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Italian Kitchen offers a coalescence of old-world charm and new-world sophistication. The cuisine includes warm wheels of handcrafted pizza, peerless antipasto platters, and dry-aged steaks. A variety of pastas including: pappardelle blanketed with pulled osso bucco; impossibly fat gnocchi; and the ultimate ravioli with Dungeness crab and fresh buffalo-milk ricotta.
Having eaten here several times, for both lunch and dinner, I can fully understand why some reviews are very positive and some rather negative. The food quality is best characterized by the term 'hit and miss'. Some items are outstanding, fully worthy of 4 stars, while some other items are only mediocre, hence my overall 3-star rating. However, because of the reasonable prices and the premium location, the place is full all the time. Service is always very good, but this will sometimes go unnoticed because of the VERY loud ambient noise here and the crowded seating, which are distracting to me. Otherwise, the decor is nice and the setting is upscale.
The wife and I were walking down Alberni Street and decided to stop here for lunch and sit outside on the patio. We had just left a wedding and felt like some champagne. Lucky for us they offer it by the glass! Two glasses of champagne arrived. It wasn't cold enough for my liking but tasted great. We ordered off the brunch menu..
Appies were next, we ordered two to share. The Beef Carpaccio with soft gorgonzola polenta, asiago cheese - delicious! Also the Bruschetta Sampler - chick pea, tomato basil, pesto, burrata.. Very good.
After that we each had a pizza which were both good and a decent size. I had the Quattro Formaggio “Bianco” (4 white cheese) caciocavallo, fontina, asiago, mozzarella. This was tasty but only for cheese lovers! Very rich and I could only eat half. Would have been better if I added fresh tomato on it I think. My wife ordered the Tartufo Funghi - portobello mushroom, truffle cheese and it was good as well. The waitress asked if we wanted more champagne and I said I did but I wanted it to be ice cold. She smiled said no problem and our next glasses were chilled perfectly. At the end we had to take some pizza to go -) Overall we had great food and service and we will return!
Food - had calamari to start which was very unimpressive. I prefer my calamari in small chunks, battered and fried - this was long chunks, very very lightly battered and fried. It got soggy quickly and I didn't enjoy chewing through large rubbery chunks of squid. He had the rigatoni vitello (veal cheeks) which was very tasty and light, though a touch salty. I had the lobster tagliatelle which came in a larger-than-normal portion. Was also quite flavourful, liberal with the lobster, but a bit heavy with the cream sauce.
Service - very sweet girl who was very attentive and knowledgeable. Very friendly and talkative.
Value - wasn't bad. The pasta was good value but the calamari was not. Next time will try the share platter which, at $20 pp, is very popular as people all around us were ordering it.
Ambiance - absolutely did not enjoy how crowded it was. We were literally 6 inches from the table on the right, and 1 foot from the table on the left. Hated it! Couldn't hear half of what he was saying and just felt like I was sharing my dining experience with two other couples.
I am more or less a regular for lunch and have been very satisfied at every visit - food is great, staff are attentive, and service is outstanding.
Had lunch with a friend (ok, this was several months ago, but I am a new member of dinehere) once and, in an off-hand, manner mentioned that the lunch seem to taking too long (it wasn't really, but I was in a bit of rush). Anyhow, lunch arrived shortly thereafter and it was great. But imagine my surprise when the management covered the bill. The reason - they had fallen short on their high service standard. I sort of protested and said 'the lunch wasn't exactly late' but, wow I thought, now that is service. And, of course, I continue to have lunch there on a more or less regular basis.
Go there for the food and expect high standards of service and quality - you will not be disappointed.
to start im not the most diehard fan of italian food. just the basics of pasta or pizza and im good to go. i love how their open kitchen is set up but its a little to close to customer traffic. it can get busy at times so go early if you can around 5-6pm. they have a lot to chose from the wine list although im not a drinker myself
i like how the our server described everything once it came to our table, especially since i didnt know anything!!! haha
i would come back if i had out of town guests or long time friends i havent seen, but as a regular its kinda pricey for me.
recommended!!!!
Oh Italian Kitchen--we have been such loyal customers of yours for years. But tonight's service was enough to make me boycott this restaurant forever.
Having frequented this restaurant since my husband and I were dating, we have always been pleased with this restaurant. The food is fantastic and the ambience pleasant, We have had many a celebration, recommended it to our friends, etc. The past three times we have been with our children to enjoy a nice early dinner, the reception has been less than friendly. They could not wait to get us out of there.
