Buca Yorkville

Buca Yorkville offers a regal culinary experience. The menu features items the we don’t see often in other Italian restaurants, stuff as «Gnocco Fritto» or «Burrata Pizza». A lot of individuals may say it’s very expensive, but when it comes down to it, if you avoid alcohol, the food is reasonably priced. If you don’t have a reservation, you might be lucky enough to sit at the «Tasting Menu Bar», which is right in front of the kitchen. These seating usually go for $ 100 exclusively for «Tasting Menu».
A must when visiting Toronto if you ask me.

the food definitely lived up to the name and hype. i have always been hesitant to go thinking it was just another Italian restaurant. but i would consider coming back. we had 2 drinks each, nothing special, over priced alcohol that was nothing but mediocre, we didn’t wish to order a bottle of wine (i know most tables did). we started with the burrata pizza, perfect thin crust and although simple, so full of flavour! i loved it, only complaint is that it was a warmish cold by the time it was served. moving on to entrées, i had the bigoli and my date had the gnocchi, both our dishes were delicious! especially the gnocchi, with the perfect amount of truffle, mixed with chestnut shavings and the crunch from the kaleit was the perfect texture and flavours — i can’t stop thinking about it. the bigoli was very tasty as well, with the duck, really flavourful sauce. but the pasta may have been a tad undercooked. we also had an order of the bread knots, perfectly seasoned with rosemary and garlic, cooked to the perfect crunch.
food, as mentioned was great — our service was mediocre, if that. the service at a restaurant makes all the difference and experience that much better. by the end we just asked for the bill before we even finished cause we figured it’d take too long otherwise. for the price and prestige that this restaurant is know for, i am very confused as to why our server was so disinterested in us being there. never smiled, made no effort to make sure we were taken care of and that everything was good. we had a different server check in and the few encounters with him, surpassed our entire experience with our original server. i understand you don’t necessarily connect with every server, but if he’s serving me again next time, there probably won’t be a next time, let’s just leave it at that.

I’ll start with this: I don’t get it. Buca Yorkville has received glowing reviews from Post City Magazine, Toronto Life and The Globe and Mail, but I unfortunately can’t share their enthusiasm for this restaurant. I struggled and wondered if the problem was with me, so I had to go back a couple times to confirm.
I had a mediocre experience at Buca Yorkville on my first visit, so I decided to go again. Same thing. So I decided to try a third time and the same issues kept popping up. Not an exhaustive list, but here are the few things that really stood out:
— Hair in food
— Burnt pizza
— Bones in fish
— Salt seemingly absent in certain dishes
— Inattentive staff
— Cutlery falling everywhere
Those things aside — which frankly should give a restaurant only 1 star — the few dishes that were done right were great. The raw branzino cut table-​side is an experience in itself and the pastas have great texture and flavor which I would expect having dined at Buca on King St. a number of times. For the most part, the desserts stood out as they were creative and not something you would find at any other restaurant in the city.
The aforementioned problems can be addressed, but having gone on three separate occasions, I haven’t seen a positive trend. Maybe I’ll drop by for a fourth time later and see if anything has been changed… but until then, I don’t get it.

Food, Service & Atmosphere was excellent. Stopped in here for some wine that turned into a dining experience. The pizza is fantastic. It is the perfect amount of crispiness & unlike the other terroni knock-​off pizzas in the city. Salads were fantastic. Be prepared for small portions & to try lots of different items on the menu. I like this location better than King West bc it’s not in a basement.

My boyfriend took me here for my birthday last summer. I was thankful for the experience, but let’s just say not enough to come back. The service, as expected, was good. I don’t expect much sincerity because I know they are trained a certain way, to me it just felt too rehearsed. Not my kind of atmosphere.
The food was unremarkable. I really can’t say anything stood out. They weren’t bad, but just didn’t blow my tastebuds away. We had: nodini, olives, salumi di mare, and polipo e vongole to share.

