Winterlicious Diaries 2019: Oretta Restaurant

Have you ever wanted to try Oretta? How about Winterlicious? Well I’ve always wanted to do BOTH and I was lucky enough to snag a reservation during this time for my boyfriend and I at this uber-popular Italian restaurant this past weekend! While I heard some great things about the food and ambiance of the place, I went in without too much expectation- I wanted to try it for myself and see what all the “hype” was about. Honestly… I gotta say I was thoroughly impressed with the service (our waitress was keen on filling up our waters, and taking our finished plates after every meal) the food OF COURSE and how gorgeous the interiors were! Overall, the place was a great first pick of our “winterlicious diaries” and we were satisfied from the minute we walked through the door to the second we walked out of it.

The staff were all super welcoming right when you walk through the door. We ended up coming a little later than our reserved time slots but they were very understanding and were able to seat us right away. Once seated, we were handed a menu and our waitress began to serve our drinks for the night as we looked over what we wanted to eat.

I believe this restaurant is usually on the higher-end in terms of price so we thought that winterlicious would be the best time to try a bit of everything for one great price (per person). During winterlicious usually there will be a fixed price during lunch or dinner. Since we came for dinner, we had a fixed price of CAD $43.00 per person plus tax, with certain choices to pick from. This is how it is at every other restaurant usually from what I gathered. Some restaurants may have extra options but Oretta had 3 per each category. The menu consisted of an appetizer, main course and dessert. All of these items looked absolutely DELICIOUS! Since I only eat halal food, I opted for the:

Burrata Pugliese
Branzino
Torta Al Limone,

while my boyfriend got the:

Carpaccio Di Manzo
Branzino
Cannolo Siciliano

ANTIPASTI

First course was the apps. At first I wasn’t sure if I was going to like my appetizer because I’m a little hesitant with trying out new foods (the whole point of winterlicious btw! LOL) but either way the food looked BOMB when it arrived! My boyfriend really enjoyed the carpaccio and commented on how fresh it tasted. I also really enjoyed my burrata as it also tasted very fresh and it had the right amount of seasoning. Overall everything about our appetizers was enjoyable. We both were very surprised at how much we liked it actually- it was a very nice “first” taste of what was to come.

SECONDI

On to our second course- the MAINS! So basically I wanted to eat something light (also couldn’t technically eat anything else for the main course as they only served meat options for the other two choices) and went with the branzino, known as the pan seared European sea bass. My boyfriend ordered this as well so we were able to comment and compare what we thought of the dish… so happy to say that we both absolutely LOVED this course! It was cooked to PERFECTION and had the right amount of seasoning AND serving. Where the potato lacked a bit of salt for example (definitely on purpose), the cauliflower puree made up for that. The flavours really complimented each other and we were truly in awe of how good the meal was. The food was very filling as well so that was awesome. I truly feel that our $43 pp went to good use that day!

DOLCI

Lastly, the dessert! Adam got the “cannolo siciliano” while I had ordered the “torta al limone.” My food was aesthetically pleasing due to the placement of everything on the plate. The lemon tart was very nice as it had a very strong lemon flavour to it but coupled with the blueberry compote and the tart shell- very good in taste and I enjoyed it overall.

It was so cool to see the little “show” that they put on when putting together my boyfriend’s cannolo. Our waitress filled the shell with ricotta cheese and dipped it in pistachio. It was super fun to watch! I could tell he also liked his dessert as well as we both just gave each other the nod of approval while we continued to stuff our faces with all the wonderful sugary goodness before us…

If you couldn’t already tell- we both truly had the BEST time at Oretta. The food was great, service was amazing and the place in general gets an overall two thumbs up from the both of us… so in total 4 THUMBS UP!