Paganelli’s

Permanently closed.
Stopped by there last night and the place has signs on the doors that the premises have been reposed by the landlord.

People please save your money, there are dozens of better restaurants in the area. Fiancé and I shared ceaser salad $ 10 which tasted off. I had mushroom risotto $ 27 and fiancé had gorgonzola risotto $ 23. It was bland and very pedestrian. Gorgonzola risotto was very average also she ate less than half. Waiter offered to change my order. I got the gnocchi in tomato sauce. Gnocchi was way overcooked and sauce tasted like ragu from super market. I also only ate 2 bites of that. They still charged me for the way more expensive risotto even though I ate neither dish. I don’t normally write bad reviews but this place is just a waste of time and money. $ 27 or $ 23 for a risotto is really pricey and would understand if it was out of this world but these were not even close. Would not recommend to anyone.

Tried the food here and its quite good. I will be returning to try more of the menu

Great Italian restaurant! Serves rustic, comfort food. Have been here several times and have tried different dishes and our favs are:
–Award winning pheasant risotto
–Hand-​made pastas «strangle the priest»
–their own in house made cured meats. So good!
Came here a few times with those deal find/​teambuy/​groupon type deals… but we were going here before they offered the deals… so if you find the promos, they are great value!

A Unilocal review is often written after eating at a restaurant only once. I dined at Paganelli’s 4 times over the last 3 weeks. I ordered the same items each time, and each time all 3 were flawless.
I recommend:
— The carpaccio
— The pappardelle
— The strozzapreti alla romagnola

Just a wonderful experience with great food and incredible service. I cannot recommend this place highly enough for those who live on Toronto or are just visiting.

It’s hard to review since we never even made it to the table.
Upon entering the restaurant, we looked around and the place was dead. Mind you this was 8:00 on a Saturday night.
We saw the bartender staring into space– he did not acknowledge us until I approached and asked for a table of two.
He hmmed and hawwed and came behind the bar to tell me and my partner to sit at the bar. I politely refused because– the dining room was EMPTY– surely it wouldn’t take long to sit us.
His attitude was in a word: creepy.
He then left without a word to tend to a table and didn’t come back. Service staff walked past us without a smile or acknowledgement. We left within seven minutes of waiting around and standing like idiots. We found another lovely restaurant soon after!

Enjoyed our dinner tonight, had the scallop risotto and the 7 oz NY strip loin. Scallops were cooked perfectly and the steak was cooked to medium rare as requested. Only thing was portions were a little small.

Went with group of 8 for a bday. ⁶⁄₈ disliked their food. ie:
18 $ Gnocchi was overbooked and cheap taste
17 $ Tomatoes and mozzarella salad was literally half a tomato with 4 pieces of mozzarella
29 $ Prize winning risotto was meh according to my friend
Service was ok. FYI if you have a Unilocal coupon they will argue you it would work the day of… even when not stated in their terms and conditions.
Would definitely not return. Go somewhere with better food for the prices.

Décor may have been popular in the 80s. Its time for an update. Yes I’ll give them dabs for making their own pasta, but when the server put the freshly ground pepper on it. Thats all you can taste. We had to ask for more sauce to balance out the flavour. But in all honesty, in the menu they brag about (the best pasta in toronto) but its just average food priced unreasonably high.
If its a restaurant on front street they should utilize what they have and focus on a smaller menu that is executed with a hell of a lot more finesse. especially if the rent+utilities is at least $ 13,000.

Being a northern Italian I was delighted to find a place that wasn’t cranking out the same Italian food. Amazing service amazing food. You have to try their prosciutto best i have ever had

Was not impressed at all. We had a groupon so didn’t end up paying full price. But still wasn’t happy. The food is over priced. small portions and nothing special.

Visited the restaurant with my wife for dinner. all in all we were ex trimly pleased. food was very tasty (although we only tried couple of the pizzas but we did glanced at other tables and everything seem very tasty and beautiful)
service was great, very professional.
only minor comment, we felt that the wine list had only imported italian bottles and were all very highly priced! bottles at $ 500 – 600 should not even be on menu, imo… this is not las vegas! would be great if they offered some local ontario wine as well or at the very least «house wine» selection” at more affordable rates. even a beet bottle at $ 7 is a stretch when the next door has happy hour special $ 4 bottles.
all in all — totally worth a visit to this authentic italian restaurant! we will be back for sure

This place has been around for a while still serving up some good food based on reviews, I decided to check it out with my gf. We got two apps, two mains, two desserts for a set price. The place is fine dine with filtered water for each table, and olive oil and balsamic vinagrette with the pita bread and focachia.
Our apps were the carpacchio and the cured meats. We selected three kinds. One was wild boar, one was more fatty type, and the other was more salty taste like. Our favourite was the fatty one.
The carpacchio was alright, but we definitely had better else where.
The size portion here are definitely good since they’re Italian.
Entrée’s we got the Osso Buco with risotto on the bottom. Now Osso Buco is usually tender, but this I found to be quite tough and also its more bone and cartilage ratio compared to meat. Priced at $ 31, next time this will not be on my radar.
My gf got the Branzino two fillets with garlic butter and grilled veggies. Her meal is better than mine for sure.
Desserts: I got the molten warm chocolate lava cake. Yes, there was oozie chocolate and its warm, so it was a good dessert compared to the Panna Cotta, my gf got which is like eating yogurt pudding.
Overall, the service was attentive and caring, and we did not feel rush. It wasn’t busy at the time, but nevertheless, this is a place we are willing to try in the future for their pastas and such.

