Ennio's Pasta House - Kitchener

My husband and I were stumped for Valentine’s Day in lock down and thought we’d give Ennios a try to support our local businesses for pick up. Unfortunately the earliest pick up time was 8:00pm when I went to place an online order not the biggest deal, obviously it’s a busy time. I tried calling in the morning to see if there were any other times for pick up and the woman said earliest time 8:30pm, I inquired about why online says 8:00 and phone is 8:30, she said there were 2 separate reservation lists. Meaning they had booked one order every 15mins on both phone and online for the whole evening. I thought “oh well, at least they’re organized.” So we showed up at the restaurant at 7:58pm and were puzzled by all of the cars (probably 15) lined up in front. I thought surely these people can’t have reserved times, maybe they are all “walk ins”. We followed the instructions when we ordered to call the restaurant when we arrived. The phone didn’t even ring as it was busy. We sat out front a few minutes and tried again: we heard frantic chaos as the poor young hostess told us they were running behind and they weren’t ready with our order yet. When asked for an ETA, she said she couldn’t even provide one. We decided it couldn’t possibly be that long and since I had to prepay for our order, we waited. We saw probably 25 30 people go into the restaurant and come out empty handed. Multiple skip the dishes and door dash workers waited outside in the freezing cold. With every passing 10 minutes, we thought surely it couldn’t be that much longer. A full one HOUR later without food and multiple attempts to find out an ETA, we called and asked for a refund. Conveniently our food was “just coming out now!” And we saw the hostess inside pick up one of probably 25 white bags we saw sitting out on a table at room temp through the window for the whole hour and hand it to us. The food, unsurprisingly was cold and not good. Our cheese dip was ice cold, as if they forgot to heat it? I hope they forgot anyway because who would order a cold cheese dip? It was horribly garlicky, pretty much inedible. Our pastas were nothing special for the price. Next year we vowed to go to east sides for what I’m sure will be better service and the same if not better food for a better price. Do not come here on Valentines Day!

My wife and I have visited this restaurant several times. The staff is consistently friendly and helpful. I highly recommend this restaurant. The portion sizes are generous, the ingredients are fresh and mostly homemade, and we have a delicious experience every time.

I recently tried Ennios through Skip the Dishes last week. My wife and I both got seriously ill and had to rush to the restroom. There was another review from about 6 months ago that described the meal better than I could. All I can say is - the shrimp was terrible, the "crab meat" was unidentifiable goop, and they used cheap store-bought noodles. The prices were also exorbitant. I called the restaurant on the day of the order just to confirm how awful the meal was. I don't want any freebies, but I strongly recommend staying away from this place!

We have been living in Kitchener for 15 years now, and this Italian restaurant has become our favorite spot to dine with family and friends. We visit the restaurant every other month and in all these years, we have never been let down. We always receive fair and respectful treatment. As an Italian myself, I have tried many delicious dishes here that have truly impressed me.

I have no doubt this place does well as there were lots of people and deliveries were frequent yet it is not a place we would go back to. Food was typical but not outstanding, and the buns, while cibiata, they are not what I would want to have with an italian meal. Place was noisy and seats were too close to others. Service was ok, but way too fast. I have not been to a restaurant in a very long time where I was out in 40 minutes