Scaddabush in Scarborough

Location:  Scaddabush Scarborough
Address:   580 Progress Ave, Scarborough
Website:   http://www.scaddabush.com/
When:      Aug 3, 2016

I got a very last minute invitation to attend a media dinner at the new Scaddabush Italian Restaurant in Scarborough, ON.  I said yes because I was curious about the food because they have been popping up all over the place in Toronto.  The hard part was that I was working in downtown Toronto and had to trek it out to Scarborough from downtown on an extremely hot day.

The restaurant is located just outside of the Scarborough Town Centre so you can drive there which I would have preferred to do if I was able to.  You can also take the LRT to McCowan station and walk over from the station, and the Go bus will get you there too.

A small group of food bloggers were invited along with a group from the Scarborough Bluffs Food Bank to sample a huge amount of food from the Scaddabush menu.   They wanted to show us some of their favourites.  The people from the Scarborough Bluffs food bank were there because the proceeds from the sales of Scaddabushs' Charity Bread are donated to the food bank.  It's pretty great that a simple thing like selling bread in a restaurant can help people that can't afford to even go to the restaurant and buy that same bread.  It makes a lot of sense and they have donated a lot of money to local food banks through the sales of their charity breads.

The restaurant is big and has great lighting for people but wasn't as good for showcasing the food but they do have a patio.   When you walk in you are greeted by a giant head beside the host station.  I am not sure what that is for but it got my attention.

There are lovely chandeliers to light the room and the seats are all mixed I suppose to symbolize an extended Italian family dinner.

One of the popular features of the restaurant is the Mozzarella bar where they make fresh mozzarella and serve it in a few different ways.   People can sit at the bar and watch the staff make the mozzarella.

They also make their pasta and breads fresh from scratch each day.

We sampled a huge amount of food.   We started with 3 different kinds of charity bread and 3 different preparations of the mozzarella.

We tried a pizza topped with a raw egg and a pollo chicken pizza.  The pasta dishes we sampled were the Pollo chicken which was everyone's favourite pasta and we also tried their squash ravioli and lobster pasta.

To top it all off we were presented with 3 amazing desserts.  I think this was my favourite part of the dinner.  The 3 dishes were a very flavourful Tiramisu, zeppole donuts with a nutella dipping sauce and a classic cheesecake topped with berries.

My photos don't really show the food properly but hopefully you can sort of tell what it looks like.

I wouldn't say this is a traditional Italian restaurant but more of a North American style Italian restaurant.  The food is really rich and decadent so make sure you have a big appetite when you go there.  We all waddled out of the restaurant.  Not pictured that we tried were their 2 types of meatballs and the 2 different salads that we sampled.

I think it's a nice place to go with a big family or for a birthday because the ambiance and the staff are fantastic and you don't have to go somewhere else for dessert.  It's also a great place to go after a day of back to school shopping at the mall.  Yeah you know that time of year is coming up.

Hope you check it out and enjoy.   My tip... order the Pollo pasta and the Tiramisu.  I think those were my favourites.