Zolas

Excellent homemade pasta and bread, mussels and Gorgonzola chicken and spaghetti and meatballs were very tasty and salad was refreshing!

The food is SOOOOOO overpriced. honestly and truthfully the food is… crap. I wish i could tell you it was amazing and i spend my hard earned money wisely but i can’t. I got a poutine to start which was drowning in gravy to the point where it looked more like a soup. When i asked for a new one they brought me pretty much the exact same thing. For my main coarse i got pizza which was worst of all. The cheese slid right off the crust every time i went to pick up a slice and the bread was soggy. My father got a shrimp dish that he wasn’t pleased with either. Unless they improve significantly there is not a chance that ill be back at this establishment.

Tried their Penne Alfredo (takeout). I ordered the dinner size.
Opened it up at home and the content looked like lunch size (more like a kids size).
The sauce was watered down and had no taste to it.
Hated it.
Worst thing about it: paid almost $ 20.
Never again.

I challenge anyone to find a better value, better prepared, better tasting weekday breakfast in Ottawa. Definitely try the «big budgie» if you’re hungry (and like a variety of breakfast meats). The «stubsie» is a phenomenal corned beef hash worth making the trip west for as well!
Food comes relatively quickly out of the ‘open’ kitchen and the servers are extremely friendly and eager to please.
As it is fairly quiet in the morning, Zola’s remains a somewhat undiscovered spot at breakfast. They deserve to be much busier.

I’ve been coming here since 1997 and always thought it was a cool joint in an unlikely location. The fresh house-​made pasta is always nice, but the last few times the chicken has not tasted so fresh. Other than that all the dishes are generally very good and nicely presented. The Gorgonzola cream sauce is to die for, whatever you get with it!
The food is made to order, as you can witness in the open kitchen facing the dining area. There is also a storefront near the entrance where you can buy fresh made pies, cannelloni, bread, and pizzas to take home.
Check out their schedule at
because they always have promotions during the week and live jazz on Saturdays. My favorite deal is Dinner for Two on Wednesday night: $ 50 for a complete meal including two glasses of wine, each!

I have been here many times mostly for breakfast meetings and they were all great meals.
This time I went for a dinner meeting. I ordered one of the specials of the day which was fresh homemade linguine with chicken, pears and Gorgonzola sauce. It was delish! The pasta was very nicely cooked. Beside being delish, there was enough sauce! I find most restaurants don’t serve enough sauce for my liking. It was just right sized portion, served in a lovely asymmetrical bowl, an attractive presentation. One of my colleagues order the same and she also loved it. The other colleagues ordered pizza which they also raved about.
I can’t wait to go back and order the mushroom and prosciutto pasta!
The service staff obviously like their jobs as they were all attentive and friendly all evening.

So wanted to like this place, because the service was great. The food and cleanliness however was less than par. We ordered some type of smoked brisket. I label it as «some type» because whatever was on my bun was not what was described on the menu. The meat tasted like it had been drying in the fridge for a few weeks, and there was absolutely noooo sauce on the bun. Just dried meat that kind of resembled pemmican. Oh, and the French fries were defiantly from the bottom of the deep fryer. Thin, hard, and greasy. I felt bad when I had to ask the waitress for a side order of sauce to make the sandwich palatable, but there it is.
Better off going to Arby’s…sorry.

I went here on a weekend a few months ago with my boyfriend and I really don’t understand all the positive reviews– unless I came in on an off day. The menu seemed very pricey and limited to me. Basically everything is a pizza and that’s not really my thing. However, everything I did want was on the lunch hour menu which we had missed by a matter of minutes. I asked the waitress if it was possible to still order from the lunch menu as I was ready to walk out otherwise. Thankfully she asked the chef and he let me choose from a few options.
I chose the clam chowder for an appetizer and it had to be the worst most disgusting thing I had ever tasted. It was incredibly spicy and the clams were grey rubber. I’ve tasted chowder from all over the world and never experienced anything this appalling. I asked the waitress to verify if it was clam chowder and she told me it was. She took it back to the kitchen but nothing was offered to me in return. When the main courses came they even got my boyfriend’s wrap wrong. And while they were large wrap/​sandwiches they were incredibly pricey and bone dry.
I would never return to Zola’s after this

Terrible experience, chicken was overlooked, pasta was watery and on top of that my daughter found a human hair in her dessert…

Amazing brunch. Simply amazing. Kylie’s Big Breakfast included some awesome fiery spicy ham, I can only imagine how that would be on Eggs Benedict. The atmosphere is nice and the menu is simple but has great variety, I would definitely be keen to return to try lunch or dinner.

First came here 25 years ago when it opened with friends parents who loved it… hadn’t been back for probably 20 years (seriously that statement made me feel ancient!) so after my brother-​in-​law raved about it and my boyfriends Mom said she had been often for breakfast I figured it was time to go back…
Our server was really knowledgeable and helpful and we ended up ordering two of her suggestions. Sadly my pasta was under cooked and the sauce was too salty… I remember it being really good before — maybe this most recent visit was on the chefs night off.

I’m sorry Laura, but my Zolas experience was not so hot.
I had a friend that loves this place — not a foodie — so we opted to try it out ’cause it’s close to home and see what he was fussing about.
we ordered 2 apps and a main to share
coconut curry mango shrimp to start — great, nice crisp on the shrimp, great spice on the sauce… very tasty.
caesar salad — wow, way to much fresh garlic… really overpowering.
the main course was Zola’s Feast; Chicken, mushroom, panchetta, shrimp, and pasta dish… chicken had some many herbs on it i could have planted it in my garden, and the chicken was over — pasta i think was homemade but was under cooked, and had this weird stringy tendancy… very odd. The shrimp were grilled and tasted awesome
the service was fantastic, super quick, very friendly and helpful.
front of house 5 stars… back of house…2 stars.
we will try it again hoping maybe the main chef was off sick, and based on Laura’s review i will try her fav dish.

Zolas has become one of my favorites. It’s become so bad that I find myself craving their mushroom and prosciutto pasta on the way home, and I find myself giving into that temptation.
From the outside, you wouldn’t guess that it’s a pretty nice restaurant with great service. Their outside logo hasn’t been updated to reflect their new one (more upscale). It’s worth going in, and tasting their fresh pasta made in house.
If you’re up for it, Zola’s also offers flights of beer that allow you to sample a variety before making a decision. A fun little thing to do.
Breakfast here is good too, but it’s a little overpriced for what you get. Your best bang for your buck is definitely lunch or dinner.