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Aria
- Price Range:
-
$$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- No
- Good for Kids:
- No
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- No
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- Yes
- Wi-Fi:
- No
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
- Noise Level:
- Average
- Ambience:
- Upscale
- Has TV:
- No
6 reviews for Aria
6 reviews in English
-
Review from Shane D.
Toronto, ON
4/14/2012
Aria had amazing waitstaff and a great ambiance that cuts through the location and shows off the lights of maple leaf square.
The wine list was really impressive and our waiter had a vast knowledge of the list.
We had the Cod Puffs, the Shrimp lobster Fritto and the smoked buffalo mozzarella to start. The Cod Puffs were super tasty and I could have had 6 helpings of the mozzarella, the Fritto I will probably not get them in the future.
For the main I had the signature gnocchi which had pork sausage in it. The gnocchi was very fresh and melted in my mouth, but the meat was so salty! And that would be my only complaint, the Cod Puffs had a vanilla salt and tasted good, but the Fritto and main was over salted. My wife had the pasta with butter truffle and it was amazing. Overall great place, you should check out. -
Review from Kousha R.
North York, ON
4/27/2012
I tried this place for a birthday dinner and let me tell you that all the positive aspects balances the negative ones.
Positive: Good looking bar and ambiance. Food didn't actually taste bad. (read below)
Negative: portion sizes are very very small and you end up ordering 3 times as usual if you want to feel full.
We waited a very long time for our food to be served (almost an hour).
Menu is limited and I was lucky to order the special which I had to ask for to see if they happen to have one.
It was kind of difficult to find it and due to its hidden location, you have to check out a key to the bathroom which is outside of the restaurant.
Overall:
won't be going back there anytime soon unless I am meeting up with an escort at the bar and that's literally all. -
Review from Teena D.
3/10/2012
After the lacrosse game, Gord and I stopped in at Aria Ristorante, which is next door to the ACC, for a glass of wine.
There are fires on the patio to keep you warm.
We ordered a glass of bubbly.
It's a fancy spot. We sat at the bar, which was weird because the chairs are really really high and the bar is too low. So we had to kind of lean, which was awkward.
Kyle took good care of us. He surprised us with a sample of their cheese balls ... they were yummy!
I might pop back for a glass of wine. Though the menu looked good, I doubt I'd go back to eat there (too fancy and pricy for me). -
Review from Daniel B.
2/7/2012
The food was good.
That's pretty much the only positive thing I can say about our experience at Aria.
When you go for dinner, you expect to feel special. Here, we felt like cattle. Herded into what was essentially an oversized junkyloft condominium. Plopped down in the middle of the open room. Stared at by social climbers and mid-priced escorts.
Then there was the rush.
We had just finished ordering and our pre-prepared appetizers were already on their way to the table. Several minutes later, the bread came.... followed by the wine. No sooner than our last bite, and the plates were whisked away into the ether. They were immediately replaced with the next course. No time in between. The whole dinner couldn't have lasted much more than half an hour. The timing and pacing of the meal was horrendous.
Sometimes, you go into a restaurant and you feel like romance was in the air. Here, it seemed like every other person in the room was on an online date.
I guess telling your online date that you're having dinner at "Maple Leaf Square" has a nicer ring to it than "the abandoned railyards turned prefab jungle behind union station".
I am constantly amazed at people who believe that just because a place is shiny and very expensive, it is classy. This is a classless shell of a restaurant, a pathetic mess of slimy lawyers and the over-madeup. What's decent in food can be found in any of the other 10000 restaurants in this city.
It's a place where you're made to feel like you've snuck into the party, but it's still lamer than you expected.
Avoid. -
Review from Betsey B.
Toronto, ON
1/31/2012
Since we have the pleasure of dining out fairly frequently one of the things I look for when choosing restaurants during Winterlicious is that they stay true to their standard menu; it really irks me when they use Winterlicous to serve sub-par meals. Second, if restaurants are going to offer lunch and dinner the menus had better be somewhat different. I don't mind if there are some crossover dishes, this is to be expected, but if your $35 (or $45, ahem) dinner menu is the exact same as your $25 lunch save for one or two mains I'm certainly not coming for dinner. I don't understand why some restaurants do this either, Winterlicious is about marketing, bringing people that may not normally dine at your establishment in the door; if you serve me a meal that is below your standards what incentive is that for me to return and pay full price? None I tell you, and that is why there are very few that get my Winterlicious nod of approval.
We braved the snow last night though for Aria, the modern sister to our favourite neighbourhood spot Noce. Everything on Aria's Winterlicious menu can be found on their current full a la carte menu. However, Paul and I decided to order a la carte because neither of us wanted to have dessert (I know, I must have been feeling ill). We started with the fried calamari stuffed with salt cod served with crispy polenta, oven dried tomatos and crispy sage. The calamari was perfectly cooked and the crispy polenta was a divine blend of crunchy on the outside and melt in your mouth goodness (I wished there were more). We also shared the wild mushrooms with lemon scented marscapone; unfortunately this fell a little flat, we both felt it was quite salty and the lemon was a bit too overpowering. I followed with a lovely pumpkin ravioli with brown butter sauce and crispy sage, while hubby had the winter mushroom pappardelle; both very good.
