I used to love Gusto, but my experience this past weekend made me feel like this super busy spot in the King West area might now be riding its "hot" location and not focusing on the food like it used to. To be clear, nothing was offensively bad. It just wasn't great. My friend had the mushroom pasta, which appears to have become Gusto's one trick pony. She said that it was very nice, which my other friend and I could not say about the pizzas we ordered. I got the spinach pizza, which had a nice enough crust, but which was disappointedly bland. It wasn't due to lack of toppings, as there was a ton of spinach and cheese. There just wasn't...flavour. I ate 3/4 and didn't even bother packing up the rest.
As usual, the wine was a great deal at 1$/ounce.
The service was fine in terms of our waitress. I didn't like the fact that she brought us the bills without first asking if we needed anything else - eg a refill of our wine. But nothing to be fussed about, as she was friendly throughout the night. The hostess seemed tired and agitated - fair enough, it was busy and she was being pulled in all different directions.
I'm not jumping to go back to Gusto. There are too many options for good Italian in Toronto.