pub italia

this place has an extensive beer menu called the beer bible which draws beer fans who want to try different types of beers from around the world.

yum. had the abruzzi pizza. my favourite kind of pizza. the thin crust has a crunch to it, which is what i love in thin crust. none of that "thin crust" pizza that looks like a regular pizza! it had a pesto base, with a ton of goat cheese, bruschetta style tomatoes, spicy pancetta, ugh. i'm dreaming of this pizza right now. salty sweet and spicy. now that i know what their crust is like, i'll definitely be coming back for more.

something to note is after around 10 or 11 pm (the server wasn't exactly clear what time for sure) they retire their menu and opt for a late night menu until 1 am (which is when they actually close). i included a picture of that menu, which is still full of amazing stuff, and still has pizza, which is all i cared about!

the reason i'm giving this place a 4.5 rather than a 5 is this: the table i was sitting at had a weird... vinegar smell? it's a pub so you never know with smells sometimes, but they probably clean the tables with a vinegar solution and the wood table soaked it up. kind of took away from everything because i kept smelling vinegar. maybe another pizza will help me get the rating to 5 😂🍕👍

what first intrigued me about this establishment when i came across their website was the curious logo consisting of a shamrock in the colors of the italian flag; it certainly bespoke some potentially interesting cultural fusions. the other thing that captured my interest was a very comprehensive beer menu, with draft and bottled selections both local and international. the prospect of such a wide range of choices was alone enough to make me venture there for lunch one thursday morning…

went for a drink ended up staying for dinner. big mistake. prices here are comparable to nice restaurants with good quality food and prep. this was another story. bland, overpriced and disappointing our food was. when you think steak sandwich, you would think there would be steak in it. it was basically a really saucy stir fry of mushrooms, onions and grizzly beef on a bun. (maybe 6-10 tiny little chunks of low quality meat) meatball sub was dry with barely any sauce. palatable was the nicest thing you can say about the meatball sub. server rolled her eyes when i asked a question about the menu. she also came to our table 6 times asking if we were ready while menus were opened in from of us. she was young and probably new- but she can use some training. overall- i would only go back for beer. eat somewhere else!

very interesting vibe with the irish pub feel. the beer bible is of course the highlight of this place for me. the food is delicious, especially the seafood pasta (unfortunately i forgot the name of the dish)

this place is only good for their beer selection. their food is overpriced and small portioned. it's bland. we ordered pasta there and found it too sauces and boring. our waitress was great and knowledgeable when it came to beer selections :) not bad for a hot day patio session!

went and tried their chicken parmigiana with their "italian flag pasta". the chicken was very thin, dry, and chewy. the pasta didn't even have half as uch sauce as it should have, and what little sauce it had was bland.

i hear their beer selection is quite good, and i remember seeing a beer bible. i wouldn't recommend eating here, but the decor and ambiance is nice enough that if you just wanted drinks it would be a good spot. but for anything else, i wouldn't bother with sub-par food.

every time i've been there, the level of service has been great - i don't recall ever being left waiting for too long.

the patio is a great spot and you can people watch very effectively.

inside, a lot of the large drapes are very dusty and so too are some of the light fixtures. not the greatest vibe, but i usually opt to visit in the summer and avoid the dust.

the beer menu is pretty great, so it pleases a lot of my friends. food was decent; nothing i can really recall as being extraordinary.

love the beer, not so much for the food.. i usually love mussels everywhere, but this place overcooked the mussels, and the sauce was not appealing (can't remember what its called, tomato based with black olives or something like that), i've been here before where i tried one of the pasta dishes.. could not finish even half of it, nor could my friend finish her pasta (flavor was bland, can't quite put my finger on what made it so unappealing, even though the look of it was delicious-looking).. my friends and i only come here for the drinks and the wide selection of beer. i fell in love with the german fruli beer (very sweet and tropical and as my friends said "dangerous" and you could 5 of those without noticing), the banana bread beer (which i found at lcbo for less than $4, at pub italia its nearly $9 for the same bottle).

i'm usually really good with finishing my food (especially pub food), i can't eat the food here, the taste is similar to how some chinese places dump a whole bunch of msg into their food, and makes it unbearable to the palate.

only decent thing i enjoyed was the (deep fried?) cheese ravioli appetizer, really cute how it was served in a false beer bottle.

coolest pub in ottawa! :). i'm a huge fan of this pub. the decor is so cool, and the beer bible allows you to try almost any kind of beer you could wish for. it's a bible of beer! i'll pray to that.

the food is also delicious.

yum!

cold pizza. they should tell people that there thin crust pizza is frozen pizza. it came cold and hardly cooked. returned because it was cold and they actually just did a reheat
wraps and soup were apparently good

my first my last...visit. i was at the pub this week for the first time ....i live in the neiboughood and i have been wanted to go for a long time...it was a huge disappointment had pasta ..pasta was overcooked and the bread wash stale....you would think italian fresh pasta and fantastic bread.....will not be going back
mind you the service was great....

worst service ever + filthy cups. eight of my friends and myself have arrived at pub italia around 11:00pm, waitress was so rude, she was literally insulting everyone with her rude facial expressions as we ordered, we have order our beverages and once drinks had arrived i looked inside my glass cup and saw debris of some sort floating around. i asked for my drink and cup be replaced and once again the waitress served us another dosage of extremely insulting facial expressions and attitude after 30 minutes of sitting in, we had asked to speak with the manager and that didn't make matters any better. he came in to our booth with interrogative type attitude demanding " what is the problem here". we have tried to explain to him that our server was less accommodating, but after a short useless argument we have requested the bill and walked out.
pub italia used to be one of our most favoured location but after encountering repetitive poor service i along with my co-workers and friends will never come back to this place.

it's a shame such good establishment has to suffer due to the dullest crayons in the box, do not go to this place

awful food. i would not recommend eating at pub italia, just had an awful experience eating there. the mussels were gross, weird dry texture, they must have been frozen, not fresh. and the bread that was put on our table was hard as a rock. totally disgusting...and 'gluten free' vermicelli was listed as a type of pasta? bizarre. vermicelli is not pasta. the quality of food and obviously the kitchen staff is seriously sub par, and the crap food is expensive! total ripoff...don't waste your time in this shithole.

this place used to be amazing. i used to go to pub italia at least once a month. i took a couple of my friends from out of town here, thinking it would be a great experience, i was wrong...the food was awful. my friends ordered a couple appetizers which were way over priced and deep fried into the ground. i ordered a pizza, which was totally bland...yuck! on top of that i thought the beer was heavily overpriced, especially considering the service was terrible. i will not be going back again. such a shame because it used to have so much going for it. :(