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Arlequino Pizzeria
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- No
- Good for Kids:
- No
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- Yes
- Take Away:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Wi-Fi:
- Free
- Good For:
- Lunch, Dinner
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
- Noise Level:
- Loud
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- No
6 reviews for Arlequino Pizzeria
6 reviews in English
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Review from Stephanie P.
Laval, QC
8/17/2011
I visited Arlequino's after my boyfriend and I had a pleasant experience at the owners' other establishment, La Medusa.
Though I can't speak for the other pizzas, I absolutely loved the pizza I ordered, which was the San Bennedetto (lobster meat and rose cognac sauce). What especially impressed me, however, was that hot pepper antipasto sauce was readily available on all tables. As a Southern Italian, I am always looking to spice up my food - so this was a welcome bonus rarely seen in most restaurants.
The only negative I can think of: the entire waitstaff has been hired based on their looks and clearly not on skill. So if you're a critical foodie that has lots of q's for your waitress or waiter and looks for exceptional service...this is definitely not the place for you.
If not - then splurge on the San Bennedetto and enjoy! -
Review from Randa H.
Montréal, QC
10/28/2010 1 Check-in Here
Pizza is in my top 10 favourite foods so seeing that Arlequino is a pizza joint (high end?) thought I'd give it a try. Let's start with the food. We had three appetizers to start: fried bocconcini, stuffed olives, and the "charcuterie" plate. The fried bocconcini was good, could have been more gooey and hot. The stuffed olives weren't what I expected. They were actually fried meat balls stuffed with green olives. Pretty good, the saltiness of the olives really worked well with the meat. I would order them again. As for the charcuterie plate, it was uneventful. There was about 6 generous slices of prosciutto, a few small slices of sopressata, and paper thin salami accompanied by what they touted as their home made bread. The meat platter was ok, nothing great and their bread was very dry, almost like a rye bread. I was expected much more from this dish.
Now, onto the pizza. I order the Bari - tomato sauce, cheese, rapini and sausage. It was actually pretty decent. Nice thin crust, good ingredients. I wasn't disappointed, but it wasn't the best I've had. I was with two friends. One had the Firenze (wild mushroom and cheese), and the other had Capri (tomato sauce, buffalo cheese and fresh basil). I tasted the Firenze after it had been sitting on her plate for a while. It was a little cold and congealed and I'm not so sure how "wild" the mushrooms were. I didn't taste the Capri, but it looked ordinary.
The place itself has really nice décor. A modern and chic feel to it. I can't put my finger on what it was, but the wait staff didn't "match" to the vibe of the place. Our waitress was not rude or anything, but at the same time she wasn't welcoming. There was another staff member walking around, tending to tables who was very friendly. I think she was she was the co-owner or manager of the place. She should give the rest of the staff pointers on how to deal with the public.
In general, I liked it place and would go back. I wouldn't go out of my way, but if I were in the area craving pizza, I would go back to Arlequino. -
Review from Matthew D.
Ottawa, ON
4/25/2010
What can I say about Arlequino's? I'm a Montreal ex-pat living in Ottawa, but I always return home for my birthday to celebrate with friends from Montreal. From a distance, and through some searching I came upon this lovely sounding restaurant and booked it for my group of 16. Unfortunately this turned out to be a mistake of epic proportions. Let's follow the night in order of events.
Drink orders:
One of my friends suggested we split a bottle of wine, a suggestion I liked, but neither of us are really wine connoisseurs. We asked the waitress for some suggestions, letting her know that we both preferred sweeter white wines, but she didn't know anything about the wine menu, "I don't really drink wine" was her response. We asked her if anyone there knew, and she just shrugged. Not particularly helpful.
Appetizers:
On reading some reviews a friend and I decided to try the calamari, they serve it here in long strips and it was fried up nicely, but there was very little flavouring to it without any dipping sauce. The sauce they served it with seemed to be some sort of mayo-based sauce but I didn't really know what it was, and it didn't taste very good. Another of my friends ordered the fried bocconcini, it sounded nice but for $7 it came with 2 pieces, which is a little disappointing. The ceasar salad I ordered was tasty if a bit too salty.
Pizza:
While I won't comment second hand on everyone else's pizza experience, I will talk about the one I tried. I ordered the Pescara, which sounded very nice as: tomato sauce, cheese, pancetta and hot peppers. First this is not the wood burning pizza you would expect. As reviewer Dave I. suggests this is not authentic wood burning pizza. The top had burnt crusts yet the cheese was completely evenly cooked and well spaced out and the bottom was soggy, and not crispy at all. The worst of it was the over-abundant use of hot peppers on this particular variation; the rest of the ingredients couldn't be tasted with the amount of hot peppers they used, it was just completely unbalanced. I would have tasted the same flavours had I just eaten some soggy dough and a jar of hot peppers.
Dessert:
Here's where my biggest issue of the night started. When I called to book they had asked if I wanted a birthday cake. I thought "why not?" and chose a cake. Now it's certainly my fault at this point for not asking the cost of this added service, but for they price they charged they could have mentioned it. This restaurant claimed to have made the cake in house and charged $5 per person for the cake (a total of $75). Now I know this is how some higher end restaurants work, and while I wouldn't call Arlequino's higher end, it's their right to choose this business model. My issue of contention is not the actual cost of the cake but the reaction of the owner of the restaurant when I spoke to him about this issue. I calmly and politely told him that if they were going to charge such an exorbitant amount for a tiny cake, the least they could do is tell people the cost up front without having to be asked. Had I known, I would have brought my own cake. His response was: "We'd have charged you $3 per person if you brought your own. What can I tell you? It's business." For me this was an inadequate response to a customer concern. I'm not saying I expected him to reimburse me for the cake; I didn't expect any sort of gratuity, but the man didn't even have the decency to apologize or attempt to appease me in any sort of way. This is no way to manage any sort of service industry business, let alone a restaurant. His response was equally cold and careless to one of my friends who tried to speak to him about the same issue.