«High Expectations. Go… but read this review first!»
Earlier this year, Mark Pupo and Toronto Life rated Buca Yorkville as the number one new restaurant in Toronto. Having experienced Buca Yorkville recently, I am convinced that the set-​up and ready-​for-​a-​visit-​by-​a-​writer-​for-​a well-​known-​Toronto-​magazine, is much different than what anyone else, visiting «unannounced», would experience. A restaurant on its best behavior is not the same as a restaurant any other day of the week.
I had lunch at Buca Yorkville recently and based on all the hype and reviews in the media, we even accepted a 2pm sitting for lunch. However we made reservation that morning and this is to be expected near the Holidays for a restaurant of this caliber. Buca Yorkville is located next to the new Four Seasons Hotel however it is not accessible from the inside of the hotel. The design is modern minimalist with accents of wood to warm up the overall feel. There is nothing really exciting about the room and the bar, which does seem a little more sociable, is nice but located right at the front door which would cause quite the temperature fluctuations at the door.
The first thing to know about Buca Yorkville is that it is not cheap. The pricing is typical of a restaurant in or adjoining a 5 star hotel and the portions are inversely proportional. So if you’re looking for hearty Italian food that won’t amount to one night’s stay at The Four Seasons, this is not the place for you. Nervosa just down the street accomplishes that much better.
The menu at Buca Yorkville is interesting to say the least. The menu supposedly changes every day with some staple items such as the pizza and seafood remaining constant. While I understand that Rob Gentile is an extraordinary chef, I don’t believe he was present in the kitchen that day. Our meal did not give us the same exuberance that Mark Pupo of Toronto Life felt… either that or Mark has never had gnocchi made by an Italian grandmother. The Gnocchi, (the so called «signature» dish) was commonplace with a cream sauce that was a bit much. The truffle oil and the fried sage were helpful, but they were not exactly «soft pillows of joy»…that description is already assigned to Cucci in Oakville. The cocktails were however very good.
Along with the high 5 star price structure, the wait staff are not as «high» with passion and/​or warmth. Cocktails take a long time, and the waitress could not tell us why we should pay an additional $ 35 to add white truffle oil to the gnocchi (I guess we just wanted to be humored or spoken to by someone with a bit of passion that would be present when working for the best rated new restaurant in Toronto). And I will get to the menu in a minute. We ordered the Nodini and Olives and asked for them together as an appetizer and we ordered the sea bass and gnocchi and asked them to be brought together.
The so-​called «famous» nodini are actually bread balls, rolled in olive oil, sprinkled with rosemary and baked in an oven. And they are OK when served warm but tend to fade quickly after a few minutes at the table. And the olives stuffed with pork, which we asked to be brought at the same time, were nowhere in sight. They arrived much later. Then we received the sea bass which was 3 small pieces in a tomato based broth (or so it seemed) and the gnocchi were nowhere in sight. In that time our original waitress disappeared, a new one showed up unannounced and by the time we were finished a third wait staff took over.
The credit in the wait staff goes to the second waitress who advised the manager that we were not happy with the separate arrivals of dishes we asked to come at the same time. The manager came over and apologized for the mix up. And where all else seemed to go wrong, the manager (Andreas?) acted professionally and made good on our experience which basically saved eliminating Buca Yorkville from my contact list. Things will always go wrong, that’s a given. However it’s the way that management handles those situations and in our case the Manager came through with flying colors. A happy ending to an otherwise lame let down in our expectations.
I will go back to Buca Yorkville and probably have a beer and a pizza at the bar. My suggestions for improvement would be:
1. Just bring out the Nodini (bread balls) soon after the guests sit down as a free snack. For the pennies they cost to make (and you could charge for a second round) satiating people’s hunger as soon as they sit down gives your wait staff a bit more time to get things rolling. As the commercial says «you’re not you when you’re hungry».
2. Never make a change in the wait staff unannounced. Have the current person announce the arrival of the next person.
3. Get some better accent lighting in the main restaurant. The overall ambiance on a cloudy day is a little «gloomy».

Crudo, crudo, crudo! Raw fish carved up from whole — table side and splashed with olive oil and lemon. Yes!
Cured raw fish — prepared like Salumi and cut paper thin. Delicious.
Hand rolled pastas — amazing.
Knowledgable, attentive and attractive staff.

I came here on a Friday night with my husband. The location was a bit difficult to find because the entrance was on Yorkville, not Scollard.
We got a pasta and a pizza and they were both equally delicious. I would’ve given this restaurant 4stars but I wasn’t too happy with our server tonight.
Our server barely checked up on us. When he finally came with our bill, I asked him who would get our jacket and he said he would after he finishes with our bill. He never came back. I had to ask somebody else to get our jacket.

