COVID-19 CLOSURE - Frankie Tomatto's

UPDATE 2020-Aug.-28 - After 25 years and 11 million customers, Frankie Tomatto's has very sadly been confirmed to be closing forever due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Frankie Tomatto's is located at 7225 Woodbine in Markham, just north of Steeles. It’s a 10 minute trip from the Woodbine exit off hwy 404 and is transit-accessible as well.  It's a couple of minutes' walk northwest from the Victoria Park end-of-the-line bus loop or the Steeles route at Woodbine.

"Tomatto's" isn't a typo... I'd guess it's spelled that way to force pronouncing it "Tuh-mah-toh" as in Italian, rather than "tuh-may-toh" which is the English variant. Frankie's has been around since 1994 and it shows. There's plenty of custom decor including a replica Leaning Tower out front, and plenty of columns, statuary and other Romanesque arts and accoutrements inside. The actual buffet area is designed like a street lined with shops, including awnings.

We went on a Sunday brunch (which runs from 11 - 2:30 in the afternoon). Beverages are included with the meal, and very generously sized. As it was brunch there were both breakfast and lunch/dinner items. One of the policies this establishment has that I wish others did is that as long as you arrive on time you will be able to eat; they don't put the food away until an hour after the time limit listed so there's no rushing or leaving unhappy. The only downside really was the noise. Frankie's is both very large and divided into sections, so it would make sense to put families with very young, extremely loud children in different sections than groups without children, but this doesn't seem to be done (I popped it into the suggestion box, though my hopes aren't high it will be implemented.)

I started with soups... the seafood chowder was excellent as was the minestrone. Italian Wedding soup I have had before and never been fussy on it until now; this is the first time I'd ever had it done properly and loved it; it's very savoury and tasty when done right and I ended up having a second.

The Eggs Benedict had a "tomatto"... well, it is Frankie Tomatto's and all, but I was more surprised to find one in the "gourmet" Caesar salad. Other than the tomato the Benedict was quite good, but the Caesar sort of "meh". Thankfully little else was... the chicken cacciatore was undoubtedly the best I've ever had. Baked salmon was excellent with fresh herbs. Rotisserie chicken was fantastic, perfectly cooked and well-seasoned. Beef tenderloin was well-done and smokey. Stuffed peppers were quite good, although not quite like mama used to make, but what is? Chicken parmigiana was very good with flavourful breading that one can really taste the bread in.

Mishy unfortunately didn't like the veg lasagna indicating too much spice and vinegar (I liked it), but loved the veg pizza with plenty of red wine flavour in its sauce. Rosti (pancake) potatoes were very good with their available toppings of applesauce and sour cream. Roast garlic potatoes, however, were not as garlicky as expected, but rosemary potatoes made up for it. Veg meatballs were deliciously accented by allspice (the same spice that gives Pfeffernusse cookies their distinctive flavour.) Even boring old bacon and sausage was livened up Italian-style and better than expected: bacon was thick and sausage very well-seasoned.

The only dish I didn't like was balsamic vegetables: the pepper was underdone and the zucchini burnt; I'm hoping that was an anomaly. I didn't get a chance to sample any of the desserts because I was so enamored of the unique soft-serve strawberry and cappuccino ice cream with available chocolate fudge sauce (the staple chocolate and vanilla are of course available, but why bother with them?) that I didn't leave any room for anything else. Mishy added, though, that the bread pudding was so good it was worth the entire visit.

Frankie's had a lot else to offer that I missed, and I'm looking forward to returning to try more of it. I think with the included pop that the weekend brunch price of $18.99 is quite good; as with the similar One World brunch I wasn't interested in eating for the remainder of the day! Dinner on weekdays is only $16.99 as well. Although one or two items weren't up to the rest, all in all the quality was excellent and several items were fantastic, and other than the noise, the atmosphere is good and it's well-run and destined to be a great place to eat for a long time. Buon appetito!

Rating: 9-9.5/10