My husband had a half bottle of 2004 Il Borro, a super tuscan blend, he says it was a great accompaniment with the food because the acidity helped balance the richness of his main dish. As a side note this winery is owned and run by Salvatore Ferragamo, the grandson of the named fashion house. Speaking on wine, my main complaint about Aria is in regards to their wine list; I'm an off-dry white drinker, partial to riesling in particular, and they don't have one off-dry white period. Now, in wine circles riesling is a very respected varietal and the finer examples are coveted by sommeliers and serious wine collectors alike. World renowned wine authority and Master of Wine Jancis Robinson says "I think that riesling is indisputably the greatest white wine grape in the world....". Yet so many Toronto restaurants completely overlook this lovely grape (especially the off-dry offerings), which is a shame because they loose out on my wine dollars. So to all the restaurants and sommeliers whose wine lists are lacking: I'm not asking you to offer Donhoff or J.J. Pruhm by the glass....but if you had it by the bottle Paul and I would love to share one.
On the design front Aria is a beautiful restaurant with a two story glass wine cellar greeting you as you walk in, two walls of floor to ceiling windows soaring two stories high (one accented with a chain mail curtain) and a warm brown/gold veined white marble bar that stretches almost the entire length of the restaurant. Floating from the ceiling are huge glittering Moooi pendants in varying sizes but the standout feature is the monumental custom wood sculpture dancing overhead created by Dennis Lin and aptly named Aria.
3 stars this time because of the lack of wine and the very salty appetizer, otherwise a great restaurant. I will note we've dined here before, last summer, and had a stunning meal with no missteps which I would have given 4 stars. -
Review from Yvonne T.
Aria is a relatively new addition to the York/Bremner strip (just 9 months young). It is located in a great location (which also means that if there are events going on at the ACC that you might end up paying $25 for parking! Ouch.) My word of advice? Look for the Green P at 10 York Street (which doesn't look like it will be there very long as it looks like a condo development is going up in its place). We were lucky enough to have nabbed the last spot and paid $4 for parking.
Tucked away in the corner of the Telus Tower you will find the entrance to Aria. It has a very Manhattan feel to it with high ceilings, big glass windows that faces the Maple Leaf Square and trendy seating. The chairs are quite comfortable, and the Damask sofa seats are chic!
I made a reservation online and the only time available was later in the evening. I was rather upset when I showed up to the restaurant and there were quite a few empty tables. I like to eat dinner earlier, rather than later.
A complimentary coat check is available though the hostess was less than stellar. She left us unattended for a few minutes before reappearing. However, another server (who I later found out is the pioneer behind the Cocktail Menu) aided us.
We were seated in the corner with a great view of Maple Leaf Square. The service here is very lax and this is definitely a place you could spend hours at without being hustled out the door.
After having perused the cocktail menu I decided on La Motta, which is a vodka-based drink with fresh yuzu, peach simple syrup and rosemary. To my surprise, my cocktail was salty? I don't think I was so hungry that my taste buds went awry, but my DC also concluded that my drink was salty. When prompted about how our cocktails were I mentioned I didn't like it, and the Ryan Gosling look-a-like cocktail pioneer said he'd whip me up another cocktail personally. This time I opted for the Dahlia. While I did say I wanted something sweeter, this was TOO sweet. It was like drinking a minty maple syrup. The presentation of the cocktails were pretty, but suffice it to say that I nursed my sweet cocktail like a child forced to drink carrot juice. The Sazerac that my DC ordered was definitely a man's drink as it was S-T-R-O-N-G (Rye whiskey-based drink). My word of advice, order a wine instead. They have an impressive display of wines that go from floor to ceiling (and that is one HIGH ceiling).
A trio of bread was brought out. A French, an Italian and a Focaccia. The Focaccia was by far my favourite as it was crusty on the top, but spongy throughout. It was a Rosemary bread, and was very good with the spreadable butter.
For starters we ordered the Carne Cruda served with a raw egg, black truffle and Porcini fries. This knocked my socks off. This is what a steak tartare should be like. Tender, just the right amount of salt, and just the right amount of pickled tang. It didn't even need pepper. The raw egg added a luxurious, creamy texture to the dish. And the fries, although there were only 5 of them, were divine.
For mains we opted for the Bigoli alla Bottarga which was a thick noodle served with garlic, chillies, roasted tomatoes, herbs and Bottarga di Muggine which is a cured roe of grey mullets. The thick noodles were a very firm pasta. I just kept chewing and chewing and chewing at it. The tomatoes were pleasantly sweet, but I didn't care too much for the bitter aftertaste of the Bottarga.
The Deboned Partridge served atop a bed of Fregola Sarda, porcini bread stuffing, bay leaf essence, chestnuts and fig puree. Fregola Sarda is a type of Sardinian pasta that loosely resembles Israeli Couscous but has the texture of a Spaetzle. It was very savoury and complemented the crisp-skinned deboned partridge very well. I don't know that I would've chosen partridge as it is a much more muscular bird, which means a tougher meat.
For dessert we were disappointed to learn that the Napolean and Chocolate Eclairs were sold out for the night, so we opted for the Buddino. In hindsight, I probably should've taken the sold-out options as a cue that they were the best in the house and opted out of dessert. Oh well. The Buddino was served with a Mascarpone cheese. It was quite the unconventional "pudding" as it was more like a flourless chocolate cake encased with a tart pastry. The chocolate flavour was quite weak as it but lingered for a mere second in your mouth before disappearing altogether and if there was any chestnut, it was lost. The tart shell was chewy. I think this dish is lost somewhere between a flourless chocolate cake and a brownie.
Verdict:
I would recommend Aria for its service and ambiance before its food. The food may not be suitable for those who are the "meat and potatoes" type and non-experimental as they use untraditional ingredients. Some of the food was wonderfully executed while tweaks were needed for others.
