Tara C.
Yelp
Peeps, I'm struggling with this one. I feel like with a few tweaks, this could have easily been a 4 or 5 star experience. At the end of the day, when you're heading out for eats in Whistler, you have a lot of great options to consider and of all the places I've eaten (and there have been many), Quattro hit the "A-OK" but not the Yay! I'm a fan!
A few days later, here's my lingering thoughts:
1. Quattro - Just do a proper Italian five course if you're going to do it rather than trying to force your prix fixe into a standard three. The problem with the three courses is that it doesn't feel complete. With a starter and two huge second courses (with no dessert) it didn't feel like it had flow. Usually you've got your starter, primi, secondi, main, dessert. And usually the portions are scaled a little better, timed a little slower, to allow you to linger. In this case, we were positively stuffed after a starter and some pasta, never mind moving to the meat. And it all came out super fast. I can handle five courses, scale it down and follow protocol for these things.
2. Food quality and flavour wasn't bad but I have to say that the Spaghetti Quattro was just.. well, weird. The black beans were awkward to fit with my spaghetti. Interesting idea to bring black beans into pasta (pasta fagioli is a thing, after all) but shape of pasta matters and trying to wrap spaghetti around a bean is tough. Perfect for a Penne, Rigatoni, or Orecchiette, This was very much a quasi-souped up aglio olio that fell short (though I do believe there were some Calabrian chilies in there, quite a nice application I'll steal for myself. If you have to get one thing, get the damn meatball. It's a huge meal on it's own and was certainly a highlight.
3. The restaurant is huge and was mostly empty (eek!) but people were seated on top of eachother. #awkward.
I will say that the service and ambiance were an easy four star and you're getting this review from a person who happily prepares fresh pasta at home and is a stickler around it. There's a reason we rarely head out for Italian. So I'm a tough one on the food and menu design. Others would likely have been wowed.