Toro Toro

Worst paella I’ve ever had… Honestly I did not even want to eat it, but money doesn’t grow on trees, so I ate half because I just wanted to get out of there without an empty stomach. When I told the waiter that I didn’t like it, he chose not to take it off the bill, otherwise I would have never left a poor review. He specifically asked what was wrong with it… Pretty much the entire recipe. Radishes? Corn? Barley? Long strips of julienne vegetables? It was the creamy cheese sauce that really threw me off though.
The building and music is really nice, and the bartender also made an effort to be nice, but the experience was very awkward. I travel for work and wanted to have a pleasant dinner alone with a glass of wine, hopefully musing my inspirations, but for some reason out of all of the empty tables and chairs in the restaurant, a woman wreaking of cigarettes sat right beside me at the bar without even striking up a conversation or saying hello. She was sitting so close it was like we were having dinner together, but with our iPads. For some reason the experience just felt really awkward and claustrophobic and the bar was all sticky. When I responded truthfully that I did not like the paella, they both questioned me in front of everyone working in the kitchen. So I paid the bill & left.

Let me start with a disclosure: I am Spanish and thus I may have higher standards for Spanish food than others.
Having said that, please do yourself and my country-​people a favor: if this is the first time you try Spanish food, I beg you, don’t do it here. It would be a shame if because of this place you came to the conclusion that you don’t like Spanish food. Trust me, it is a LOT better than this.
According to the waiter «tapas are dishes that Spaniards order for sharing». Wrong. Tapas are little samplings that (sometimes) you are given when you get a drink, typically a beer. And they don’t charge you extra for them. If you want something larger to share, you get a «racion», which is a full plate for sharing.
These guys charged high prices for minimal servings, which sad to say is not unusual in «Spanish» restaurants in North America. But the real problem was the quality. The paella tapa was… terrible. The rice was grossly under cooked and sticky. The «Pan con tomate» (bread with tomato) had tomato on maybe half of the surface? For the power of the Teletubbies, put more tomato there my man! And rub some garlic on the bread as well while you are at it. And the «patatas bravas», although a sad substitute for the real thing at least they were edible. And the salsa should be «brava» (brave as in hot), not just a tomato sauce!
The waiters, although were trying to be nice, need some serious training as well. One of them offended my girlfriend and I don’t think he even realized.
Come on Toro, Toro. Buy some plane tickets to Spain and learn how is done. Or at least watch some videos on Youtube.

We visited Montréal over the weekend, and were very excited when we saw this restaurant, which has a great look and is located almost in the center of the action in Old Montréal. As my partner is a native Spaniard, we thought it would be fun for him to choose some foods for our two friends, who have never eaten Spanish cuisine, to try, and Toro Toro has a fair selection of common Spanish dishes. The pros pretty much stop there.
Yes, tapas in Spain are small, but because of this, they’re also very inexpensive (generally, you get them free with a beer, and then, if you like the particular tapa, you order a racion, which is a bit larger, and pay a small amount for that). The tapas at Toro Toro are grossly overpriced, especially considering how poorly prepared they are. The patatas bravas were covered in tomato sauce (a paprika-​based sauce and garlic aioli are typical), the pan con tomate barely had any tomato on it, the vegetable paella lacked flavor and the rice was undercooked and chewy. A joke, considering that former and the latter cost $ 8 and $ 12CD respectively. On top of this, there was a large party downstairs who made so much noise that at one point, we couldn’t hear one another talking at our own table. We ended up leaving as soon as we could get our check, and went to another restaurant a few blocks over to get a decent meal and better ambience.
As for the service, I have a few notes for our waiter: learn more about Spanish food and culture, so that you’re not lecturing (inaccurately) to people who know more about it than you do. Also, it’s an insult to refer to one woman at the table as «young lady» and the other as «ma’am» when there is all of 6 years’ difference in age between them. Just call all males by one title and all females by one title, and save yourself the effort of trying to flirt for larger tips.

My wife and I had a reservation at another restaurant and called an audible and ate here instead. It was the right choice as we really loved our experience here. The food was great, the waiter and very attentive and the space itself is gorgeous. I would highly recommend!
Additionally someone there (a manager or owner) complimented my wife. I mean how many restaurants can you go to where you have that happen?

Went back to Toro Toro a few times since my first review. We have been noticing that the food is becoming less and less seasoned, and is often quite bland. It doesn’t help when half the items on the menu are not available and even some wines off the wine list. We use to like the vegetarian options they offered, but last time we went they literally only had the mushroom tapas available– and I hate mushrooms. So it was a great disappointment. I really would love it if they could go back to more flavourful dishes and re-​work their menu– maybe offering a daily menu rather than a fixed menu if they don’t always have the ingredients on hand. I will give it one more chance, and see how it goes.

