Located at 10123 Yonge Street in Richmond Hill

I’ve been wanting to go to this restaurant since last year.  Urbanspoon reports it to be one of the best rated Italian restaurants around the Richmond Hill area (currently at 95% at the time of writing) so I thought it was an excellent choice to go to for our annual KAM dinner this year.  (Last year, the three of us were only available to meet on a Sunday, on which Citro is closed, so we settled for Ferrovia Ristorante instead).  

Placing a mirror at the end of the restaurant ensures that the restaurant looks bigger than it is. Smart move, Citro!

Citro Italian Restaurant is located on Yonge Street north of Major Mackenzie in a small cluster of shops and restaurants.  The last time I remember being here was for a sushi lunch at Shogun Sushi & Ramen.

It turns out that Citro Italian Restaurant is a very small restaurant!  You are able to see all of its dining space in one glance.  We didn’t make a reservation and luckily were able to get a table set up for us.  The whole place was packed on a Friday night!

As such, having only one server to cater to the whole restaurant, the service was a little slower than most restaurants but I could tell that our server was putting his all to make everyone’s night a good one.

Bruschetta. $6
herbed tomato mix on crostini

I ended up choosing my food from the Specials menu that they had and ordered the crab cakes as appetizer and the fusilli with beef strip loin as my main.

Alice and Marilyn shared the bruschetta appetizer which looked nice and they said it was good.

I adored my crab cakes appetizer.  It was a bit hefty at $14 for only two crab cakes and a side salad but the quality was definitely there.  Cutting apart the crab cake, I could taste strands of crab meat in the seasoned patty.  There was a slight spiciness to it from the chipotle aioli which I loved as well.  It was delicious!

Crab Cakes with Chipotle Aioli Mixed Green Salad Brown Butter Vinaigrette. $14

Crab meat in crab cakes = <3!

The side mixed green salad contained leafy greens and halved grape tomatoes.

Alice’s Linguine Di Mare (seafood linguine) looked amazing and saucy compared to my fusilli with beef.

Linguine Di Mare. $20
-black tiger shrimp, scallop, calamari, and mussel in a light white wine tomato sauce

Fusilli with Sautéed Beef Strip Loin, Mushroom, Grape Tomato, Broccoli in Roasted Garlic, Extra Virgin Olive Oil sauce. $20

The fusilli with sautéed beef strip loin was merely a dish, or a hodgepodge, of fusilli, diced beef, halved grape tomatoes again, mushrooms, broccoli, and garlic with olive oil.  It wasn’t particularly tasty to say the least.

The fusilli was al dente and cooked to perfection.  The sautéed beef strip loin chunks were a bit rough and didn’t have much taste to it.  I felt that the tomatoes didn’t match the dish that well either.

All in all, the ingredients were yummy but this dish didn’t particularly excite me.  I wished it was more saucy and rich in flavour.  On the other hand of thinking, this pasta dish is a clean one for those who like to keep it simple.

After we were done, our plates were cleared and we ordered dessert.

Alice’s tartufo was really delicious!! One bite and I already liked it.  😀

Chocolate, Vanilla Taftufo. $6.50

Honey, Thyme, Goat Cheese Cake. $9

Marilyn chose a unique goat cheese cake that was very dense and tasted heavily of goat cheese.  It was definitely unique and I like how they placed an crisp apple chip on it for decoration.

As for me, I ordered the classic Tiramisu.  I overheard the server recommending this dessert to our neighbouring table so I figured it must be good!

Tiramisu. $8

Indeed, it was!  It wasn’t a perfect square shape but it was scattered on top of rich cocoa powder and the alcohol was infused throughout the Tiramisu and light cake.  It was very good.  I finished it soo quickly! 😀

It was a cold winter night; nice for dining out

All in all, I was a bit disappointed with Citro because I expected that as a true Italian restaurant, their pasta would be over-the-top amazing.  I guess I chose the wrong pasta dish so I’d have to return in the future to try more to redeem my pasta opinion.  Their appetizer and dessert for me were very good!  Also, their prices were a tiny bit steep for me ($14 app and $20 main).

Have you been to Citro Italian Restaurant before?  What is your opinion of the food?  🙂