Within the Thompson Toronto, Scarpetta is the first international outpost of New York chef Scott Conant’s Italian eatery. The restaurant, which takes its name from an Italian expression that means little shoe or the shape bread takes when used to soak up a dish, already has two locations—one in Manhattan’s meatpacking district and another in Miami’s Fontainebleau Hotel.
Designed by Studio Gaia, the restaurant has a bright dining room with floor-to-ceiling windows, a private dining room for 18, and a wine display of 3,800 bottles. Scarpetta also offers a communal table on a patio surrounded by a reflecting pool and with a view of Victoria Memorial Park.
"Every Scarpetta has it’s own theme colour,” said general manager Christopher Ardu. “In Miami it’s blue, in New York it’s orange, and here it’s a golden brass.” Brass rails accent the wine cabinet, the cabana boxes are wrapped in gold embossed leather, and brass detailing can be seen along the base of the serpentine booths in the centre of the space. “We didn’t want to have a bad table in the restaurant,” Ardu said. “Everything is spacious.”
Signature dishes include spaghetti with tomato and basil, creamy polenta with fricassee of truffled mushrooms, yellowtail with ginger oil and seal salt, and moist-roasted capretto with rapini, pancetta, and potatoes.
Scarpetta is open Sunday to Thursday from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. and from 6 p.m. to midnight on Friday and Saturday. The dining room seats 100. When combined with the adjacent lobby bar, the space can hold 527.
