Cantine Bar & Grill

Have eaten here several times over the last 5 years or so. The food is pretty good, with a very varied lunch menu (including burgers, sandwiches, flatbread pizzas and omelettes) that is pretty reasonable considering the Yorkville neighbourhood.
However I called a few weeks ago to book my work colleagues and I in for a Christmas lunch (after successfully having it there the year prior) and they were incredibly unhelpful and rude on the phone — loudly sighing when I told them the number of people — which was 12 — and saying they could only accommodate us on 2 separated tables to help the kitchen staff with smaller orders. I offered that we could order in 2 groups and receive the food in increments or place our orders in advance as we had the previous year, and was told this was «not possible» and that they had «been in ‘the business’ for X years and this was just how it is» — I think she said 17 years but I can’t recall exactly). Ultimately I was told with a big sigh and a lot of attitude that it «depends on the day» how things go in the kitchen whether or not we could be accommodated as a group and if I «wanted to risk it» I could book. I realize 12 is larger than the average lunch but it’s a pretty big restaurant and we’ve gone as a group before — what changed? If you’ve been in the business 17 or however many years, lady on the phone, you should have learnt better how to deal with customers who would have been more than willing to make accommodations that work for you in order to come (back!) and enjoy your restaurant… but apparently not. Incredibly rude — we’ll take our business elsewhere then.

Love this place!
Best salmon I have ever had.
Highly recommended. One of me and my girlfriends favorites

Went there on a Monday night with a friend. Everything was perfect. The food, atmosphere and service was great. I also couldn’t believe how busy it was. Our waitress Sandra was awesome. I’ll definitely go back and I’ve already recommend this place.

I really like this place. Casual but elegant with a «neighborhoody» feel. I’ve gone with a former business partner (who it turns out is a snake) for just a coffee, and casual and business dinners and it’s been perfect every time. Very pro servers really helps.
Cantine advertises it’s Italian (and while that may be true), it has things on the menu like burgers, ribs, and curry that really throw the scent off (but it’s all good).
I recommend:
1. Roasted Beet, Pear, and Warm Goat Cheese Salad ($ 10.95)
2. Pan Seared Calamari ($ 10.95)
3. Cantine’s Famous Caesar Salad ($ 10.95)
4. Spaghettini with Grilled Shrimp ($ 16.95)
Considering it’s near the high-​priced district of Avenue & Yount, it’s very well priced. Kudos on many levels.

I’ve only been here for brunch. The mushroom and spinach crêpe here is absolutely amazing, the white wine sauce is delicious as well. The layout of the restaurant is cozy and there is natural light spilling it which makes it quite nice. The food is good and the bread before brunch is good as well, however the service here is quite awful, all the waiters are rude and couldn’t care less about you. If the staff was better. The place would improve 100%

Tried this place our during winterlicious 2015. Great food and good service. Quiet dining area perfect for a dinner date

This place is about a 10 min walk from the Park Hyatt so we tried it for a Saturday Brunch. The food is pretty average but done well. I had the 2 eggs any style $ 8.25 and subbed with a side of fruit +$ 2.25. For $ 10.50 I got 2 eggs and a small bowl of fruit — kinda pricey and then there was a basket of bread for us to share which was pretty good. The over easy eggs were cooked properly and the fruit was good. My husband enjoyed the omlette but didn’t rave about it. Coffee was pretty good and refilled frequently.
overall experience was good.

Went here for winterlicious this year. the food was great I had fire grilled calamari, fire grilled atlantic salmon, and chocalate torte. all of em tasted great! I like the ambience here too. It has romantic feel to it.
The only thing I didn’t like about our dinner is their service. They seemed to ignore us. My friend asked for ginger ale and 10 mins had past and still no ginger ale. we had to ask them twice for it. My other friend asked for water cause their dessert is too sweet but her dessert was already done and still no water. The server only remembered after giving us the bill (that we didn’t ask for yet) :/​we know that they cant bill us separately and we had to do it ourselves but the guy who who took our payments thru the machine seemed rude. After we paid he just left without saying thank you same to the server who took the cash.
I know we went their for winterlicious and they were packed but still customers are customers and should be treated nicely.

