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Sambucas On Church
Category: Restaurants Italian Italian [Edit]
489 Church StToronto, ON M4Y 2C6
Neighbourhoods: Church-Wellesley Village, Downtown Core
(416) 966-3241
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Street
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- Yes
- Take Away:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Wi-Fi:
- No
- Good For:
- Dinner
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
- Noise Level:
- Average
- Has TV:
- No
15 reviews for Sambucas On Church
15 reviews in English
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Review from Tiff L.
Yonge and Eglinton, Toronto, ON
5/21/2012 1 Check-in Here
I've been here numerous times and finally got around to writing them a review. To get to the point, Sambucas has the best food on all of Church Street. The $25 prix fix meal is definitely worth it. The portions are humongous, I had enough to pack home for lunch the next day!
For the appetizer I had the mussels and it was basically a full meal, big and juicy with an amazing sauce!
For the main entree, I always have the chicken parmigiana. It is really tender and the piece of chicken is huge. I highly recommend it, at this point my stomach was going to explode.
I picked Creme brûlée for dessert and it was a bit dry but not bad at all.
Now for the bad: I don't recommend cocktails here. I had a bloody casaer and it was way too spicy but the waiter noticed that i was chugging water and offered to make me a new one.
Though the service may be a bit slow because they only have one or two waiters at a time, it's definitely worth it considering how good the food is.
Will definitely be back! Too bad I don't live downtown anymore :( -
Review from Christine R.
Scarborough, ON
2/12/2012 5 photos
Came in here on a Thursday evening to sample there Winterlicious offerings.
A long narrow restaurant with exposed brick walls and dark wood tables with hardwood floors.
Our waitress was very bubbly and friendly and came over to take our drink orders. We wanted something fruity and tropical. She joked and said we'd have to go the caribbean for that but she'd do her best to whip up something along those lines.
She later returned with a tall ruby red refreshing blend of grenadine, gingerale, pineapple and cranberry juice. It totally took us back to the caribbean!
From the Winterlicious menu I ordered
Crustini -Three piece crustini topped with smoked salmon and avocado mango relish
The salmon was fresh and ample and I loved the refreshing taste of avocado and mango which totally blended well with my caribbean drink.
Filet Mignon -Pan roasted bacon wrapped filet mignon with morel mushroom red wine sauce, served with herb roasted vegetables and buttered baby bok choy
Boy oh boy did this knock my socks off! I was expecting a wee little piece of meat but out came this hunk of juicy delicious well seasoned generous cut of meat! Everything on the plate looked amazing and tasted equally delicious!
Walnut brownie with vanilla ice cream
Two Fudgey warm brownies packed with toasted walnuts with a side of vanilla ice cream and hot fudge, simple but lovely end to a fab meal!
Tea - English Breakfast by Bigalow
Overall superberb meal which totally exceeded my expectations as this was one of the cheaper winterlicious offerings however it was surprisiningly a high quality and outstanding meal + top notch friendly service! -
Review from Tommy H.
5/21/2012 1 Check-in Here
We had meals from the prix fixe menu. The salad was crisp and fresh with goat cheese. The tomato dill soup was flavorful but the dill was quite subtle. The entrees were plentiful and delicious. The Spanish paella included 9 mussels surrounding the rice, chicken, shrimp, sausage and mushrooms. The Angus steak was cooked to order with a nice seasoning on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes.
Dessert was a pleasant surprise. The chocolate lava cake had a white vanilla creamy center. The creme caramel was quite good, very similar to a Mexican flan. -
Review from COURT P.
4/14/2012
Awesome lunch, generous portions, good price. Only one waitress but she rocked. Handled the whole restaurant with super efficiency. Now that's a good eatery.
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Review from Rob B.
Toronto, ON
3/23/2012 2 Check-ins Here
Fantastic food. Great prix fixe menu for $25 and a la carte. Definitely worth checking out. Been here probably 20x
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Review from Kim I.