That final experience of the night led me to understand Arlequino's for what it is. This is an upscale, supposedly hip pizzeria. The decor and ambience are fantastic, but their downfall is that they are far more invested in the look than the quality of food or their customers' satisfaction. I certainly imagine that the owner will begin to care more about his customers when they stop coming to eat at this restaurant. -
Review from DAVE I.
Montréal, QC
9/26/2009
In the animal world, some animals don't evolve and haven't evolved since the dinosaurs roamed the earth. Take the alligator for example, a living dinosaur. It's a perfect survival machine for its environment so it didn't need to evolve, become more complex. Why bother when you're king of the swamp and food will just eventually drift by for you to kill it without much effort? Well let me tell what else doesn't need to evolve. PIZZA.
I could be wrong but...
Pizza is to me, just like Italian food, simple, fresh, unpretentious (there's that word again) peasant food filled with warmth and soul. Most Italian food rich, filling and made from basic ingredients that keep coming back from one recipe to another but the flavors always vary and it's got some punch to it. It's no surprise that Italian food is the most popular ethnic food the world over. Pizza has become the ultimate comfort food that everyone loves. Flatbread, tomato and cheese as the base, what could possibly go wrong?
Wolfgang Puck went wrong that's what. He popularized the California Pizza (or Gourmet Pizza) and really the fancy nancy foods they serve in those restaurants are both bland and lifeless, but hey it sure looks pretty. And of course it went through North America like a prairie fire.
Arlequino Pizzeria's Manufactured Pizza
Arlequino opened its doors this year on Drummond. The website still isn't live and very little history is known about the place. But this is of little consequence because as soon as I stepped inside the restaurant I knew this place was all about form over function...again. The entire experience is staged. Tuscan colors everywhere, chalk board menu with fine dining table setting. But sadly the service staff was uneducated and knew nothing of spices and peppers as denoted when my fellow diner asked a basic question about the spices. And also it is one noisy restaurant. I couldn't hear my fellow diner speaking to me from all of 2 and half feet from me. Antipasto served on a mini cutting board - an attempt at rusticity that fails on many levels I won't go into here - but it just wasn't antipasto to me.
But I was there with my team, manager and director and our work is driven by urgency and availability so no time for starters and such things. We went straight for the Pizza. My initial reason for going into this restaurant blind was the appeal of wood-oven baked pizza. This was dashed immediately when I received my Bari pizza. The idea sounded good on paper. Tomato sauce, Mozzarella, Rapini, and Sausage. Again I ask, what could possibly go wrong? A great many things it seems.
Cheated
As soon as I received my pizza I noticed 2 things. The glory of wood-oven baking is that TASTE OF WOOD. But this pizza was aseptic. Where were the burnt edges? Where was the powered and blackened bottom? No where to be seen. This pizza was picture perfect. The cheese unbrowned, perfectly leveled, perfect topping distribution, everything a pizza should not, especially if you wood-oven baked that baby. The second item I noticed was the sausage and immediately I knew something had gone wrong. There was nothing Italian about this sausage. And it had been sliced with a slicer, in other words purchased as is. No better than Domino's except in flavor. I would have loved handmade sausage, cut unevenly and thick. The Rapini had been steamed with nothing added and this sucked the entire flavor that would have been available out of the pizza.
Now don't get me wrong, the pizza wasn't all that bad once they added to oil and I added a pound of salt on it. So much for fine dining. At fine dining establishments salt and pepper should not even be made available on the table because the food is supposed to be salted and spiced adequately. And after eating this circle of blandness, I was not satiated - which as you know is the whole point of scarfing down some delicious pizza. Bland, soulless, un-filling and yet pretty damn pricey for Italian staples on dough.
A twelve inch very thin pizza ranges from 14 to 16 dollars. 3$ for barely a handful of extra olives. A pizza and a Coke cost me 22$ (not including tip). I can get 2 slices (which will be more pizza than I was served) and a coke for under 12$ at more down to earth pizza shops in Montreal. Pizza doesn't need to be fancied up, it's perfect the way it was meant to be and it in no way should be so expensive. But rich pricks seem to think paying a lot of money for food is important. I won't be found dead anywhere I can get a burrito for a dollar but I don't think a 12 inch paper thin pizza cheaply topped is worth 16$. Don't get taken in by the cool sounding word Rapini, it's cabbage. A tasty cabbage, but still just common cabbage that can grow anywhere. It's said that pizza is like sex, even when it's bad, it's still good. While true in this case, it was like being stuck in the missionary position with an unskilled high-priced hooker. -
Review from Marie-Josee F.
Montréal, QC
7/10/2009
I just discovered this place and it is outstanding... you really have to try it...!
They dont just have the pizza, they also have splendid main course salads!
The best place to go before a concert or a hockey game in the Bell Center area. -
Review from pierre b.
Montréal, QC
4/24/2009
new restaurant on Drummond specializing in wood oven cooked traditional real Italian very thin pizza with innovative toppings.
This restaurant opened in 2009 and has a very nice decor. Friendly staff. Extraordinary pizza if you like the real four à bois à l'Italienne taste. Excellent meal salads as well. Very good wine list. Definitely not your greasy Montréal all-dressed pizza. In the core of downtown and close to Bell Centre.
Very well thought out wine list and wines are well cared for (i.e., served at the appropriate temperature).
Also, not advertised is that they have free wireless.
