Sassafraz

The Place is great, I love the location and the atmosphere. Plus they have a great selection of wine. You should definitely book in advance just to make sure seating is available

I was skeptical about this restaurant reading some of the reviews including negative and bad experience ones. I was wrong! I gave Sassafraz the opportunity to have my business and most important celebrate my girlfriends birthday. The food was incredible and the service was beyond great. The Winterliceous menu was as expected and the atmosphere ideal for a romantic date, without saying the interior design makes you feel cozy and welcome.

Today was my first time going to this restaurant (attending a friend's birthday). Since Sassafraz is located in a pretty high end area in Toronto my expectations were quite high. Upon first entering, I was greeted by a hostess who was quite stoic/cold. I'm generally a very warm person and this was off-putting. I gave her the name of my friend which is unique/ethnic and she had trouble finding it. After asking me to spell it she finally found it and walked me to my table. She asked me if I'd like to check in my coat, which I did and she came back with my ticket. We were a party of 9 and our waitress came around to take our drink order, but for some reason did not attempt to ask 4 people seated at the other end of the table. I found it strange as in my experience, wait staff tend to make sure they get to everyone - and if folks are chatting they tend to gently interrupt. I had to ask her at another point to take their drink order. Our waitress seemed warm initially but later it appeared to me that it felt a little forced. She didn't come around very often, and sometimes filled half our glasses of water and not others. I'm not sure if she was having a busy night. At the end of the dinner, one of our friends asked for the bill and we were given one bill (she did not ask us if we wanted separate bills). When asked if she could split it, she rolled her eyes and seemed frustrated. Between my two interactions with the staff I'm less to believe there may be tensions behind the scenes amongst staff that is coming through into their treatment of guests. We also weren't sure if the wait staff didn't care to treat us well because gratuity was included. Unpleasant wait staff can really ruin an otherwise good experience and no matter what kind of restaurant I anticipate that guests are treated with warmth and friendliness, something I didn't receive here. Finally, one of our friends used the men's washroom and indicated that one of the stalls was covered in vomit. While that is disturbing in and of itself, I'm also shocked such a raved about restaurant wouldn't make the effort to check up on their washrooms so often to notice. Disgusting. While the food was good, it wasn't enough to make up for the overall poor experience. I won't be coming here again, and I won't be recommending this place to anybody I know.

We celebrated our 75 people wedding on November 29th and loved everything! Thank you very much for all your help on our big day! Dennette is such a professional, words can’t express our gratefulness! Food was delicious and service was outstanding. Guys went above and beyond to make us happy with everything and that’s quiet impossible Most of our party was vegetarians, that are always hard to please and they were impressed! Go for a lunch and see for yourself! Can’t recommend this venue enough! Cherry on top of the sundae - cost effectiveness that I could guarantee with months of research in Toronto. This is a beautiful newly renovated venue and looks just like photos. We look forward to coming back to this restaurant whenever we are in the city! All the best to the dream team! Regards, Anastasia & Vim

Its quite a cheerful environment, from the staff, to the ambiance. Our waitress specifically, gets a 5 star without question. Her name was unique so pardon the spelling; Bettina. Her energy was splendid, her service was timely, and her personality really shines through. Id request her if you plan to eat here. Its also a great atmosphere to have some drinks on a weekend night ! Unfortunately, when the main courses came out, fruit flies seemed to appear and stick around which was really a turn off. Id recommend eating away from the plants possibly? That may prevent this from occurring. They were very apologetic and did offer free dessert to go. Things like this can happen, but hopefully they clear this up as I will return in the future. The oysters were shucked in a rookie manner unfortunately . But the sumac roasted aubergine with cape dor salmon is AMAZING. That is one tasty meal! I highly recommend to those with a sophisticated palate.