Tonight's service took the cake. We were seated, politely i must say, but with such attitude--clearly it was Friday night and having a family of four in their hip restaurant seemed to be messing with their mojo. Our server never offered the specials, and when it became apparent we were not consuming any alcohol, developed even more of a passive aggressive attitude. We placed our order and it arrived in a split second, I kid you not. This is fine when you have small children who are famished, but he could not clear our plates away fast enough, and as soon as dessert was served our bill was on the table. I barely pulled out my credit card and there he was ringing it through. Hinting basically, please leave as soon as you can. Meanwhile the couple on our right was getting coddled and getting offered all the specials of the evening, amuse bouche and recommendations. In sharp contrast to our service.
I left feeling, wow--I spent my hard-earned money for such a sub-par experience with my family. How unenjoyable, how disappointing. Never again, they have lost my business.
I booked my reservation in advance to ensure that on a Thursday Night my date would go perfectly. It was my girlfriends birthday and she loves pasta. We got to the restaurant and even though I had a reservation people off the street were seated before us. And the worse part about that is they had a better table. I let it go because it was a special night. We ordered the pasta sampler or whatever it is called for appitizer. It was ok. There was very little taste except for SALT. Then we waited and waited and waited and waited and waited until we got our main courses. Mine was cold, hers was over cooked. My date had the cream pasta, but as most of us know, if you cook cream to long it turns into oil. Something about the fat content in cream. Anyways I was told that because it was her birthday we would get a free tiramisu. I was in luck she loves tiramisu. We never got it. So long story short, the place was really loud, poor food, crappy service, and over priced.
Had dinner here with my wife last weekend, saturday night. Booked with opentable and as usual got a great table, on the window looking down on Alberni.
Maybe because of that, or maybe because of the shrieking girls at a large table around back, it was loud. Not quite "lean in and yell at your date" loud, but you had to make an effort if you want to have a conversation. The music was great, and it wasn't too loud so I couldn't blame it on that.
I found the food to be about on par with what you're getting at other Glowbal restaurants, which is to say quite good. I also thought the service was very professional, and personable. We were very well taken care of.
I had read reviews here prior to dining and was prepared to find things salty. I salt most things when I'm cooking at home and don't really have an issue with it, but I did find the risotto here over-salted. I couldn't even finish it, which was a shame because it was otherwise prepared perfectly. I had no such issues with the appetizers or the sablefish entree my wife had.
The silver lining here is that it left room for the doughnuts, which came out PIPING hot and were delicious.
One final note, they have an Enomatic machine here that they load up with some decent wines. This lets you have a glass of something you'd normally never see available by the glass, like Sassicaia or Mission Hill's Quatrain. The glass might cost 1/2 of what a whole bottle would cost at the liquor store, but if you feel like treating yourself...
Hooray! A glass of reasonably-priced and delicious red house wine. That, to me, got me in a good mood right off the bat at Italian Kitchen. A generous and friendly server who kept on grating the parmesan into my food until I finally said OH, AM I SUPPOSED TO SAY "WHEN"? Happy and chatty dining neighbours who were obviously enjoying their lovingly-presented food. A pizza that was actually generous in size compared to a CD I had eaten at a posh place. Go there and have a good time, like we did.
On a recommendation from a friend I decided to try Italian Kitchen on Alberni.
Ordered an appy to share and the fish platter along with a bottle of the chianti.
Food was average, never popped in your mouth like other highend restaurants I have tried in the area.
Fish was overcooked, shrimp also overcooked. Pasta should have been better, I'm assuming it was made in-house but tasted lime the stuff I buy at the Italian market. Risotto was undercooked, better pass on that.
The ambience was good, nice waitress and decor.
For a bill over $150 I left unimpressed and will go back to my other Italian restaurants when the cravings return.
Good: service, ambience, decor, location
Bad: overall food experience, pricey for what you get, cookie cutter style Italian restaurant.
We were in the area and decided to try Italian Kitchen for dinner. We have been to Trattoria Italian Kitchen and since this restaurant belongs to the same group we decided to give it a try. They have a completely differnt menu than the Trattoria. Prices are slightly higher. We did not have a reservation but it was early on Saturday evening so there was no problem getting a seat.
Unlike a previous review I did not find the music too loud. I'm very sensitive to overly loud music but here I found it just provided a nice background and added to the ambiance. It is a very pleasant room and the tables are not crowded together so it is easy to talk to your companion.
We decided to try the meat and fish platter. It consisted of veal milanese, linguine carbonara, forno trout, crab stuffed prawns, fried broccoli and seasonal vegetables. The platter was a good size. There was certainly enough food. All of the food was very good but the trout was just decent. The trout was well prepared, nice and moist but it just seemed very bland. It could have used some seasoning or herbs to bring out the flavour. We shared a torta di cioccolato for dessert, basically a flourless chocolate cake with expresso gelato and pecan crocante. Very tasty.
