Paese Ristorante

Paese Ristorante has two locations.  We visited the King St. location before the TFC vs LA Galaxy match.  The restaurant was filled with red TFC jerseys.  We got to the restaurant a bit later than we would have liked so our food choices were limited to the 'quick cook' options.  There was no way that I was going to miss my time with David Beckham!  I apologize in advance for the low quality pictures.  The restaurant was quite dark.

We started snacking on some rosemary focaccia with hummus that our server brought over.  The focaccia was good, nice and warm with a crusty outside.  The hummus was horrible.  It was not smooth, no flavour, no salt, no nothing!  Even the hubby thought so!  And he normally never says anything is bad.  He's like a human garbage can.


Focaccia with Hummus

Next up came the Grilled Octopus served with potato salad, grilled escarole, mint, lemon, and chili oil.  The potato salad was not really a potato salad, it was more like 4 slices of potato.  The octopus was grilled nicely with good char flavor and super tender.  My fave dish of the night.

Grilled Octopus

All of a sudden, 3 different coloured jars appeared on our table.  The server mumbled something along the lines of "It's for the pizza.".  Because I was curious, I decided to give it a little taste test.  They turned out to be chili sauces for the pizza.  Thank goodness they were not super spicy!  Our Funghi Pizza arrived.  I was a little disappointed with the pizza.  I was expecting the pizza come with a variety of mushrooms, but it appears that they only use roasted white button mushrooms.  The crust was also a little more bready/doughy than I would have liked. 

Chili Oils

Funghi Pizza

Our final dishes arrived just as I was starting to worry about time.  A side of rapini (forgot to take a picture) and an order of clams cooked in a beer and lots of bacon chunks.  Sorry, I was hoping to find the exact dish on their online menu, but it's not there.  Best rapini I have ever tasted!  Not a single sign of bitterness at all.  And just simply cooked in olive oil it seems.  No lemon, no vinegar, no extras of any sort.  The clams were just that, clams cooked in beer.  I think I enjoyed eating the bacon chunks in the broth more so than the actual clams.  The size of the clams were also very tiny, meaning mini sized clam meat.  Not worth my time and effort.

Clams

Just based on how delicious the grilled octopus was, I think its worth another trip back to give the rest of the menu a taste.  I don't think it's fair to judge a restaurant based on their appetizers.

333 King Street West,

416.599.6585