We have dines here twice. The first time was great. The food was excellent! The second time, what a difference. As well as being expensive the food was terribly disappointing. I started off with a bruschetta which was soggy and unappealing. The seafood entrees lacked flavour and presentation. We will find another seafood restaurant in Victoria.

Where to start?

Pescatores was our favorite spot when in Victoria however, I don't know if it is the economic condition of Victoria or a change in ownership/management that has terminated any ability for us to ever return.

Prior, for years I have always enjoyed the interaction and friendliness of the staff and the complete desire to have your evening there the best it can be. Starting with my second to last "appreciation" I noticed the food had seriously deteriorated in quality and the staff seemed distracted and stressed. With the last visit it terminated any ability to return.

There are far better places in Victoria to appreciate and have the owners and staff appreciate that you have been there, but I will say this, when you book a party of 18 people a month in advance and they put you in a section with one server whose only attention seems to be centered on one table of four (visiting, servicing, delivering bottles of wine, all the while never once attending our table) this results in 45 minute before even water is served to the table.

Problems: (now remember, I picked the restaurant so I tried to keep everyone pumped up and happy)
Appetizers were missed and then begrudgingly removed from bill; meals all arrived separately and spread over a period of an hour; the food arrived before the wine came to the table; meals were double billed; the meals themselves were not a ghost of the original; three and a half hours is fun at a restaurant if that was your intent (not this time); the sauces/flavors/presentations all below standard; the list goes on and on.

Result:
I asked to speak with the manager while others ate and some waited for their food, she came to the table and I said we needed to talk after the meal. (My hope was the focus would change) Afterward I explained in detail the situation and in honour of all the problems she credited our $1,500.00 invoice $16.00, just slightly over 1%. As a result no tip was left.

Follow up and word to the wise:
If I hear the standard management booklet "I have to defend "insert name here", she/he is our top server and ........ blah and a blah blah ..." This is such an over used line in the hospitality industry it makes me sick. The client is right, always, 100%. Nordstrom knows it; you need to get it. Stand out, be a Purple Cow, and you will be rewarded.

We've avoided this restaurant because of it's proximity to the hordes of tourists, but we found ourselves on a rainy night looking for seafood near our hotel. Definitely a solid choice. The menu was pretty standard, but very well executed. I had the scallops and scampi in a butter garlic reduction. They were slightly overcooked, but still delicious served over veggies and mashed potatoes. My wife's seafood cannelloni was straight forward, but also very tasty. Good chowder sampler, ok fried calamari. Wine list had a good selection of lower cost wines.

Our waitress was a bit too perky, but she was handling 7 tables and she appeared at the right time for everything, all our requests quickly done. She could give lessons in customer satisfaction. Ambiance was big and noisy, but decor and layout was very well done.

All together a satisfying evening, and we would go back.

One sunny lunchtime, we were walking down the street and saw the menu of Pescatore's posted outside the restaurant. We were kind of intrigued with how the dishes was described. So we went in and was greeted by a very friendly greeter. She showed us in and referred to a warm waiter. We were seated right away as it was still early. Anyway to make the story short. We tried the soup sampler as suggested by the nice waiter who so patiently explained to what is recommended. We had clam chowder and lobster bisque. It turned out very tasty!

Then for the main dish we had a burger with fries (playing safe there) and a salmon on a cedar plank over pea risotto. Although the burger was burnt and tasted somewhat bitter (maybe we should have not ordered it well done), the salmon was perfect. We enjoyed the salmon more than the burger. It was a lesson to learn, next time we venture for more adventurous dish.

The service was very good and the place is very comfortable for a place to rest after a long walk.

Overall good food. Good service. I am glad we had that spontaneous decision to go in and check it out.

It is clear from the outset that the people working in this restaurant have been doing it for a very long time. There is clearly a seasoned team in the kitchen, given the full tables and timely delivery. The food was excellent, the menu diverse but focused on seafood of course. Halibut with King Crab was well received. Salmon special was grilled to perfection and even the risotto (difficult in a restaurant at the best of times, and shrimp no less) was good as any I have had. Prawn and Scallops were properly cooked and not lost in sauce. Pot de Crème made a chocolate lover very happy and the Crème Brulee trio was a classic with two very nice variations.
The ambiance was hard to judge on a very busy night because of the noise. Reservations recommended if dining after 7.
Service was generally very good, although disappointment with inexpensive local wine choice was painfully obvious. Apparently the second bottle mended some fences (I’ll refrain from editorializing about wine in restaurants). Regaling us with tales of how much food one person can sell in a night was unnecessary and rude. I would return and recommend it without hesitation.

As my fiance and I were looking for a mid/upper seafood restaurant choice, we decided to try Pescatore's. After being seated at our table in the busy restaurant, we received excellent service throughout the night from a young man training to be a sommelier, which was appreciated by us as we are big wine fans. The ambience in the restaurant was great - loungy, busy and "sexy". We started with the soup sampler and the tuna/crab tower - the soups (two types of chowder and a crab bisque) were excellent. The tuna/crab tower (which turned out to be WAY different then we thought, involving a cold pile of tuna and flaked crab) was actually quite bland. The bread at the table was unwarmed and relatively uninspired, I would expect a bit of a better offering than that given the price/atmosphere.

For dinner, I had the brie stuffed trout, and my fiance had one of the specials, a cashew encrusted salmon on greens. I was looking forward to the nuanced flavours of my meal, but again, it actually ended up being quite bland. In a more contemporary restaurant as this, I definitely expect more experimental/different flavours, and the chef really disappointed in this regard. My fiance's salmon was average, and consisted primarily of the green component. In general, we felt the entrees were quite lackluster.

For dessert we enjoyed a glass of Inniskillin ice wine (nicely chilled and served) and split the chocolate crepe. It, like the soups, was the best part of the meal and was a unique choice.

Overall, we were underwhelmed by the food here, although we still had a great date night out, enjoying the ambience and the service.

My husband and I were visiting Victoria for the weekend and heard Pescatores is the place in town for great seafood so we made reservations.
The dining room isn't terrible but it could use an update: fresh paint, new artwork and lighting. It feels a bit 80's.
We started with some calamari and a peanut papaya salad topped with seared ahi tuna. The calamari was tough and underseasoned. On the other hand, the tuna was perfectly cooked and super fresh.
We shared a plate of fresh oysters, which were also super fresh and delicious.
For a main entree my hubby ordered the crab cakes and I ordered the live lobster. The hubby's crab cakes were okay, although a bit on the cold side. My lobster though was a HUGE letdown. It was overcooked and rubbery. The butter served on the side was barely warm.
Looks like we'll search for a new spot for seafood on our next visit.