Having read the favourable reviews, I decided to give this place a try, despite its menu's not looking too attractive to me.

Boy, am I glad I did. Everything from the bread (very fresh and soft, accompanied by extremely flavourful olive oil) to the dessert was outstanding. Just the Amuse-bouche alone was impressive enough, both in terms of presentation and flavour. It certainly wetted my appetite for what followed. My appetizer was the quail. It was very hot (i.e., fresh off the oven). The outside was crispy, yet the inside was soft, tender, juicy, and very flavourful. The accompanying salad matched its flavour very well. My main course was rabbit. Both texture and flavour were outstanding. After that, I already felt quite full and was going to skip dessert, but decided that, given everything that had gone on before, I would really be remiss if I didn't try their dessert, so I went for the waiter's recommendation -- lemon cream. Again, the item name didn't sound that attractive to me, and I would not have ordered it had the waiter not recommended it highly, but one mouthful and I was convinced. It was incredible. Rarely have I tasted a dessert that is so memorable.

The bill came to just over $50, and I thought that was pretty good value for what I got.

This restaurant has now become a new favourite of mine.

A cute little restaurant at the tail end of W 4th. Very lovely, Very cozy, loved the specials blackboard and the whole ambiance of this place. The first time we went here was for my birthday last year and I think we ordered a few things off of their specials menu - rabbit, duck, and something else, I don't remember the actual names. But I do recall everything was fresh, delicious and left us wanting to eat more. Food was good sized, plated nicely and we were amazed at the combination of flavors, textures and taste. The chef did a great job. Highly recommended. Book ahead early, because this tiny restaurant fills up fast!

I've dined here twice. I like it but...space is cramped so unless you are with a group, you will feel uncomfortable if you are only 2 diners sitting next to groups of 4 or 6 as their conversation will certainly drown yours out as the tables have less than foot in between. Food is good especially the family style dining, nice variety, fresh ingredients, a unique experience much like eating at a home of an Italian family but minus the warm and inviting service typical of an Italian family. The service is almost rushed as they try to have you sit, drink and dine within 2 hours. One of the male owners/staff appears abrasive both times we were there and short of flinging the utensils on our table. Its the rushed service that disappoints cuz dinner should be a leisurely thing to be enjoyed, like in Italy where one is never rushed but its Vancouver, tables have to be turned over for profit, but this at a sacrifce of simple good service. I may return again I don't know as I like the food but I really hope they work on their service, even a little.

Made reservations, recommended, on a weekend and tried their $40 tasting menu. The restaurant is located on 4th, almost at Alma. The tasting menu is actually a family type of service where you get large plates meant to share. Started off with some salami and chicken livers on bread - very good. Then a salad made with bread and tomato - nice, grilled sardines - not my fa, thumb print pasta with some greens - very good, gnocchi - very soft and went well with the mushrooms, hangar steak with some salad on top- really tender and tasty and cooked just right. Finished off with some chocolate mousse type of desert and a soft lemon type of dessert. Very good overall and service was great. Small place so it's quite close quarters but very nice.

My bf and I came here for dinner last night and had the $40 chef's creations menu. The first thing that came out was a ravioli soup in beef broth, it tasted alright. Next we had the mediterranean seabass that was nicely cooked with skin still crunchy yet the meat still moist. We both love the seabass cuz it is very full flavoured yet it has a very nice texture. Next, we had trout which was cooked in the same way as the seabass and though we both enjoyed it, but we were expecting a different cooking method. For the pasta, we had veal ravioli, which was pretty good, it was cooked al dente and the pasta was made to order. Then we had the two desserts, which were the lemon cream with rhubarb and the prune cake. The lemon cream was pretty good, a touch too sour for my bf. The prune cake was a little too bland in flavour, maybe cuz we had it after the lemon cream. The service in this restaurant was awesome. They did not even show that they were getting ready to leave when we were the only table in the restaurant at around 11pm. The portion was also good, not too much yet not so little maybe cuz we said that the chef should go easy on the pasta.
In general, we both liked this restaurant and will come back to try to $57 menu when we're hungry.

This place got "best new restaurant" a couple of years ago so we were excited to try it. The service was aloof from the get go, like she was doing us a favour, the menu interesting but the quality of food mediocre. With so many great restaurants, and so many good Italian places, I would not bother to go back.

I normally do not write reviews but this has to be done. I have never been so disappointed by a restaurant ever.

My boyfriend and I came here for our birthdays back in May. We were really excited because of the excellent reviews on dinehere.ca. When I made the reservation, I was told that the only seat available was at the bar. I asked if it was uncomfortable and they told me that it's what the regulars usually request and that it's cozy so I decided to go ahead with the reservation at the bar.

When we arrived, we were seated at the bar, which is a high bench in the corner. At first we thought it was kind of neat, but then it got awkward when the watiress would clean glasses, pour wine, and prepare things right in front of us. Not only that, the dishwasher was right in front of us so it got incredibly hot from the steam coming from it and we were both sweating during out entire meal. The cappucino machine was also right there so it was really loud, to the point my boyfriend and I could barely have a conversation everytime it was used.