The service that we received was absolutely amazing. We had ordered a bottle of wine. While he was taking food from the platter my husband hit the wine bottle that was sitting on the table and it toppled over. He managed to catch it but some of the wine spilled onto the floor and tablecloth. Our waiter hurried over, said "don't worry about it, just relax and enjoy the rest of your meal and we'll take care of the problem" They cleaned up the mess promptly, checked to be sure that none of the wine had spilt on us and gave us two additional glasses of wine to compensate us for the spilled wine. This is gesture that was very much appreciated, especially since the incident was our fault. It is the sort of gesture that ensures that we would return. Wine and water was topped up continuously during our meal. After we finished out entrees our waiter brought us the dessert menu. He waited a decent interval and asked if we wanted dessert. My husband said yes we would like dessert but we would like to relax over wine first. The waiter said no problem, when we're ready just turn over the menu and he'll come back to take our order. 2 minutes after we turned over the menu he was there to take our order. This waiter is a real gem. Absolutely exceptional service.
We'll definetly return. It was a great evening.
Went to the Italian Kitchen to celebrate a birthday.
I arrived 5 minutes early for our reservation, but was seated immediately.
We ordered the bone marrow, and the bruschetta sampler for starters.
The spaghetti with kobe meatballs and the carne piatta sharing plate for the mains.
And the tiramisu, zeppole ci cioccolato and the mille folglie for dessert.
All of the starters and mains were good to excellent. In particular, the rib-eye steak (in the carne piatta) and the spaghetti w/ meat balls were fabulous. We found the veal piccata (also part of the carne piatta) to be good, but it's mild flavors were over powered by the bolder flavors around it.
Of particular note, the desserts were all superb. The zeppole ci cioccolato was a stand out.... slightly crisp to the bite, but warm, rich and sooo chocolately on the inside.
Our server was excellent... warm, friendly, charming and helpful.
I can't help it, I love food and I love to eat. After trying many different restaurants in the lower mainland, I notice everything from the first time I get seated to the waiter taking my order. We decided to come here after work because it was close to the movie we were going to go watch. Upon entering the cozy, funky and cool looking restaurant, I was warmly greeted & seated promptly. My first thoughts were, "Wow, this place seems pretty cool. " It had a nice open window to the outside and comfy dining tables, not too cramped but also not too spaced out. While I waited for my husband to arrive I noticed some things, such as the paper covering the top of the table, which I've seen before but didn't expect to see given that it seemed like such a swank restaurant. The waiter kept checking on me to make sure I was okay, which was great, but then some other waitress started sweeping the floor near the tables around me. I was a bit taken back because it was so unexpected given that I assumed dinner service had already started when I arrived at 6pm! Anyways, while strange to see that I was still excited to try the food. We opted for the pasta platter for 2, and while some of it was actually yummy, overall it was a disappointment because the portion was small for dinner and at $18/person I expected a lot more, not undercooked penne. =( I heard that lunch is better there with more reasonable prices. It guess that makes sense since it caters to a larger crowd during that time, but still. Wish it were better for dinner.
Had lunch here last week, it is a BUSY place; we showed up for lunch at around 12:15pm, which is definitely dead in the middle of their lunch prime-time. We stayed until just after 2pm, and it was almost as busy when we left as it was when we walked in.
It took forever to get our food so we asked for some bread for the children to eat...we had to ask 3 times before the waiter finally brought it. When the food finally arrived, (just like the drinks) the dishes came out one and two at a time.
Order the Antipasto Platter, Vine Ripe Tomato Bruschetta and the Zeppele Doughnuts mmmmmm! All the Pastas are cooked al dente perfect and tasty!
The kobe meatballs and pasta are amazing. Make sure you order a side of brussel sprouts.
Friends here from Houston, staying at the Hyatt next door.
Server attempting to do too many things poorly.
Appy was O.K., but when server came to clear table, took dirty cutlery off the dishes, and put it back on the table!
2 tables over, 4 drunk girls having a birthday party and constantly yelling. Couple between the tables with 2 kids mentioned it to the same server who apparently talked to them.
Yelling continued, and the couple had their meals packed up and left.
Main course plain, uninspired, had better pasta that tasted like something out of a box!
Skipped desert as still could't hear ourselves, asked for and talked to the manager, who had a hard time hearing me over the yelling! Seemed surprised????
NEVER AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My first time there, I was quite disappointed.
The penne with tomatoe sauce was so over spiced with enough salt to see my blood pressure go through the sky. It came out warm.