Went for dinner on Sunday night. No reservations available for 5 on opentable — but was able to call and they squeezed us in — which was great. Definitely we were on the younger age scale of patrons at 7 ish on Sunday night… We’ve been to cantine lots of times before mostly for brunch. The dinner…
I started with the ‘famous’ chopped caesar salad — not sure what makes it famous but it is not the generous portions of dressing — nor was it ‘chopped’ — just standard caesar salad with a little too much dressing.
I had a main of the crab cakes — can’t go wrong here they are fried but delicious! Had the appetizer as a main and it was perfect along with the caesar. There were a few portions of the calamari pasta being passed around and it was great /​had it for lunch the next d ay too. Also the beet salad — love beets so that was good.
All in all — good go to spot but nothing out of this world.

I would categorize this one as straightforward comfort food done well.
While visiting Toronto, we received a recommendation to try out the Cantine Bar & Grill for dinner. We had a large party that consisted of half adults and half kids. They sat us toward the back of the restaurant (near the kitchen) so we saw a lot of traffic go by. Our service was great, our drink orders were promptly taken, followed by our etnree orders. I appreciated how the kids were treated (ages 13 down to 10 months) when the orders were taken.
The orders included the curry, chicken, ribs, pasta among the table. It was competently made and well presented. I ordered the half-​chicken and it was made well, not dried out but juicy while the sauce had great flavor.
The dessert menu was also pretty good, with a chocolate torte standing out in the crowd.
While it was not haute cuisine, it served exactly the profile we were looking for: good neighborhood place to dine.

It’s a half a year later and thinking about this place still irks me.
Caught in one of the summer rainstorms a friend and I stumbled into the first dry, warm and food offering establishment we found. We dripped our way to the last table available and ordered a polenta appetizer and a nicoise salad for a main.
Service was friendly and prompt; the polenta was some of the best I’ve had. Seriously, unbelievable good and it wasn’t just our extremely hungry stomachs speaking. We anxiously awaited our main — the excitement increasing as we observed all the delicious food being served to other tables.
Ohhhh how the bar fell. Quickly and swiftly.
What we got was a unpalatable mess of greens, boiled eggs and an assortment of canned… everything. Canned tuna, canned beans, canned artichokes and heck even the potatoes shared the infused briny taste of its neighbours. Is it even possible to can potatoes?! We could barely get through a few bites of this banality before we just gave up leaving hungry, confused and disappointed. The remains of our salad were offered to us in doggy bags which were promptly discarded as we turned the corner.
This salad needs to be stricken from their menu or upgraded to meet the standards of their other offerings. I’m wavering on giving this place 2 stars since selecting from a menu shouldn’t feel like a game of Russian roulette. Though because of the service and quality appetizer I’ll up it to a 3. But they’ll have to wait for another serendipitous rainstorm to lure me in again.

First winterlicious meal of 2013.
3.5 stars
I’ve only been to Cantine 3 times since I started working in the area 2 years ago.
The first time didn’t impress much, had a salad and calamari for take-​away — It was pricey and bland. Then my colleagues and I went to last year’s summerlicious lunch and winterlicious lunch today.
My menu:
— Soup of the day (Peas and veggie soup)
— Fish of the day (Mahi mahi with caper sauce and roasted veggies)
— Roasted pears with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce
Great food for just $ 15 each plus tax and tip. They have complimentary bread and butter and we all agreed the bread was really good.
The interior is nice and clean, there are very comfy seating at the front. They can be very busy and a bit slow, but today’s service was surprisingly quick. It’s not as packed most likely due to the weather. I would recommend making reservations.
If ordering from the regular menu, it can be pretty pricey. Since there’s a number of lunch options in the area, I would come back for the affordable ‘licious menu.