Came here as part of a large party for dinner, so was able to try several items off the menu. I wasn’t blown away by the food. I don’t think this place lives up to the hype.
First off, before discussing the food, I want to note that I found a hair in my rainbow trout (which I know was definitely not my own). Another person in our group also found a hair in her food. This was quite off-​putting.
Onto the food — I really enjoyed the appetizers, but the mains and desserts didn’t impress me much. For the appetizers, the branzino (thinly sliced raw fish) was great. Nice texture, with tastes of lemon and olive oil. the deep fried seafood was also really nice. The seafood tasted really fresh. Charcuterie, squid pockets and oysters were good too.
For the mains, we tried duck yolk and black truffle pizza. I found the pizza to be too crispy and some parts were burnt. We tried two different pastas (one with tomato sauce and the other with duck in it), and while I enjoyed the texture of the pasta (you can tell its freshly made), I wasn’t overly excited about the flavour of the sauces. The rainbow trout was very nicely done and prepared. They open it in front of you — it’s covered in salt, basil and thyme (I think) and slowly cooked at a very slow temp. Side of green beans were good and flavourful. The zuchinni side was quite sour.
Desserts — the panna cotta was the hit at our table. Light and fluffy with sorbet underneath. Very nice light dessert. The olive oil cake was too dry and grainy. The semifreddo was really chocolaty and alcohol-​y (which could be a good thing if that’s what you’re after!). Tiramisu was too dense/​creamy for my liking.

I have mixed feelings about the food at Buca — the appetizers were great, but the mains were less impressive. For the price point, I would’ve expected more in terms of quality. The atmosphere was nice and service was friendly. Overall, it was a nice dinner.
Appetizers:
Branzino — yum
Deep fried seafood — yum
Charcuterie — pretty good
Squid pockets– ok
Oysters — ok
Mains:
Pasta — meh
Duck yolk and black truffle pizza — pretty good
Rainbow Trout — pretty good
Zucchini — ok
Dessert:
Panna cotta — pretty good
Semifreddo — meh
Tiramisu — too dense

Interesting food, but service was pretentious. I guess they expect some sort of minimum order because our server actually asked us «you’re going to order more right?» after stopping in for a late 9pm restaurant grazing.
The cured seafood antipasti was interesting but not amazing. The standout dish was the swordfish belly but the portion was small. The black ink squid ravioli was an interesting thing to do w/​bread but there wasn’t much flavor to the bread.

Took me longer than usual to decide how I was going to review this one. Something about it felt three stars to me, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was — so I had to reflect on the experience with some distance.
First — this is a fine dining restaurant. It is sometimes easy to forget that Italian food, seemingly rustic and simple, can be fine dining. Reminding oneself that Italian food can in fact include high end ingredients and a formal presentation/​service will help you swallow the price tag. This is a restaurant you dress up for. It’s for special occasions, not a quick pizza.
There were moments were I felt like service was lacking, but upon my reflection, I decided it was just that I didn’t connect with the server at all. Usually places I frequent or enjoy have warm, relaxed service, where you build a rapport with your server. Here, the servers are just that — they are there to serve you; to enforce, not break down, the line between customer and wait staff. It is all part of the high end ambiance. This is not as true at the King Street location, but the clientele and the atmosphere of Yorkville lends itself well to this refinement. It’s just not something I would want at every restaurant I go to, but it is nice if you are looking to feel special.
Wine prices ranged from slightly expensive to insane as Hell. It’s too bad because the food just begs to be eaten with a delicious wine, and they have so many, but most were completely out of my reach. The server could tell this and sort of recommended wines in a patronizing way, but I suppose they are taught to spot the cheapos and do their best at the upsell.
Dishes had clean and straightforward flavours. Not reinventing the wheel here. I appreciated the low noise level (a rarity it seems these days) and the delicate touches like crumbing the table between courses.
My conclusion: Take your lady or your gent out for your anniversary here!

Appreciated the comments here about the entrance being in the Yorkville side.
Arrived at the restaurant to realize that the summer menu does not have the lobster truffle ravioli so had to switch it up. We had the stuffed olives, bread knots, seafood pizza, black cod and panna cotta.
The olives were good but would have been better with maybe a sweet chili sauce. The bread knots look huge in the pictures here but are actually bite sized and scrumptious. The seafood pizza was good and the black cod delicious.
I would like to thank the previous reviewers for the comments on the panna cotta. It was exquisite. Light and lemony offset with the tartness of the rhubarb and then topped with bits of sponge toffee and airy pillows of bufala yogurt which resembled meringue. This is one of my favorite desserts ever and I am not a rubarb fan.
Service was excellent, with someone even holding the door into the washroom for me. Only odd thing — had to use toilet paper to dry our hands. No hand dryers or noticeable towels.