Toronto, ON
10/4/2011
I've been in to Sambucas before and was happy with the place overall. However, I was just in there this past Sat. night (Oct 1, 2011) with my boyfriend, and was not impressed. The food was good, so no complaints there. It was the service. The girl server we had was not friendly. First of all, when we entered the restaurant and asked for a table for 2, she walks away from us without saying anything, takes 2 menus and walks over to a table without even asking us to follow her. And then looks at us with this look on her face like 'well?'. It was so strange. Then, tables around us were being served who sat down after us, and were just sitting there wondering what the heck is going on. We're nice people too, no attitude from either of us. It was all so weird, as if we did something wrong.
When she came back to now take our order, there was no apology for having us wait so long, nothing. Anyway, throughout the rest of the dining event at Sambucas, our waitress had a more forced frendly way about her. It was all so unnecessary because my boyfriend and I were friendly the whole time. She had this attitude about her for no reason whatsoever.
I noticed another table throughout the evening was being neglected by her too. And badly enough that one of the patrons had to go to the bar and ask for his drink order. I noticed how friendly he asked the bartender (or another waiter), and how rude the waiter's response was back. The waiter was very abrupt and wouldn't even look at the patron.
So overall, even on a busy night, there is NO need to be rude to your customers. And offer an apology if they are waiting a long time. That goes a long way. I won't go back in there as long as that female waitress is there. She gave me such a negative feeling right from the beginning. She was so unwelcoming. Makes me wonder if she has something against caucasian women, lol. And I mean every word of that! -
Review from Malini D.
Toronto, ON
6/20/2011
Ahhh, what a way to ruin a perfectly amazing day.
We walked in hoping to get a nice dinner. At face value, the ambiance seemed to hint that it was a place where the server would seat you, but there was no server at front, so I just flagged one down (which will shortly be the theme of the evening, little did I know) and asked to be seated with menus. There were very few people in the restaurant at the time, perhaps only 4 other tables. The lighting and art on the wall suggested a romantic setting, but there was weird rock music playing on the speakers. That, plus one of the waiters throwing chairs around while rearranging a seating area after a dinner party created a really amateur and confusing environment.
My date ordered a salad and a prosciutto pizza, and I ordered a prix-fixe meal. I told the waiter that I wanted the soup, the mushroom chicken risotto, and creme brule. He told me he'll ask about the dessert later for reasons completely unknown. It seemed strange and unprofessional, but I went along with it. I also ordered a coffee. Ten minutes later, there was no food or coffee. I flagged down a waitress and she managed to get my coffee within a second. It tasted like nescafe, but at least it was bottomless. Eventually, the food arrived. The soup was alright, and the salad (balsamic/olive oil green salad with bell peppers) was quite good. It was promising! But then, our waters and coffee were not being refilled while I watched two other tables have theirs refilled. I tried to flag one of the waiters down but I think he missed me. I was considering racism or sexism at this point, but after observing the tables, I just realized the waiters (the male ones, the only female one there was actually capable and was quick to help us) were just terrible inattentive. They aren't very good at paying attention to the needs of each table. It was incredibly irritating and time consuming. I managed to get some water after a while of trying to flag people down.
The main course arrived and it was hilarious. I've never seen a risotto so ornamented with enormous chunks of stuff. I wish I had a camera on hand to show you. There were huge pieces of dry chicken, large pieces of pretty tasty asparagus and lots of mushrooms and a pile of unpleasant rice. The risotto base tasted like Campbell's mushroom soup, lightly flavoured by some of the more exotic mushrooms they added in later. It tasted like each element of this risotto was cooked separately, allowed to cool, then merged together haphazardly without time to marry the flavours. It was a failure, but at least I got a laugh out of it. Oh, and the prosciutto pizza was alright. Forgettable, I suppose.
After another 10 minutes of waiting around for the waiters to get rid of the empty plates, someone finally comes up and gives me a dessert menu for the prix-fixe. Considering that there were only four items in that section, I thought they would come up within 5 minutes to ask me what I wanted. 15 minutes pass by and still no sign. There are only 4 other tables here. Where are the staff? Oh, they're behind me near the kitchen, talking and laughing. At this point, I'm getting fed up, I just want to leave since I've been in this restaurant for an hour and a half at this point, and most of it was waiting around for stuff. Finally after my date flags down a guy, he says to wait a minute and he disappears to do a bunch of math. Now his inefficiency begins to boggle my mind. Getting a single order and then depositing this order to the chef while doing the bills would be much more efficient than making the table wait longer for him to come back, give the order to the chef, then wait again for the the chef to make the dessert, and then deposit the food at the table. This dinner was like death by a thousand inefficient cuts. So eventually we get a hold of him again and ask for the food and the bill at the same time. If he's not going to parallelize processes then goddammit, I will request that he does! Anyway, we get the creme brule, and the brule is too thick and hard, and the custard is alright. Not worth the wait. We paid and got the hell out of there, no less than 2 hours after our arrival.
