Terroni to customers: "No cheese for you!"
This month's issue of Toronto Life has only been out for a few days, and yet everyone is talking about an article on Terroni, a fashionable pizza joint with multiple locations in the city.
The problem? Terroni has a "no modifications, no substitutions, no reservations" policy in order to ensure efficiency in the kitchen and front of house. Okay. But they also refuse grated cheese on pizza and in seafood pasta dishes, refuse to modify dishes for food sensitivities, and reportedly refuse water refills as well.
Wow. As a worldly foodie and former longtime waitress, I feel I need to check in here.
Yes, you're not supposed to eat seafood pasta with cheese and I certainly wouldn't. But I think people have the right to be uncouth and put cheese on their seafood pasta if they goddamn want to. They don't need some eye-rolling server standing at their table with a grater and refusing them service because the owner wants to be a douchebag.
And anyway, I went to Terroni once and didn't find it particularly impressive. Several days prior to my visit, I had an earth-shattering papardelle with green peas and truffle butter at Globe Bistro on the Danforth. When I saw nearly the same item on Terroni's menu, I salivated at the memory of Globe's and decided to try and "relive" the experience.
Ugh, it was like comparing a Picasso to a poorly rug-hooked copy of a Picasso. And there was only a price difference of about $3-4 for Globe's version.
Seekers of good Italian should look elsewhere. Don't believe me? Check out customer service horror stories at Restaurantica and the heated debate on Torontoist.
Photo by ex.libris.