The entrance is a little hidden, but once you find it, you’ll be in for a good time.
When you get in, you’ll see a nicely decorated bar with a modern looking lighting hanging on top. It’s a nice bar to grab a drink and wait for your table. Once you get your table, depending where you sit, you’ll see a very clean opened kitchen. I’ve always loved the opened kitchen, because you can watch the food get prepared, as well as smell the different spices and sauced used for the food. Another key thing is, you know the kitchen is clean, since they kind of have to being an opened kitchen, and you know how your food is prepped.
The staffs are very friendly and helpful in chosing what food to order. We were debating between a few dishes and appetizers, so we left it up to the server to help us order.
The cured fish wasn’t anything spectacular. If you haven’t tried them before, you can go ahead and try them, but don’t expect too much. A ³⁄₅ for this.
The squid ink dumpling is very interesting. If you’ve taken a look at the pictures, you’ll notice the black pocket looking things. The inside is completely empty, so you’re suppose to scoop some of the spreads into it to eat. If you’ve had anything with squid ink before, you’ll know that it doesn’t actually have much taste to it. The main taste comes from the spread itself. It is a little spicy, so for those who can’t handle any spiciness, this is not for you. Overall, I do enjoy this dish, just wish there was a little more of the spread. A ⁴⁄₅ for this.
The main dish I had was the braised octopus. This was excellent! Normally, you’d think the octopus is very chewy and your jaws will get tired by the end of eating it. However, this one was an exception. It was very soft, yet retained a bit of the tenderness. One down side of this dish is that, by the end, the sauce got a little too salty for me. Despite that, I’d still give this a 4.5÷5.
Overall, an excellent place for dinner. If you are looking for some place a little more classy and fancy, with really good food, definitely one of the best place to go.

Located on the ground floor of the Four Seasons resident towers, I loved the quiet area away from the busier Bloor-​Avenue side.
The restaurant has a modern look inside and serving staff are very knowledgeable of the menu.
The garlic bread knots were delicious but the bigoli duck pasta is a must try!
The tiramisu for dessert was very rich and a different take from traditional tiramisu. I probably would not order it again.
Will be back to try the burrata pizza which looked amazing!

Situated in the ground floor of the city’s Four Seasons Private Residences, it can be a little hard to find! But don’t let them fool you because the restaurant has a great menu that needs to be tasted and indulged in!
We made reservations for brunch at 10:30am, Saturday, which made us the first customers of the day. Since there weren’t many customers, there were more people working (and standing) which made us a little uncomfortable at first.
Because it was our first meal of the day, I ordered English breakfast tea and my hubby ordered an Americano. If I remember correctly, I believe I got Earl Grey instead of breakfast tea because they didn’t have any. I was kind of surprised at first, since English breakfast tea is like the tea-​equivalent of coffee to many, but nonetheless, I didn’t mind too much.
Inside Buca Yorkville, it is chic but warm; everything was immaculately clean and finely set out, which impressed me. The grey undertones of the chairs, brick walls, and the floor give it a sharp, chic look, but the bright warm undertones of the tables really shined through making the restaurant inviting, and keeping the focus on the table.
Buca Yorkville charges extra for house bread, so we opted to try an appetizer instead of regular bread. I chose to try their squid ink dumplings, and we were both surprised to see that it was actually bread! Our waiter was very knowledgeable and told us how to eat it: break the bread, fill it with n’duja (spread), and enjoy! Made with squid ink, the ‘dumplings’ were puffed pastries that were hollow inside for the filling. What was interesting was that the dumplings were not pre-​filled before they were cooked. In fact, the n’duja that was served along with the dumplings was what you were suppose to eat the dumpling with.
I ordered their Carbonara pasta because I wanted something hearty and filling for brunch. Need that energy to get through the day! This Carbonara was very good, and was surprised to see a seafood version. I should’ve taken a picture of my dish before my waiter mixed the egg yolk with the pasta; it was so beautifully plated! About the food: the pasta was al dente, and it tasted heavenly. The noodles were thicker than what I’m used to, and what was interesting about the carbonara was that they used a hen’s yolk (compared to a male[?] egg yolk). I’m not sure what the difference really is, and I’d really like to know. I can’t seem to find a good article on explaining what the difference is. Anyway, instead of the well-​known bacon, Buca also used smoked herring in the pasta which was pleasantly surprising. Smoked herring was quite salty and was a really good substitute to bacon.
Hubby opted for a much lighter meal for brunch and ordered their open-​faced omelette with truffle. Served with some warm bread, the omelette was very rich in flavour because of the truffle. The omelette was tasted great; if you’re a fan of truffle, you must try this! Burrata, the cheese used the omelette, is an Italian cheese made from mozzarella and cream, giving it a completely different texture from your standard mozzarella. All together, the flavours of the omelette was focused around the truffle, while the egg and burrata evenly supported the flavours out well. It is a light but definitely worthwhile brunch dish.
After our mains, we hesitated but decided to try Buca’s tiramisu. When we ordered our dessert, I wasn’t expecting such a different version of tiramisu than we were used to. With layers of mascarpone cheese and espresso, this is not your typical tiramisu, and because it isn’t, I can imagine that it may not be everyone’s cup of tea because it certainly wasn’t mine. The cheese was just too much for me.
Toronto’s Buca on King St. West is very well known and probably a favourite of many of us. I personally haven’t been to the original location, but I’m not sure if I have to, now that I discovered Yorkville’s location with its seafood focused menu. Recently, Toronto Life announced Buca Yorkville as top best new restaurant of 2015 in Toronto! Did that persuade you to try Buca Yorkville? I can’t wait to go back when I’m in town!

