Marcello's on Commercial Drive

Marcello's is an Italian restaurant on Commercial Drive. My wife was working late and so I thought a nice way to spend the evening would be to take my daughter, who's almost three, out to dinner after work. I thought of taking her to White Spot, which is a place she likes, but she wanted pizza (I did offer her the choice - pasta, sausages, or pizza), so I thought I'd try out Marcello's.

Marcello's offers a nice well laid out place, with plain but elegant tables. Along the wall of the open kitchen is an astounding wood oven where they bake the pizzas. It looks like a giant stylized face of the sun, with the mouth being where the pizzas go.

Once we were shown a table, we were given menus and left to deliberate. The menu has a nice selection of pizza and pasta as well as salads and some other main courses. It's obviously meant to cater to family style dining, where orders are shared amongst those at the table.

We ordered a mushroom pizza for her and a gnocchi for me. I also ordered a glass of the sangiovese ($8 was pricey for what I got), and a steamed milk for my sweet pea.

The steamed milk came way too hot and with no spoon. When I asked the hostess for a spoon, none came, and by the time toddler agitation was setting in, my waiter finally came by once more. I waved him over and he said "your dinner's coming!"

I expected dinner to take some time, after all this wasn't Domino's, but all I wanted was a spoon. What we got was one of those long handled dessert spoons. Argh.

Cardinal restaurant sin number one was committed next. My gnocchi arrived, but the pizza did not. Generally speaking, dinner time's pretty easy going, but now the promised dinner was not on the table and there was no way she was going to even try the pasta. By the time pizza finally came, she was past wanting to eat so we pretty much had to pack up and go home (although the leftovers will be delicious).

The food was fabulous though. I'd go back in a group any time. Alone with kid in tow on a week night would be a different story.

Ratings:
Service: 2/5
Ambiance: 3/5
Food: 7/10
Price: $$

Score: 12/20