Definitely not the best food I ever had. But when your hungry and you’ve been walking around you’ll practically eat anything. Try the vegetarian options it’s pretty good but don’t come here thinking it’s top of the line or anything.

Paganelli’s = great food, terrible service!
I find myself visiting this area of the city more and more for dinner, so no surprise that I’ve stumbled into Paganelli’s.
Paganelli’s is an Italian spot specializing in pizzas, with a great location and spacious (ish) patio.
While the pizza is excellent (i’ve tried two varieties now, and both have been great!) the Cesar salad I had was mediocre, but apparently the soup is delicious. The only real issue I have with this spot is the terrible service!
When we arrived we asked if we could be seated on the patio — no one was on it, but it was a beautiful night so we decided to be the trend setters. After taking some time to get out and take our orders, we asked the (very gloomy) server why no one else was on the patio, and he said because «we don’t like to sit anyone on the patio» in a weird and almost attempting us to feel guilty way… what? I guess if you’re short staffed it could make some sense, but maybe think of a better way of saying it to your paying guests!
The service is generally slow and gloomy. Even our first impression (calling to check if they were open), when we asked they responded «Yes, WHY?»… because we want to eat there!
Overall this place is worth a visit if you’re hoping for pizza and in the area, as long as you can tolerate the service!

The food here is simply delicious! The dishes are straightforward while the flavours are bold and homey. I withheld one star for the dated décor and the fact that my experience is based on two of their most recommended dishes.
Our party of two ordered their award-​winning risotto with pheasant and truffle pâté as well as the squid ink pasta with lobster. The pasta was dressed in tomato and zucchini; it was hearty and refreshing at the same time. I was very impressed by the chunks of lobster which were fresh and juicy. The risotto was the best I’ve ever had and just out of this world. I am by no means a risotto connoisseur but it was perfectly cooked (al dente without a crunchy centre) and the flavour was rich and satisfying. At felt I was concerned that it may be gamey from the pheasant but it was not at all; it did have that comforting, delicate, savoury poultry flavour. Even my boyfriend, who usually frowns upon risottos, said that it was really good. We were in carb heaven! I can totally see myself craving for the risotto in the future.
I enjoyed these two dishes so much that I would definitely order them again when I come back next time. However, I really want to try other menu items as well; the pizza on the next table looked quite pretty. Ahh… the dilemma.

I visited Paganelli’s as part of a group and I although I went in with bit of trepidation based on the mixed reviews I read here, I think Paganelli’s has some high points to be sure, but I was disappointed with the experience overall.
The highs: atmosphere is nice, staff are friendly (enough), wine was good.
The lows: The menu online dosent match the menu in the restaurant. That’s okay, I guess, because the chef might change things, but it stinks to have carefully planned ahead on what you only to realize you can’t have what you wanted to have. Since I have a fair number of food sensitivities (gluten, dairy) this place wasn’t a great pick to start with (someone else decided on the venue) but I was hoping that the staff would be able to accomodate me — and most times this works out really well.
What is most disappointing about Paganelli’s is that as a solution to my dietary requirements, I asked the waiter for a salad with chicken, no cheese please. What I received was a dismal and disappointing plate that had less than fresh greens and a sparse spattering of chicken — not enough to count as even a small chicken breast. No dressing was offered, so the entire thing was bland, bland, bland.
In fairness, some of the other dishes looked very nice and I think the food would be a 3 out of 5 for those who ate a regular entrée that night. I probably wont return.

I’m still going all out with my stars. I go often these days, and this has become my favourite place for Italian. Service is fantastic consistently.
I bought a coupon the other day, and still received top notch service from Matthew and fabulous food.
Not to be missed — their ‘strangle the priest’ pasta and rissottos. The panna cotta is one of the lightest and best I’ve had.

First off, I am usually not overly impressed by Italian restaurants unless they are really good and do everything right because I can whip up a pasta dish fairly easily at home. In the end, Paganelli’s is okay.
The really good Italian restaurants I have experienced have plenty of fresh bread on the table, and they keep it coming. And they have really good olive oil for dipping. At Paganelli’s we got one basket of bread, which I appreciated because I was starving, but the bread was a little salty, and there was nothing to dip it in, and it didn’t keep coming either.
The other thing that didn’t sit well with me was that they don’t have beers on tap (which is probably why they don’t advertise any on their website). Although I’m sure their wine selection is much better, and that does make sense for an Italian restaurant, but I’m a beer guy… Most of the beers are Italian, although they do have bottles of Keith’s.
The third thing that I wasn’t high on was that the food is a little on the salty side, like a lot of the other reviews mentioned. It has a bit of the salt = flavour thing going on for sure, which confuses me a bit because I thought Italian food was mostly about fresh ingredients and letting those sing.
The other thing that I find strange, but isn’t a big deal is that you have to cut your own pizza which scissors… which I think would be a fun activity for kids to do, and would keep them busy. But why? Give me a pizza cutter and I’ll cut my own pizza thanks.
I really wanted to like this place. I didn’t mind the décor, the service, the variety of food… They just miss on a lot of little things that could really elevate the experience.