I came here on a Friday for a work lunch. Food was fantastic, prices were high but still less than I thought it would be and the service was great.
What I had: sparkling water, glass of Chianti and stuffed butternut squash ravioli. The ravioli was a bit on the small side but absolutely delicious.
The only reason I didn’t give them 5 stars is because there website is crap. Very difficult to find an online menu and to distinguish between there different locations.
One thing I didn’t realize until I got here was that the restaurant is located inside the Four Seasons Private Residences in Yorkville.
I won’t be a regular, but will try and come back again.

Delicious food! I’ve visited each Buca location and it was my first time here. The food was so good — it definitely did not disappoint and was just as good as the original king st location
I like the open style kitchen
We had the fungi pizza to start (which is a buca classic) it was delicious!
I then had the double stuffed ravioli — so good and you can see both stuffings when you cut into each piece. Not a huge portion but amazing pasta! My boyfriend had the braised octopus. Very tasty and full of flavor. The razor clams it came with were delicious too
We were too full for dessert but drove over to bar buca to pick up some treats for home.
Everything was top notch
We’ll definitely be back!

Went with a larger group. I had to arrive early (6pm) but there was no pressure to kick us out which was a good things because by the end it was well after 9.
The first and last dishes to arrive were the best. The first was the gnocco fritto (squid ink dumplings with tuna n’juda) and the last was the zeppole (roman donut with pistachio cream).
In between was a roller coaster of good and not so good. Some of the pastas and pizza choices were good and others not so much so. It seems the simple dishes were incredible and the more complex were less so. The complex dishes were also a lot more expensive too. The pizzas were disappointing. The pasta was hit and miss. In particular, the ravioli doppi was a $ 39 miss. The lobster claw and shaved truffle couldn’t hide the thick pasta and odd parsnip filling.
Service was attentive and well choreographed. The service time between the dishes however, were not consistent. For example, we ordered some more food (bison and cauliflower) after our initial orders and they came 10 minutes apart. Maybe it was too North American of me, but I saw no reason why they couldn’t come at the same time.
In the end, Buca Yorkville was a 3 hour adventure filled with good and not so good food and service that was pleasant but a bit scattered. The people watching is incredible too. you mike get a dose of the real housewives of Toronto with all the fixings… fake laughs, fake boobs and all.

Morale of the story: one would think resto addresses indicate where the front door is located, well think otherwise… there will always be exceptions
It was for a Tuesday evening — I called ahead of time to make a reservation for a party of 6 at 5pm so the cluster of us can empty our wallets over le vino and other dishes that have proven to be difficult to pronounce before catching a show afterwards. «Sorry we won’t be able to accommodate your party size.», the hostess says. Little do they know that we do not take «no» for an answer since we were all excited to try the newly opened restaurant.
Tuesday evening rolls in and we decided to give walk-​in tables a try. Little did we know how hard it is to find the front entrance! After walking in circles, we finally found the front entrance from Yorkville Avenue. Upon entering the restaurant we noticed more than half the restaurant is empty. So one might wonder: why on earth did the fellow over the phone decline our phone reservation?! Fine, fine… keep it cool… remember we’re here for the food. And the wine. It might be worth the confusion.
A pleasant gentleman greeted us politely and sat us down, and without further adieu, continued on to highlight items of recommendation from the menu (since us commoners no speak upscale terms). We ordered a bottle of rosé, the branzino (raw sea bass), nero di seppia (squid ink pizza) and the anguilla (fried eel) to share for three people.
The branzino was my favourite, they bring out a whole fish, uncooked, and slice it in front of you. The rest was okay.
The bill came to $ 65 per person, which is what you’d expect to pay at a restaurant like Buca, however if I was any hungrier I’d probably stick to a burger joint to get your bang for the buck.
Would I come back? Maybe, if they’d take my reservation (since I despise the uncertainty of not having a guaranteed table for a fine-​dining restaurant) and probably just for the branzino.