If they want to be a fine-ish dining restaurant, they need to step up their staff and management. I would rather have eaten at McDonalds, and that place makes me puke. But at least the eating and puking fiasco would take less than 2 hours.
TL;DR: We were looking for a nice spot to have a semi-romantic dinner. I was looking for a tasty risotto. We got neither. Terrible food, inattentive and slow servers (except that one girl, you go lady, and good luck to you!), weird ambiance. Avoid it, bro. -
Review from Mike S.
Toronto, ON
8/18/2008 1 photo
I really wanted to like Sambucas, I honestly did. Not just because it's a five minute walk away from where I live, and not just because it offers a $25 three course prix fix menu, but those were two big reasons. I do not consider my self overly critical, I'm like the Goldilocks of criticism, I think that I am just critical enough, and I will even let my critical eye go slightly blind when the restaurant is walking distance. Let me temper this by saying that I love prix fix menus, I think that they let the chef do what he does best and then offer it to me. I think that they keep menus simple and don't overwhelm me with choice.
It's not that Sambucas was bad, it was that it was overwhelmingly mediocre. It is hard to make a bad Caesar salad, it is almost equally hard to make an excellent Caesar salad. It is quite easy to make a mediocre Caesar salad which is exactly what I received.
The service was adequate, yet shockingly lax considering that my dining partner and I and the one other table nearly outnumbered the wait staff. This is not something I can solely attribute to the front of house, yet when my steak came the plate was wickedly hot (which for those of you not in the know, means that it had sat under a warming lamp for some time.) That being said the steak was well cooked and the mass of mashed potatoes on which it sat were tasty and buttery. However my partner's pasta, while being well cooked and serviceably seasoned contained a bonus piece of metal, something that any diner prefers not to put in their mouth. So here is the tally so far - Mediocre salad, well cooked beef, prize in pasta.
Which brings us to desert, again I must inject my personal passion for crème brule. It is without a doubt my favorite desert on earth. I always order it when I see it on the menu and sometimes endure the entire meal awaiting my sweet custardy goodness. At this point I had faith in Sambucas it could atone for it's previous sins with a good caramelized custard.
It was burnt.
And I don't mean that it was brule, which would mean that it was a perfect golden brown on top. It was black and it tasted like charcoal and as if this weren't enough it was not in the traditional ramekin, but in a shallow soup bowl, where despite the scorched surface the underlying custard was firm and unappealing. I have little issue with a mediocre Caesar salad, I understand that accidents do happen (although they should never leave the kitchen) and that sometimes foreign objects can make their way into food, but if you can't cook a crème brule do not put it on the menu. If someone is trying crème brule for the first time they may think the burnt gelatinous mush that they received is a typical example of crème brule , and then understandably never try it again, and that is a truly sad thing.
Restaurant Rating : C-
Rating Scale
A- You should be eating at this restaurant tonight.
B- If you pass this restaurant you should seriously think about eating there.
C- If there are no other options and your hungry, eat here.
D- If you have been crawling through the desert and this comes over the horizon you should probably stop here.
F- Do the owner a favour and let the place go under so someone can put a good restaurant in.
Like the review? Check out the link to my blog on my profile. -
Review from Kevin F.
Toronto, ON
8/2/2010
Sambuca's is a three and a half star restaurant. It's not amazing but its a place I come back to often; its dependable. It's a no attitude restaurant that offers home-cooked-style meals. I've tried multiple dishes but the one that I prefer the most is the grilled chicken risotto. It's a hearty dish with fresh ingredients prepared on the spot. The menu is extensive and offers a variety of pasta dishes, pizzas and chicken entrees. It's not the type of restaurant that screams hip, trendy or excellent but its a place I always find myself considering a plan B. Good food, great service and a nice selection of wine & martinis. You can't really go wrong with Sambucas.