It was a dark and stormy night and the streets were all but bare. Two ravenous young women ineffectively shielded by their flimsy old umbrellas hastily made their way down Avenue road in the hopes that they would soon find shelter from the unyielding downpour. An unearthly rumbling frightened the girls until they realized that it was, in fact, their poor protesting bellies crying out for sustenance. Thankfully, without a moment to spare, the pair happened upon Cantine. They were cold. They were drenched. But most importantly — they were HUNGRY! They surged through the front doors into their new found haven.
They were seated at what was apparently the restaurants last unreserved table, which made them feel quite fortunate indeed! The ladies delighted in their starter — polenta served with a gorgonzola cream sauce and a blissfully plump portobello mushroom. Absolutely to die for. The creamy polenta danced across their tongues being effortlessly sashayed by the exquisitely robust gorgonzola sauce. Expectations for their entrees soared as the pair contently sipped on the surprisingly decent house red wine.
The entrees arrived and abruptly the music died. In disbelief the girls glared down at lank greens, vinegar drenched artichokes, sub par mealy olives and limp green beans. But most appalling of all was the decrepit dry tuna that unabashedly displayed it’s canned origins atop this mess of unappealing fare. The chopped eggs boastfully shone brightly at either side of the plate, knowing full well that they were they only appetizing component to this derelict Nicoise salad. It’s sad to say that those egotistical eggs were painfully correct. As the girls poked and prodded at their disappointing salads, the aroma of other patrons far superior meal choices temptingly and teasingly invaded their flared nostrils. It was clear that they had mis-​ordered — they had GRAVELY mis-​ordered.
It would seem wise for Cantine to remove the Nicoise Salad from their menu as it appears to be the one dim light in an otherwise vibrant menu. The pair agreed that they would return and order with far more caution next time around.

Went again for the regular menu this time and I’m a fan now. I got the hangar steak which came with sweet potatoe fries. Delicious. Good service too.
Good:
Hangar steak
Salmon dish
Caesar salad
Decent:
Tilapia dish
Grilled calamari (very tomatoey)
Crab cakes (tasted great but only came with 2 tiny pieces)

I went to Cantine Bar and Grill with a few friends during Summerlicious last year (2011), and we vowed we would return because we loved the food so much.
Additionally, the owner was so engaging and treated us to drinks at the end of the night.
I am embarrassed to say that we didn’t return as we would have liked.
Instead, we returned for Winterlicious 2012!
What can I tell you … this place cranks it up a notch for the price.
For $ 25 — you get an awesome selection of appetizers and mains, as well as three dessert options.
The wine guy, Bart, who happened to be our waiter that evening, brings in an awesome selection of wines.
We chose the Bogle Merlot and Petite Sirah (sic) from Sonoma County.
Delicious … old world style wines from the new world.
Most of us had the Polenta with Portabello Mushroom appetizer … our designated driver had the Beet Salad — just in case things got out of hand with the polenta.
The polenta was melting in our mouths … had some crisp cheese on top, and had a nice, succulent slab of portobello mushroom as the base. So many flavours — really well done!
For the mains — the designated driver and I shared two vegetarian options — the Eggplant Rollatini (eggplant rolled with spinach and ricotta — baked with red sauce and a bit of Parmiggiano) was killer. We also had the Spaghettini with lemon, leeks and carrot with a butter, shallot, olive oil, cream and white wine reduction.
Fantastic.
The two others enjoyed some meat main. I don’t remember what it was … but they were quite pleased with their options.
For desert, I tried the Berries with Mango Gelato. Just right.
Everyone else had Key Lime Pie — and they enjoyed it immensely.
The evening was capped off with Grappa.
The service was quite good — the atmosphere welcoming and overall — Cantine is a must-​go-​to joint for unpretentious, good, tasty Italian food in Toronto!

