La Zingara

A horrible place. Pina is one mean lady and her name is also the first half of a terrible tropical beverage. The wait staff appear to be under Pina’s thrall, and her behavior when I had dinner here was unconscionably rude. She truly was a Big Irritable Terrible Crude Harpy.
All issues with Pina aside, the food here is actually pretty good, and I enjoyed the environment. In the future, the management should review how it treats its customers.

Excellent food, service, and atmosphere. We ate on the pleasant outdoor patio this summer and enjoyed the pasta al vongole with fresh clams and spaghetti carbonara (insider tip: the cream is just for «Americans.» You can request the traditional recipe instead). This time my guest had the Esperienza Marina, a spectacular platter of grilled octopus, shrimp, and mussels. I had the papardelle funghi in a light cream sauce — al dente, delicious and not too rich (I asked for light on the cream). Festive scene thanks to the guitar player who played both American oldies and Italian classics. and dedicated a few songs especially to the couple who were celebrating their 68^th anniversary! We had a very nice waitress who was committed to ensuring my elderly mother and I enjoyed ourselves. My new favourite on Erie St.

I visited La Zingara last night again with my boyfriend and his parents. Sadly, the service wasn’t as great as the first experience, as we didn’t have the same older waiter as last time but it was still ok.
We did wait quite a bit for basic appetizers (parm & proscutto plate and mozzerella/​tomatos in olive oil) that didn’t even need to be cooked, so that was a bit disappointing.
We waited longer than usual for our entrees, and I felt a bit ignored with water fillings.
Unfortunately due to my indecisiveness, I settled on the manicotti as my entrée. When it arrived I was quite disappointed in its size and surprised to see the two pieces drenched in tomato sauce/​juice. The filling tasted something out of a freezer, which was too bad.
However. everyone else at the table were very satisfied with their meals so I guess it was just a bad choice on my part.

Tried to eat at La Zingara while on a recent trip to Windsor.
While the atmosphere was what initially attracted me to the place, the staff were anything but welcoming. Even though there were a number of open tables up near the front, as a single diner I was seated in the back in a dark corner. It took the wait staff 10 mins to ask me if I wanted a menu and then they could not find any menus for me! I became skeptical that the service would improve, so I left. Can’t comment on the food, and perhaps they were having a bad night, but I decided to leave and walk down the street to Spago. Great experience at Spago.

Wood fired brick oven, hand tossed, premium ingredients, great atmosphere. I dont know what else to say. This may be the best I’ve ever had — anywhere in the world, if not it sure is in the top few.

Main Points:
1) My gnocchi was sticky, over-​cooked and the sauce had no favor, plus the «baked» mozzarella topping was burnt. Who bakes gnocchi anyway? VERY strange.
2) The Carbonara sauce was a joke.
3) The veal was dry and too thick to be considered scaloppini.
4) We didn’t finish our meal, or take home the half-​eaten leftovers.
5) The waiter was a jerk and should be fired.
My family and I have been patrons of La Zingara since they had the old building. Sadly, our last two dinning experiences can best be summed up as beyond disappointing and an embarrassment to Windsor’s wonderful little Italy and Italians everywhere. Being my family is from Abruzzi, Italy, we have high expectations when it comes to dinning in our beloved Windsor.
We came in on a Sunday night, 6:30 pm and the restaurant was a ghost town, there was only one other party besides our table of four. Our waiter, «Peter», was rude from the moment we sat down.
He ignored our table for 10 minutes before finally acknowledging us, and then he proceeded to take another 10 minutes to get our drinks and bring us menus. My father ordered Carbonara with penne and extra sauce, when my father requested the extra sauce in the order our waiter, «Peter», got really defensive, «We know how to make Carbonara. The chef will do it right,’ said Peter.
When we received our orders there was hardly any sauce on the penne and when my father asked where the extra sauce, our waiter went on another tangent, «there’s enough sauce on there,» Peter said. The noodles were very dry and it tasted like the chef used milk instead of whole cream. When the waiter finally agreed to bring my father extra sauce he disappeared for 10 minutes and brought my father a bowl of milk with some dried parsley in it. When my Father said this is not sauce, «Peter» flipped out, said it was sauce, and then stormed off.

It’s high time for a second opinion on La Zingara! It was recommended to me by an Italian friend from Windsor so I searched Unilocal and found all kinds of reviews that might have kept me away. But we went anyway and I’m glad we did.
We arrived early and were the first diners of the evening. My wife, son and I found the server welcoming and ready to explain the menu and specials and how we might best accommodate our 5 year old.
Advertised as a pizza place, La Zingara is exceptionally good in this category, but the menu is much more extensive than just the wood fired pizza offerings. I had no problem finding options as a vegetarian.
The pizza we had, ordered mostly for the five year old, was the best I’ve had since Gabriella, the little Italian lady who came by our villa in Tuscany to bake in the wood fired oven, cooked for us. A standard Margherita, prepared in La Zingara’s own wood fired oven, took us back to our summer vacation and threatened to leave little Ian without enough to eat since we couldn’t keep our hands off his pizza.
The risotto with radicchio was flavorful with the rice almost perfect — just on the edge of creamy without being overdone.
The melanzane (eggplant) was simple and well seasoned — a very nice appetizer.
The house white wine was affordable and paired well with our food; the wine list has enough options that we’ll splurge sometime in the future.
Along with the wonderful food, the warm atmosphere inside was perfect for a cold winter evening. The staff were trimming the holiday tree, and even Ian warmed up to them after first thinking they were vampires in their all black attire.
All in all, the kind of meal and evening that makes you go back to La Zingara even with all the other enticing options in Windsor’s Italian Row. Thanks for the tip, OC!