Oy what is with all the harsh reviews? While I have to say Gallo Nero wasn't the most exciting restaurant experience I have ever had these 1 and 2 star reviews are little too hard on the restaurant. It was an okay meal. Nothing terrible, nothing mind-blowing either. A-OK as Yelp would say.
The restaurant is located way out in St-Leonard. Located right on Jarry St. it really is only accessible by car. The decor is pretty classic and to get you in the mood for Italian food they have old-school Italian music playing in the background. The dining room is pretty big but on weekends it can be filled to capacity so make a reservation.
The food is all the basics of Italian cuisine. They have the classic pasta dishes like lasagna as well as meat and fish. When we were seated we were brought pizza bianca and and pizza rossa as an accompaniment. This was a change from the usual bread and I really liked the pizza biianca which was well seasoned with rosemary and salt. I started off with polenta and sausage for my antipasto which was solid but I would have preferred a creamier, softer polenta as this is how I like it. That was followed by tortellini in a rosé sauce which was pretty good. Dessert was a tiramisu. Now I am very particular about this kind of dessert in a restaurant since it is easy to make an excellent one at home. This tiramisu was well-balanced in flavour but the texture of the mascarpone was a little too much on the dense side.
Portions are huge and you certainly won't go home hungry once you're done. It is wise to split an antipasto among two people otherwise you will fill up before your main dish has arrived. I also felt that the dessert serving was way too large and could easily have been halved to make it more manageable. All the courses were just too big and I think it might be best to trim them down a bit because I felt like I had overdone it once I was done eating (and I was starving when I showed up here).
The price was fair but I feel like if they were to cut down on portion size they could probably charge less and then it would be really reasonable. They usually offer a table d'hôte for about $30 - 36 and this gets you an antipasto, salad, main dish, dessert and coffee. Let me tell you that it amounts to a TON of food.
Gallo Nero is good for those nights when you are not in the mood to cook and are looking for some Italian comfort food. That being said it is the kind of place you go to when you find yourself in the neighbourhood. I wouldn't recommend going out of my way for it though.