Service très tes long. Assiette peu garnie. Et facture salée. Je né recommande pas pour y manger.

This resto looks very inviting from the outside, with its high ceilings and Spanish guitar flamnecoish music. I like the long tall tables with bar chairs. On the negative side: wow! Customer service!!! Where are they getting their waiters? They need some serious training! When we ordered wine by the glass and they did not have the wine we asked– the waiter proclaimed: –dont worry, its the same price!
Was I worried? No!!! Why would you assume that? Do I look poor to you???
Also, at toro toro they serve tapas– which is a pleasing concept, however after eating 4 dishes (meat, octopus) we requested a change of plates. Which was followed by our waiters puzzled look and words: «Why?»
What do you mean, why??? Just give me a clean plate. Lol
On the positive side– the grilled veal was succulent, melt away in my mouth tiny piece of pure joy. Octopus was super soft. We did not like the fennel shavings with peas that came with it. Oh and price wise– tiny, tapas portions at $ 15 – 18? A bit over priced, but no biggie
Loved the lobster risotto with chorizo– finger licking good! My boyfriend found it a bit too salty.
White sangria was as it should be.
Thus… All in all– it was OK! We wont come back to this place though.

Great food; the cod dish is phenomenal, as are the patatas bravas (sp?). Service was horrible. There were 2 servers for the entire restaurant, fairly disorganized, with one server thinking the other had taken care of us. There are far too many amazing restaurants to deal with shoddy service.

Stephane Huve. Grosse déception, les 3 plats que l’on a mangé étaient délicieux mais ils n’avaient que la moitié des plats du menu, même pas d’oeufs pour une tortilla, et bien sûr c’était toujours 10 minutes après la commande que le serveur revenait nous dire la mauvaise nouvelle. Je né pas du tout. recommande

Really enjoyed the authenticity of the tapas here. While the menu is on the small side, it leaves nothing to be desired. The cheese platter, figs, and potatos were amazing. The lamb meatballs were weird. My huabsnd loved the chorizo. The sangria was great. My biggest complaint is that they were out of three things we wanted to order that night. Our server also disappeared for about 30 minutes once we were finished with our meal. Beware too that they have a DJ there during dinner and it gets pretty loud.

The food here was fine, but not outstanding. Favourites included the calamari and paella. We didn’t like the Tapa de Salsichas or beef dishes as much. The restaurant was quite loud, with a DJ playing EDM all evening. Later in the evening, he started playing more 90s hip-​hop and dance. I’m not quite sure why the would have a loud DJ with no dancing. It was a bit annoying.

Delicious tapas, great ambient atmosphere. And awesome music. Definitely recommend.

Atmosphere and the music was great but the food was average and a little cold. The service was very slow… Over 2 hours and we cancelled our order. Will not come back!

A bit pricey but fun ambiance overall! Excellent service!

What an absolute joke this restaurant was. I understand that tapas are supposed to be the equivalent of a small appetizer, but to get literally 2 or 3 bites of food in each plate made the group feel awkward as we’re not used to seeing food delivered with such a feel of poverty. I would imagine that if Canada was ever stricken with war or famine or some sort of severe economic inflation, we would have to pay $ 15 – 30 for each 3 bites of food like we did at Toro Toro.
Now on to the food itself: they take pieces of McCain potatoes, broil in the oven, cover them with a creamy garlic sauce, and give it a fancy Spanish name — if that impresses you, great… I wasn’t so impressed.
The octopus plate was ok, but there was barely enough in the plate to actually enjoy it — more of a teaser.
By far, the biggest disappointment was the paella. The rice was doughy and clumpy, and each plate of «seafood paella» comes with 2 small pieces of shrimp. Again, it had the feel of cheapness and poverty.
3 of the tapas in their menu were not even available — but in retrospect, that was probably a good thing as it avoided what I’m sure would have been 3 more disappointments.
Even their bread is served in tiny, heartbreaking portions. They only had 2 choices of desert. Any place that doesn’t several churros shouldn’t be allowed to call itself a Spanish tapas restaurant!
We ended up tripling our original order of tapas and still all left hungry.
Aside from that, the music was annoyingly loud and their table layout was unpleasant — they use picnic style tables meant for 8 or 10 people each, so you might get seated elbow-​to-​elbow with strangers.
Needless to say, our whole group unanimously agreed that this was a terrible experience, and we won’t be going back.

I arrived in Montréal this evening pretty late and came across this lovely spot, walked in at about 10:00 and nabbed a seat at the very crowded bar. The patrons were having a great time and everyone was super friendly and accommodating of my poor French. Great food! I had the pan con tomate y jamón Serrano, tasty. The whole Dorado with vegetables was beautifully prepared, I could see the chef working and he clearly put his heart into both presentation and technique. Made me nostalgic for Madrid!

