478 King Street West, Toronto, ON M5V 1L7
(416) 367-0505
When Sean and I started discussing what we wanted to do for our anniversary, we decided that we wanted to go somewhere special that we've never been to before. We ended up picking Patria.
Even though we had never been to Patria before, we had food from the restaurant when they were at Taste of Toronto a few years ago and we loved it.
When we booked our reservation on Open Table we made a note saying that it was our anniversary and that we are both in wheelchairs (which we ALWAYS do). They called us back to let us know the restaurant is accessible but the washroom was not functioning at the time. Although it was a bummer that the washroom was not working, I was happy that they took the time to tell us before we even got to the restaurant, unlike what other restaurants have done in the past.
Patria is known for its authentic Spanish menu but what everyone raves about is their paella, which is a rice dish usually served with seafood and different types of meats. We ended up ordering Paella Patria (which had shrimp, mussels, calamari, fish, snap peas, clams and saffron) first because we were told that it takes about 45 minutes to cook.
While we were waiting for the paella, we ordered four types of tapas: pan con tomate (bread with olive oil and crushed tomatoes), pan con jamón serrano (bread with olive oil, crushed tomatoes and serrano ham), dátiles (dates stuffed with manchego cheese and guindilla peppers and wrapped in bacon) and croquetas de setas (fried croquettes filled with porcini mushrooms and manchego cheese with truffle aioli). Each tapas dish we ate was delicious, but my favourite was the croquettes. They were creamy, cheesy and mushroomy on the inside and crispy on the outside. I could have easily eaten a half dozen of them to myself.
The paella ended up coming out about a 35 minutes after we ordered it. Patria's paellas come in small and large sizes, so since we planned on ordering other dishes we got the small size, as recommended by our server. When it came out it looked small but it end up being plenty of food for us. There was a good amount of seafood and the rice was filling. The entire dish was extremely flavourful and being someone who loves seafood, I was not disappointed.
At the end of our meal, we were surprised with a plate of chocolates saying "Happy Anniversary" on it, which was a sweet touch after a great meal and fantastic service.
Despite there being a few accessibility hiccups (i.e. no wheelchair accessible washroom and automatic door button), our experience at Patria was pretty good. The service was impeccable and Sean and I both said that we could easily spend a lot of money stuffing our faces with all of the delicious food.
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