Jamie's Italian

Just because you have a baby doesn't mean that you can't celebrate New Year's Eve! To be fair, I actually rang in the new year at home, watching the ball drop on TV (yes I saw Mariah's "performance") and sipping champagne quietly while my son was asleep in his crib. BUT I still wanted to have a good dinner to say goodbye to 2016, and we knew Jamie's Italian would be both delicious and baby friendly so we went back to one of our favourite spots.

Restaurant: Jamie's Italian
Location: Yorkdale
Meal: dinner
Day: Saturday
Son's Age: 9 months

Another perk about Jamie's Italian is that it is attached to Yorkdale, which has covered parking, which means I don't have to worry about running through an outdoor parking lot in the snow with my baby. Jamie's also had a special New Year's Eve prix fixe menu for the evening.

Accessibility: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Obviously we have been here multiple times so you can refer to my other blog posts for details about accessibility, but this is pretty much as good as it gets. They also allowed us to park our stroller next to our table, even though they had brought a high chair for my son.

I love the little NYE message they had on the chalk board, and as you can see, my son was pretty excited too. 

Service: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The servers are always prepared to work with families that have babies. They were extremely helpful and attentive, and they brought a bowl of hot water for me to heat my son's lunch up as well. 

The server was also smart enough to place the bowl of hot water on the exact opposite side of the table from where the baby was sitting. 

Food: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The prix fixe menu actually came with a glass of prosecco, which is exactly what I wanted to kick off  our New Year's Eve dinner. 

For my appetizer, I had the egg raviolo with mushrooms and Parmesan. 

This was fantastic! When you cut into the raviolo, the egg yolk just oozes out like a delicious sauce. The pasta tasted fresh, as was to be expected given that they make the pasta in house. The mushrooms and cheese were just the perfect complement. Next I ordered the branzino.  

It doesn't look special in the photo but the fish was perfectly cooked and the flavours were not overwhelming. Finally, the dessert was served family style, and my husband and I ordered the panettone. 

This tasted like a cross between a fruit cake and a bread pudding, and I mean that in a good way. It was such a pleasant way to end a beautiful meal, although I do acknowledge that I would have preferred if we could order our own separate desserts.

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

There's a reason why I keep coming back here, and that's because, not only is the restaurant food amazing, but I always feel at ease bringing my baby here, so it's not like we are disturbing a romantic meal for anyone. 

Jamie's Italian

My mom and I were trying to figure out where we can have lunch, and since she had never been to Jamie's Italian before, I decided to do a repeat visit!

Restaurant: Jamie's Italian

Location: Yorkdale

Meal: Lunch

Day: Monday

Son's Age: 17 weeks

I know I've already reviewed this place, but since the food ordered was different, I thought I should give this a second go.

Accessibility: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I didn't take photos of the restaurant again since I feel the last post should suffice. Once again, they were able to accommodate the stroller by removing a chair and allowing me to park the stroller next to the table. As I mentioned in my last post, there is an accessible washroom on the first floor with a change table and plenty of room for the stroller. This is one of the best restaurants I've been to in terms of accessibility.

Service: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
As expected, service was top notch. The staff is well prepared to handle families with babies. In fact, at one point I was breastfeeding my son and a woman at the next table was breastfeeding her daughter. The server also notes when to serve food, so when I had finished my salad and gone to change my son's diaper, she waited for me to return before bringing my pasta instead of letting it get cold at the table.

Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The food was as delicious as always. I'm pretty obsessed with the superfood salad at Jamie's, but this time I ordered a full size to share with my mom.

It was just as delicious as I remembered, and my mom acknowledged that it was not like any other salad she had ever had, and she enjoyed it. For my main, I ordered a small portion of the crab spaghetti with garlic, capers, chilli, fennel, parsley, lemon, and anchovies. My mom had the small portion of the famous prawn linguine with fried garlicky prawns, fennel, tomatoes, chilli, saffron, fish broth, and arugula.

