What can I say about Arlequino's? I'm a Montreal ex-pat living in Ottawa, but I always return home for my birthday to celebrate with friends from Montreal. From a distance, and through some searching I came upon this lovely sounding restaurant and booked it for my group of 16. Unfortunately this turned out to be a mistake of epic proportions. Let's follow the night in order of events.\n\nDrink orders:\nOne of my friends suggested we split a bottle of wine, a suggestion I liked, but neither of us are really wine connoisseurs. We asked the waitress for some suggestions, letting her know that we both preferred sweeter white wines, but she didn't know anything about the wine menu, \""I don't really drink wine\"" was her response. We asked her if anyone there knew, and she just shrugged. Not particularly helpful.\n\nAppetizers:\nOn reading some reviews a friend and I decided to try the calamari, they serve it here in long strips and it was fried up nicely, but there was very little flavouring to it without any dipping sauce. The sauce they served it with seemed to be some sort of mayo-based sauce but I didn't really know what it was, and it didn't taste very good. Another of my friends ordered the fried bocconcini, it sounded nice but for $7 it came with 2 pieces, which is a little disappointing. The ceasar salad I ordered was tasty if a bit too salty.\n\nPizza:\nWhile I won't comment second hand on everyone else's pizza experience, I will talk about the one I tried. I ordered the Pescara, which sounded very nice as: tomato sauce, cheese, pancetta and hot peppers. First this is not the wood burning pizza you would expect. As reviewer Dave I. suggests this is not authentic wood burning pizza. The top had burnt crusts yet the cheese was completely evenly cooked and well spaced out and the bottom was soggy, and not crispy at all. The worst of it was the over-abundant use of hot peppers on this particular variation; the rest of the ingredients couldn't be tasted with the amount of hot peppers they used, it was just completely unbalanced. I would have tasted the same flavours had I just eaten some soggy dough and a jar of hot peppers.\n\nDessert:\nHere's where my biggest issue of the night started. When I called to book they had asked if I wanted a birthday cake. I thought \""why not?\"" and chose a cake. Now it's certainly my fault at this point for not asking the cost of this added service, but for they price they charged they could have mentioned it. This restaurant claimed to have made the cake in house and charged $5 per person for the cake (a total of $75). Now I know this is how some higher end restaurants work, and while I wouldn't call Arlequino's higher end, it's their right to choose this business model. My issue of contention is not the actual cost of the cake but the reaction of the owner of the restaurant when I spoke to him about this issue. I calmly and politely told him that if they were going to charge such an exorbitant amount for a tiny cake, the least they could do is tell people the cost up front without having to be asked. Had I known, I would have brought my own cake. His response was: \""We'd have charged you $3 per person if you brought your own. What can I tell you? It's business.\"" For me this was an inadequate response to a customer concern. I'm not saying I expected him to reimburse me for the cake; I didn't expect any sort of gratuity, but the man didn't even have the decency to apologize or attempt to appease me in any sort of way. This is no way to manage any sort of service industry business, let alone a restaurant. His response was equally cold and careless to one of my friends who tried to speak to him about the same issue. \n\nThat final experience of the night led me to understand Arlequino's for what it is. This is an upscale, supposedly hip pizzeria. The decor and ambience are fantastic, but their downfall is that they are far more invested in the look than the quality of food or their customers' satisfaction. I certainly imagine that the owner will begin to care more about his customers when they stop coming to eat at this restaurant.