On a rainy Sunday night we were trying to get into a different restaurant close by, but it was closed, so we chose Cantine. At 7pm, the place was full, and we had no reservations, but we were happy to sit at the bar for a drink and our entire meal, which we often do.
Firstly, the positives, and there are two.
The prices on the menu are pretty good so it doesn’t pretend to be a high-​end dining experience. And we met one staffer who was called in to help with the evening service, even though he was at home ready for an evening off. He was great. And for him alone, the restaurant gets one star.
Now the negatives:
1. The staff were arguing and swearing, right in front of us, all night long. We eat at bars alot… staff can cuss and swear all night long, but please keep that abusive behaviour in the kitchen.
2. A word of advise to restaurants: don’t seat me if you can’t service me. It took 50 minutes for our salad course to arrive.
3. And, Try and make your salads look interesting. We ordered a Salade Nicoise and the tuna was simply dumped out of a tin! There it was on the plate… a perfect disk of cheap canned tuna.
4. If you still want to go here, for whatever reason, AVOID the pizza at all cost! It’s served on a frozen cracker crust that is worse than any grocery store pizza I have ever purchased.
ALERT: I think this place is going out of business it this was a normal experience.

I went here for the first time yesterday night to celebrate something with my family. Several members of my family have been to this place before for Summerlicious and really enjoyed it.
A nice atmosphere and excellent service, everyone ordered a variety of different dishes, many of which I tasted. I myself had a chicken salad and thought it was very good. My sister’s pasta dish was amazing though! Our waiter never rushed us out and was quick to refill water and bread and clear dishes, etc. That with an arm brace on!
Prices are a little high, which is why I didn’t give this place five stars… I know those amazing places exist out there with great food AND great prices, but this was a nice evening out.

I have to say that this is my favorite brunch spot in Toronto!
Located right on the edge of Yorkville, they have a great menu and delicious food. The atmosphere is relaxing and inviting. The prices are very reasonable. I have never ever had bad service and did I mention that the food is amazing!!!
I don’t think you can make reservations on Sundays but if you go after 12:30 — 1:00, you shouldn’t have a problem getting a table.
I highly recommend both the eggs benedict and the mushroom and goat cheese omelette. Yum!

Absolutely nasty.
Service was pretentious. I went with a guy so I got to be the little lady that was talked down to. There were more than just one server helping us out, and the rest seemed to be nice.
The tablecloth was gross and had a giant yellow crusty food stain. I asked to be moved.
Went for Summerlicious. Chose the mussels. Bad choice. It tasted like the zoo smells, which is like rotting poo. So disgusting. I had to send it back and got the safer bet (chicken) which was better.
The crowd? Old people that look like they’re going to keel over any moment (and that apparently have no taste buds), probably visiting from the retirement living residences nearby.
Overall, the food was bland. The mussels were absolutely DISGUSTING and turned me off of ordering mussels ever again. Now that’s a strong impression!
The worst was that they continued to serve the mussels the rest of the night! That’s GROSS. A woman sat there with a full plate of mussels not eating while her dinner companion was eating his meal. Like, it wasn’t just me, there was a serious problem with the mussels!
The one pretentious server and the nasty tablecloth stain didn’t help boost their star power either – and they didn’t even change it! Ok maybe it would’ve caused a commotion, but honestly? Gross mussels that they CONTINUED TO SERVE even though they literally tasted like poo and I had to send it back telling them that they weren’t fresh and that they had gone bad or something… Still serving them… Nasty. Big fat crusty tablecloth stain… Decent wine…
The other servers were nice though, and the chicken that replaced my steaming bowl of poo wasn’t bad at all.
I would never recommend this place. It was one of my worst dining experiences ever.

I went here on Sunday night for Winterlicious.
I wasn’t that impressed. I’ve heard great reviews on this place but I wasn’t impressed.
First off I get there and they have the vacuum running which is just noisey and annoying.
Then it takes forever for the waitress to come and get at least a drink order and the bread to the table.
Dinner wise, I had the short ribs and my place was DRENCHED in gravy and oil. I mean alittle presentation would’ve been nice, and I’d like to take my sweet mashed potatoes and veggies without the whole meal tasting like gravy.
Dessert was the best part! I had this coconut banana crème and it was to DIE for.
Staff was friendly but I dont like the fact that I had new waiter every time bringing me my different dishes. I like to stick to one person.
Atmosphere was nice and cozy with tealights on the tables.
I would give this place another try since maybe it was an off day for them, and everyone else thinks they’re great.