We ordered the $57 9-course sharing plates meal and told it was a surprise and that they are all unique dishes. Nothing was unique at all. All of our dishes were from their board they have up. Nothing stood out to us. Just to name a few, we had raw spot prawns which was actually very gooey and really hard to eat. The goose was really dry and was hard to choke down (although this was probably the best dish of all). The worst dish we had was the anchovy spaghetti - it was disgusting! I do not mind anchovies but it was overpowering the entire dish and i tasted anchovies in my mouth throughout the entire meal. The dessert was decent with 3 different kinds on one plate (I do not remember the names) but it still was not outstanding.

We did not receive exceptional service, either. We were barely checked on and our waitress barely had anything to say to us. I felt we were a bit neglected.

I know that this may have been one exception but I am truly disappointed by the entire experience and I will not be back.

We went to La Quercia’s for my best friend’s birthday dinner. This is the second time I’ve been there.

As soon as we were seated, we were “reminded” by our waitress that we were 15 mins late to our reservation and that we only have the rest of our 1 hr 45 min reservation window to complete the dinner.

As we talked with the waitress about getting the 5-course sampling menu and whether we can add a risotto to it, she (again) mentioned that because we were late, we cannot even order the risotto with the sampling menu because there’s not enough time. We were very perplexed as they emphasized how flexible this sampling menu is, but the option of substituting the risotto in lieu of one of the pastas in the sampling menu was not suggested to us. We were the ones who asked if we can do a substitution – and it was not cheap, we had to lose one of our pastas in the sampling menu PLUS add an additional $7 per person for the risotto.

When the risotto came, it was extremely salty and the rice was not even fully cooked yet! We told our waitress about this – she did not apologize at all, just said “I’ll let the chef know”.

The next dish came – a veal with morel mushrooms – and it was, again, very salty. The veal was also a little on the tough side. We were not pleased.

After finishing our dessert, the waiter came over and reiterated that we were late to our reservation, we are way past our reservation time and people are waiting. Again, we were perplexed as nobody was waiting at the door – we were prepared to leave if we see people waiting – I’m assuming the people eating and drinking happily at the bar are the ones he was referring to? The waiter was quite rude in talking to us.

The restaurant is VERY crowded and loud – it’s difficult to even talk inside the restaurant! Not recommended if you want a decent conversation with a group.

All in all, I’ll NEVER go back again. It’s not worth the attitude – I can go to Trafalgar Bistro and have a decent risotto in a comfortable environment without being constantly reminded that I have to leave.

I just got back from this restaurant with my boyfriend. We had heard about the $57 per person nine course tasting menu and had prepared ourselves for that by eating very little all day (we heard it was very filling). We ordered the $57 tasting menu and a bottle of red wine. They will ask you about likes/dislikes/allergies before serving the courses. The wine list is extensive and has a good selection of Italian wines at various price points.

We had a selection of 3 antipastos, 1 pasta, 1 gnocchi, 1 meat, and 1 dessert. Our favourite was the homemade rotini pasta with smoked pigs cheek and goat ricotta cheese. Also worth noting were the antipastos and the dessert which was a cannelloni pastry with cheese filling and lemon creme.

Service was great. The menu is small but there are a lot of specials on a black board and all the specials were explained once we were seated. Our server was also very helpful with choosing a wine. Each course was explained to us when it was served. Water and wine were refilled throughout the evening.

The place is very small and the tables are very close together but I did not feel it to be bothersome. The decorations are simple but the place is comfortable.

The seven courses took us just over 2 hours to finish. The courses were well spaced apart with enough time to enjoy the flavours and not feel rushed. When we received our bill, we were expecting to pay $57/person, but I guess because we did not have time to get our full 9 courses (it was 8:25 when we arrived), we were only charged $40 each. I think $40 for a very filling and high quality 7 course meal is good value. I would return for the great food and possibly try some of the pastas on special on the board, many of which seemed to be under $20.

We have only been once. It is incredibly hard to get reservations and you have to know you want to go there many days in advance. (Not our best thing all that planning ahead-how on earth do I know I want to eat there so far ahead of time?) Finally after several attempts we get a reservation for 4 at 6:30 for a Friday night. We were told we had to be out within 2 hours though which I don't appreciate hearing from a restaurant. When we are dining with friends we want to be leisurely and enjoy the process and get caught up with each other. They could change that aspect-don't accept a reservation and tell someone they have to get out-if you can't accomdate then don't take the reservation.

The food was good, everyone very much enjoyed what they had and we all had different dishes. The wine list is okay, but not too exciting; I did manage to find something that paired well with my pasta but the choices are limited.

The service was pretty good as well-not excellent but fine. Two of us wanted to try the "family style" but they said the whole table had to have that or we couldn't. No idea why though-why not accomodate what your guests want?

The room is very small and they have crammed the tables in so tightly that you can't really have a private conversation-you inevitably have to hear what is happening right next to you. They might consider removing some of the tables and making it a little nicer atmosphere. The tables are small so 4 people at one made it pretty tight for the plates as things arrived.