2003 Cuvée Award of Distinction for Excellence and Innovation, Presentation of Ontario Wines

2003, 2002 Wine Spectator Award of Excellence

"Orio Vergani" Gold Medal for Outstanding Cuisine: Executive Chef Dario Tomaselli
– The Academy of Italian Cuisine, 2001

"Like a fine wine, ORO gets better with age…the food doesn't get much better than this…."
– toronto.com's Alan Vernon, 2003

"The chef, Dario Tomaselli, is an imaginative and gracious talent."
– The National Post's Jacob Richler, 2003

Top 10 placement in "Best of T.O." and "Toronto's Favourite Restaurants" contests
– toronto.com and Patron's Pick, 2003

"ORO is breathtaking, but its main attraction is the food…"
– WHERE Magazine, 2002

"Miracle on Elm Street…ORO, one of the rare posh Toronto restaurants open for lunch, offers a daring menu that succeeds… I look forward to going back." – The National Post's Jacob Richler, 2002

"Let us count the ways this underrated Mediterranean restaurant is a masterpiece." Score: 24
– Zagat Survey, 2002

"ORO is a priceless find for people looking for cuisine with character and a restaurant with soul."
– NexChange's Melissa Valledor, 2001

ORO "...is to food what Ferrari is to cars: Sleek, clean and drop-dead gorgeous." One of the 10 Best Restaurants in Canada.
– The Globe and Mail's Joanne Kates, 1997

"[Chef] Tomaselli can cook circles around nine out of 10 Toronto chefs...[his] breadth and range are as astonishing as his skill. From Italian hearty to Eastern refined, he does it all."
– The Globe and Mail's Joanne Kates, 2000

ORO has a "...pastry chef who not only leads us into temptation but delivers the goods."
– Toronto Life's James Chatto, 2000

One of the Top 10 places to eat in Toronto.
– NOW Magazine's Best of '98

"Perfectly grilled lobster sits beside splendidly sweet crab cake, atop slightly spicy yellow tomato gazpacho, high-flavoured and just chunky enough for interest. Atop the sea treasures is a tangle of baby-beet and pea sprouts and fresh chevril. Hello, summer! Roasted vegetable tian is a glamOROus tall layer cake of sweetly roasted root vegetables topped with corn sprouts and chives. Grilled sardines on a slightly citric parsley sauce hide under fresh lemon thyme linguine spiced with chunks of strong olives and freshly oven-dried tomatoes. This is hearty peasant food gone luxe."
– The Globe and Mail's Joanne Kates, 2000

"ORO is looking and tasting impressive these days. There's an attractive confidence about the service, a sense of every wheel in the mechanism whirring smoothly. Sitting there with the menus laid out before me, appetite honed by a glass of prosecco and slice after slice of bread spread with an irresistible anchovy-horseradish butter, I am sorely tempted to frolic among Dario Tomaselli's mouth-watering appetizers and entrees. But this mission calls for discipline...An extraordinary 80 per cent of ORO's clientele orders dessert, and no one, says my waiter regrets the decision.
"The polenta plum cake arrives. It's blissful...The dazzling presentation recalls some whimsical sculpture, turning heads as the waiter carries it through the restaurant..."
– Toronto Life's James Chatto, 2000

"A plush room with a personality all its own, especially on the plate. The cuisine-except for a few pastas-is an adventuresome fusion of upscale meats and fish with exotic veg and spicing. Appetizer honours go to the warm foie gras over a lavender-glazed quail thigh, a scrumptious, unctuous meat combo; its tart partner is an intense black-currant coulis. The main course selections is an intriguing, postmodern read....Extravagant desserts and a fine cheese list. A carefully wrought, rather gorgeous list of Italians wines, with lots of bordeaux and burgundy aristocrats thrown in..."
– Toronto Life, 1999

"Dario's thOROughly contemporary fare matches ORO's overall expertise. Simple and subtle, this classic cooking with a contemporary streak combines innovation with convention. Striking with just the right golden touch, ORO mines the mother lode."
– NOW Magazine's Steve Davey, 1998

"Cool and calm behind a glass façade, the suite of rooms elegantly open brick, pale wood, frosted glass. Fireplaces lend warmth and life, as do friendly old-school servers. Exec chef Dario Tomaselli...leaves a card full of interesting ideas and subtle flavours. Warm salmon carpaccio pinks thin slices of fish under the salamander, hiding a crunchy salad of shredded radish and endive in a ginger-lemon oil dressing with pink peppercorns. Terrine of rabbit presses lean, chewy meat around a tentative mousse of foie gras and crunchy asparagus; juicy chanterelles and enoki the garnish, moistened with nut oil, but two sauces steal the show: a port-balsamic reduction and a watercress coulis. One of several sophisticated pastas, tender tortelloni contain a mash of lobster, crab, scallops, brilliantly paired with thick pea purée; fiery chili oil and a tiny tomato dice are the contrasting condiments..."
– Toronto Life, 1998

"ORO makes sublime barley risotto with 'pearls' of beet, tasty shreds of duck confit and the heavenly scent of black-truffle fragments in oil. My favourite appetizer is grilled calamari, which comes cradled in a fluted pappadum, spiced with gentled curry in orange-mango vinaigrette. Strands of curry oil and reduced balsamic vinegar create a piquant trail around the pappadum. [Dario] smokes a very fresh sea bass over tea leaves (à la chinois); its sauce is based on carrot juice, its garnish an edible rainbow."
– The Globe and Mail's Joanne Kates, 1997