I'll start with this: I don't get it. Buca Yorkville has received glowing reviews from Post City Magazine, Toronto Life and The Globe and Mail, but I unfortunately can't share their enthusiasm for this restaurant. I struggled and wondered if the problem was with me, so I had to go back a couple times to confirm.
I had a mediocre experience at Buca Yorkville on my first visit, so I decided to go again. Same thing. So I decided to try a third time and the same issues kept popping up. Not an exhaustive list, but here are the few things that really stood out:
- Hair in food
- Burnt pizza
- Bones in fish
- Salt seemingly absent in certain dishes
- Inattentive staff
- Cutlery falling everywhere
Those things aside - which frankly should give a restaurant only 1 star - the few dishes that were done right were great. The raw branzino cut table-side is an experience in itself and the pastas have great texture and flavor which I would expect having dined at Buca on King St. a number of times. For the most part, the desserts stood out as they were creative and not something you would find at any other restaurant in the city.
The aforementioned problems can be addressed, but having gone on three separate occasions, I haven't seen a positive trend. Maybe I'll drop by for a fourth time later and see if anything has been changed... but until then, I don't get it.