Read a review on Unilocal and I knew what I was in for. Prices are fair. Locale is intimate and elegant. Music is a bit too loud (although we knew –thanks to Unilocal-​), but after some drinks we got used to it. Service was outstanding.
Mushrooms — one of the most delicious tapas I’ve ever had.
Patatas Bravas — excellent
Paella — very tasty
Clams with pulled pork — surprisingly a good combo

We were walking around Old Montréal and wanted a quick glass of wine to fortify our tour. None of the recommended places grabbed us but we noticed this tapas bar that looked inviting. We ended up spending an entire evening there!
We sat at the bar and were waited on by a friendly, knowledgeable and memorably mustachioed bar tender. He was a Québécois who had spent time in Uruguay. We had a fun chat and took his recommendations for both wine and food.
We started with a small plate of «bites.» The chef had added some off menu items which were delicious. We followed it with a classic comfort food — toast with manchego and tomato. Then we had two warm tapas — mushrooms and then a ham and pork dish braised in beer. The sauces were so exquisite we ordered extra bread to sop everything up.
Definitely recommended!

Came here on a whim. Staff was friendly. Chorizo was delicious if you don’t mind the large dollop of mayo. The paella was simply amazing
Only bad thing was that a third of the menu was not yet prepared when we arrived at 6:30pm on a Tuesday night.
Would recommend

Really like and appreciate Toro Toro, very authentic tapas (I’ve spent a lot of time in Madrid previously). Also staff very friendly and having to travel to Montréal frequently for business it’s an added bonus.

This place gets the tapas sizing right, with the plates generally being quite small, making it very easy to order a lot of them. It’s as easy to eat here with a small party of 2, as it is with a larger party (though for a big group, I’d recommend ordering multiple of each dish). Unfortunately, they were not quite priced for the size ($ 10−15/plate, should have been closer to $ 5 – 7). The dishes were mostly flavourful, though some had too little of the main meat attraction and were mostly comprised of filler side.
The main detraction from this place is on the paella though. At any restaurant, the paella is not considered a tapas dish and should be full-​sized and very easily sharable. Here, the «seafood» paella was very small, used a weird seasoned rice, and the seafood comprised of 2 shrimp and 6 mussels.

Excellent all around. Had the sausage and pepper charcuterie, prawns and meatballs. I can see hitting Toro up a couple more times before my work in Old Montréal is through.

Vous voulez vous retrouver au cœur de l’Espagne tout en restant en ville? Vous serez servis au Toro Toro. Le service est hyper efficace et l’odeur des tapas traditionnels venant de la cuisine à air ouverte vous enchantera. Les dattes au chorizo, les palourdes au poulet et l’épaule de bœuf braisé sont à commander sans hésitation. On y trouve également une grande variété de fromages et de charcuteries.
Il né faut pas oublier la liste des vins où on retrouve un nombre incroyable de vins espagnols ainsi que de nombreuses importations privées. Si vous êtes indécis ou que vous né connaissez pas très bien les vins espagnols, n’hésitez pas à demander des conseils aux serveurs. Ils connaissent leur cave à vin et vous né serez pas déçus. Pour les amateurs de martini, le bar a tout ce que vous désirez.
Le menu ainsi que la carte des vins sont modifiés et améliorés à tous les mois. Ainsi, il est possible de découvrir de nouvelles saveurs espagnoles à chacune de vos visites.
Le restaurant est sur deux étages. Réservez en bas si vous voulez une ambiance bar et décontractée ou au deuxième pour une ambiance plus intime. Les vendredi et samedi l’ambiance monte d’un cran avec la musique d’un dj invité.
Prix: les prix des tapas sont raisonnables, mais c’est l’alcool qui peut rendre la facture un peu plus salée. Mais, après tout, l’argent n’est qu’un détail si vous voulez apprécier de bon tapas!
Enfin, si vous êtes dans le Vieux Montréal, pensez «TORO TORO «, car vous né serez pas déçus de l’ambiance et du service.

Belle taverne espagnole dans le vieux-​Montréal, le Toro Toro offres une belle sélection de Tapas orientée fruit de mer. La planchette de charcuterie fait de produit typique est vraiment savoureuse, mais chose pour l’assiette de fromage. (J’adore le manchego et le leur est particulièrement bon) La carte des vins (de l’importation privée de la compagnie Les contrebandiers) est vraiment superbe. On y voit un travail pour accompagner les tapas et il y a un beau choix provenant des différentes région de l’Espagne. L’ambiance y est festive, particulièrement le jeudi soir et le service est très chaleureux. Vraiment une belle nouvelle adresse.

Petit et chaleureux bar à tapas dans le Vieux; Excellente carte des vins espagnols; À essayer!