appreciated.
Desserts were shared… A most spectacular maple-​whiskey-​pecan cheesecake (totally worth it) and profiteroles that were ok. I would like to know what kind of ice cream they used as it reminded me of a commercial frozen milk product instead of the real thing.
Ok, I’m picking at bones here but if you want play with the big boys and become a culinary experience, then you must deliver at that level! Would I go back? Possibly… And I do hope they succeed: their passion for the food industry oozes out of their menu!

We came for brunch and the food was very good. Like the décor and tunes.
Breakfast frattata was amazing, quality of the food is excellent. New favourite spot to come for great food without screaming kids everywhere.

Great décor and well laid out place. The food is really good, very similar to their downtown location. The lounge is very well setup with a flat screen TV and really great chairs and couches… perfect place for pre or post game/​concert drinks or food as it’s right near ScotiaBank Place.