Side note: This restaurant is never packed. I think one reason for it not being a popular spot on Church Street is the crowd; the demographic for this restaurant is 50 plus. Not a negative, just an observation. I'm not ageist but every visit feels like a retirement home dinner. As I mentioned it's an attitude-free restaurant, so maybe that's what draws the old queens. -
Review from Lindsey S.
Toronto, ON
12/7/2009
Apparently I'm the only one that really liked this place. I've been 2 times now and each time gets better.
Both times I have gone, I have ordered off the pre fix menu and I think it's a great deal. A starter, a main and a desert...all for $25...not bad considering some of the items that are on the pre fix menu are very similar to the items on the regular menu that are about the same price but just for the main.
The amount of food is great! Large helpings and they are very yummy. I would recommend the Linguini with the Shrimp and calamari....but with out the calamari ;) It's very filling. Also their creme brulee is to die for....it's very very creamy and the crunchy top is done to perfection.
Apparently they have a great brunch...so I'll have to check that out ;)
The service has always been great, and very quick. I have to point out that I have only been on Sunday and Monday nights....not on a typical "dinner out night". The staff is also very friendly and offer great suggestions.
Location is great, the atmosphere is romantic, but the decor can use an update.... -
Review from Alfonso L.
10/31/2008
A real disappointment. I could understand time that it takes to prepare complex dishes, some chops, some seafood creations. But this is a simple pasta place, and the waits were interminable! How long did it take to get the evening special, which was a ridiculously simple chicken and mushroom mix on a bed of fettuccini? How about 30 minutes from the moment I ordered it?
Worth the wait? Hardly. The sauce was unseasoned, the pasta overcooked (ok, that makes sense), the chicken honestly tasted like was warmed up and not grilled at that moment. I had to keep adding salt and pepper to give it something. Then at the end, all the sauce thinned out at the bottom, leaving an unfortunate pool which should have been thicker during the preparation.
The carrot ginger soup that was the appetizer wasn't much better. Again, the barely visible sprinkle of parsley didn't do much to add any taste, because once again the soup was redolent of anything but carrots or ginger. I don't know what it was --probably something concocted with a little splash of Progresso.
I didn't even bother with the "homemade" desserts, which were on a list as I made it to the back to the restrooms at the end. I just couldn't do it. The best thing is that it's convenient there on Church St., and it was pretty cheap. Service was just OK. Oh, and could someone please lose the loud (for this kind of restaurant) house music and the high BPM thumping? -
Review from Luis H.
Toronto, ON
11/12/2011
Nice, intimate restaurant specializing in Italian food. Great decor and service gives this place a good rating. Prices tend to be a bit high, but as the only Italian restaurant in the Village area, this makes it one of the few non-commercial eateries located on this busy street.
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Review from Anil G.
East York, ON
5/12/2011 5 photos
If your looking for quality food that won't burn a whole in your pocket, you've found the place! From the service to the food it's a perfect package. The prefixed menu is the best in town, serving up their regular quality at an affordable price. They have fresh Atlantic Salmon that's cooked juicy and tender, with a load of fresh vegetables and some good old rice pilaf. I have to say vegetables aren't my thing but let me tell you they have made it steamed perfection. You can top it off with a delicious creme brulee that is a whole lotta heaven in your mouth. The great service tops off a terrific package that can not be refused. The staff have complimented the great chefs in the back with amazing and enjoyful service.
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Review from Anonymous A.
6/17/2011
Haven't been to Toronto for a while so I decided to try Sambucas for a second time. Not impressed. Food was good but service was not. Only two waiters were on hand and, while the restaurant wasn't crowded, they had too much to do to properly take care of customers. Seems they have no one to clean tables to that's the waiters' job too. Food was decent but not spectacular and prices were moderate to high. Not sure I'll be back.
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Review from Alan G.
London, ON
2/18/2009
Came here for lunch. They had a decent & flavourful tomato/dill soup - very satisfying. My entree, a thin crust sausage/pepper/sundried tomato pizza was tasty. Enough spicy kick, with flavourful tomato, however the crust was not the crunchy/cracker-like type that I prefer. Ambience was nice, and service was prompt (granted it was a slow day). Overall an enjoyable experience.
