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| - My coworker and I came to Mercatto for dinner one evening; I hadn't eaten at any of the Mercatto chains besides the one in the Eaton Centre, so I was eager to try this location out.
We arrived quite early for dinner, probably around 5PM and the place was very very quiet. We perused the menu and I was a bit surprised by how small the menu was and how heavy a lot of the dishes seemed. I don't go to places like this for pizza or steak, so it took me a while to decide.
We both started off with cocktails and sadly, all of the cocktails I tried were disappointing. I had hoped for more variety in their cocktail menu, but they seemed to have just a handful of mixed drinks to choose from, many having components that weren't to my taste. I had some kind of lemon beverage, which was okay, but neither of us were enthralled with the cocktails here.
We ended up splitting the barbabietole arrostiti (beets, burrata cheese, arugula, almonds and balsamic) and the arancini to start. Both were absolutely excellent, the beets and burrata were a fantastically creamy sweet combo set off by the balsamic and the peppery arugula. The arancini here were delicious as well, we cleaned both plates without any issue.
For my main, I ended up going for the ravioli that were lemon ricotta filled, with lamb sausage and beets in brown butter. Unfortunately, this dish just didn't do it for me. These were homemade ravioli but there was far too much excess pasta outside of the stuffed portion. There was no cut, it was as if they used plain pasta sheets and just stuck them together, leaving all the excess pasta sheets to just hang on to the small ravioli bundle. I didn't like the pasta they chose to use, maybe it was slightly overcooked, but the texture and shape of them just didn't appeal. I felt like there wasn't enough filling given the size of the ravioli and the lamb sausage felt like an afterthought. I didn't get the concept behind the flavors coming together in this dish, it felt disjointed. My coworker had the mushroom ravioli and I got to try a bit and it was delicious.
Overall, an okay meal but there's lots of room for improvement. As someone with an Italian background, I expect a lot from pasta dishes from places like this and my main just fell short. Despite the apps being great, the drinks were meh and my main wasn't very good. I may try it again in the future, but I'd definitely go for something else.
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