We both agreed that the prawn linguine was the winner here (perhaps there's a reason this is labelled as "famous"), but I also liked the crab spaghetti, which I found to be an interesting flavour for pasta. I should warn that my mom was not a fan of the spaghetti, so it might not be everyone's cup of tea, as it was certainly more of a seafood tasting dish than a traditional pasta dish. Nevertheless, we were both thoroughly satisfied with our meals.

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Turns out my previous experience was not a fluke - the food and service were as outstanding as I remembered and the restaurant is well equipped for babies. 

Jamie's Italian

In case you haven't noticed, I have gone back and retroactively updated my overall ratings to include half stars. I decided that, with only three criteria, it wasn't fair to round it all the way to full stars. Anyway, on to the review: I had finally scheduled some time to meet up with my good friend and fellow foodie. Since we are both fans of Jamie Oliver, we decided to bring our babies to his first restaurant in Toronto: Jamie's Italian.

Restaurant: Jamie's Italian

Location: Yorkdale

Meal: Lunch

Day: Thursday

Son's Age: 11 weeks

My son was 11 weeks old and her daughter was 10 months, so I can actually evaluate how they accommodate babies at both these ages! I should note that while the restaurant is technically connected to Yorkdale Mall, the entrance is actually separate; you have to exit the mall in order to enter the restaurant. This is important if you are like me and like to park in the mall's underground parking lot, thinking you don't need to take your stroller outside at all. Not an issue on this occasion, but I had previously been here while pregnant in December when it was snowing.

Accessibility: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
We were clearly not the only mommies at the restaurant, and they were more than prepared for us. They gave us a table for four inside but near the patio so we could look out, and they removed a chair so I could park my stroller.

As for my friend, they brought her daughter a high chair so she could sit at the table with us, which seemed to please her.

I had no trouble navigating my stroller to the table as the aisle was sufficiently wide for me to go through effortlessly. They also have a wheelchair accessible washroom with a change table, and there is even a button for the door to open automatically, which I don't see often in restaurants.

The restaurant was clearly designed with the expectation that people would bring their babies, which is no surprise given how family friendly Yorkdale Mall is (note: I did most of my stroller research at Yorkdale while pregnant by observing others and occasionally asking parents about their strollers).

Service: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The service was great! All the staff were happy to help us get to our table and arrange ourselves, point out the washroom, and answer questions about the menu. Everyone was very friendly, even though my baby started fussing to the point where I had to carry him, and my friend's baby was very vocal about how excited she was to be there. I felt very comfortable taking my time to calm my son and slowly enjoy my food.

Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Speaking of enjoying my food, my experience here was stellar. The menu allows for smaller portions of the pastas and the salads, so I started with the small size super food salad, which had grilled avocado, roasted beets, pulses and grains, sprouting broccoli, fennel, pomegranate seeds, and spicy seeds, with harissa and cottage cheese.

This is the best super food salad I've ever had. I don't usually rave about salads but this one was quite substantial so I didn't feel like I was just munching on rabbit food. There was a nice kick of heat from the spice, offset by the harissa and pomegranate seeds, making a perfectly refreshing dish for the summer. I could have eaten a full size as my main if I wasn't so eager to try some handmade pasta as well.

I ordered a small portion of the tagliatelle bolognese. I used to think that there wasn't much difference between fresh and dry pasta if the pasta wasn't stuffed, but the tagliatelle proves me wrong. I could appreciate the freshness of the pasta, and it went well with the hearty bolognese. My friend ordered the small size porcini fettuccine.

She was very happy with her dish and declared that she would have to return to try other menu items as well.

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
My friend and I both came here with very high expectations, and neither of us were disappointed. The food is delicious and the restaurant is perfectly accessible for babies of all ages. The music is at a good volume so that we didn't feel like our babies were disrupting other patrons, but we could still easily have a good conversation. I highly recommend bringing a baby to Jamie's Italian!