However, the lasagna came out cold. Apparently this was one of the recommendation by their employees. For a feature of the menu, VEEERY disappointed. The middle of the compressed lasagna was stone cold.
The service was quite nice though.
The ambiance was pretty much the identical look of Glowbal.
Don't think I will be going back here.
Four of my coworkers and I went to the Italian Kitchen for lunch about a week ago. They are usually booked well in advance, so I made the reservation about a week ahead of time. Upon arrival, we were greeted by the hostess who led us upstairs to another hostess, who seated us immediately.
The service is very laid back, in the sense that they really don't bother rushing around for anything. They just sort of saunter around, taking their time with everything. The manager actually came by to fill our water glasses and apologized for the delay with our server. When we asked a couple of questions, he kind of froze and simply said that our server would be right with us. Odd.
When our server finally arrived, he answered our questions and took our order for food & wine. It took a LONG time to get our wine - which was a bit weird, since we just ordered a bottle for the table. I didn't think it would take that long to ring in and bring back to the table, but it did take about 15 minutes for him to return.
We ordered an antipasto platter to share, and it was incredible. First of all, the portion is huge. We ordered for two, but shared between four of us. The fifth person in our group opted for the bruschetta as a starter. I think if only two people were sharing the platter, they wouldn't need anything else as there is so much on the plate and it's very filling. There were jumbo prawns, baked clams, prosciutto-wrapped asparagus, kobe meatballs, char-grilled brussels sprouts, caprese salad and a few other items - everything was so flavourful. I think the brussels sprouts were a bit salty for some, but I really liked them.
I think it was about a half hour before our mains arrived. Far too long for a lunchtime wait, if you ask me. When the food finally arrived, there were no complaints from anyone - we all really enjoyed the food. The portions on some entrées were HUGE, while others a bit small - I guess it depends on your order. My lasagna and salad were a decent size, and I had to wrap most of it to go as I was still full from the appetizer. No one had room for dessert, and two of us left with take-out bags.
For a glass of wine, appy & entree, my bill was about $27 plus tax & tip. I didn't think it was outrageous, but I wouldn't spend that much on lunch very often. The food was definitely worth it.
My only complaint really, was with the service. Everything took so long to arrive and our server did not seem at all fazed by the fact that we were becoming impatient. If I go back for lunch, I would probably just stick with an appy OR an entrée to save time. I recommend this place if you are not in a hurry.
Came here for lunch on a weekday and tried the spaghetti w/ kobe meatballs. For 15 bucks I definitely didn't expect the meatballs to be made of real kobe beef, but still.. they didn't have much flavor. The spaghetti was pretty good though. Only concern is I felt really thirsty and dry after wards which is normally how I feel after eating at a low budget Chinese restaurant -- makes me wonder how much MSG was in the food (and shocking since I didn't think Italian places use MSG)
Ambiance: Nice room. Really loud. My friends and I were pretty much shouting at each other the whole time.
Service: Ok and as expected but in general the servers didn't seem as polished as other downtown establishments. They were a bit intrusive at times.
On a recent non-DOV experience a group of us went to IK for a meal. They told us we could only have the table for two hours, but they need the turnover with the high rent. The restaurant is on two floors, and it looks nice and trendy. The w/c was clean too. The one complaint is the loud music and overall noise level due to the place being full. The server had an expert knowledge of the menu, and made recommendations.
I had a lamb sausage goat cheese pizza which was outstanding. The egg on top is nice, like you get in Europe. All the others at the table had the garlic clams pasta which was fantastic. The drinks are a bit pricey, but given the location that is understandable. I had iced tea anyway. Nobody had room for dessert, so I can’t make a report about that. By Vancouver standards this is a good Italian joint. It sure seemed popular.
Recommended.
A party of 6 went to IK for a group lunch. Made reservations so no need to wait and this is recommended. Great lunch specials, lassagna, lamb shanks, pizza etc. Had the lassagna and tasted the lamb shanks, both very good. Service was very attentive and speedy. The only negative was the seating, a bit too cramped for any type of intimate dinners but OK for lunch. Would go again during dinner to check it out.
| 1. | Black & Blue (12 m) |  |
| 2. | Kobe Japanese Steak House (33 m) |  |
| 3. | Coast (36 m) |  |
| 4. | Thierry Chocolaterie Patisserie Cafe (40 m) | |
| 5. | Eh! Restaurant (41 m) | |
| 6. | Italian Kitchen To Go (49 m) | |
| 7. | Starbucks (56 m) | |
| 8. | Kamei Royale (56 m) | |
| 9. | Lupo Cafe (61 m) |  |
| 10. | Salam Bombay (62 m) | |
