I visited the Italian Kitchen with my family recently after seeing that they had moved from the old Alberni location. As soon as we stepped in, I loved the ambiance and design, while my father felt that the new design was too formal compared to that of the former location. All the staff was wonderful: beyond attentive, but also friendly and approachable. Beet salad with black pepper ricotta was amazing. The only reason I gave four stars is that the pasta was only "good", not $25 and 5 stars good. Salted Caramel Budino for dessert was delicious. Overall, a great experience, and I would certainly go back. Thanks to our server Sarah and to the manager Reggie that chatted with us after our meal.
Whenever we are downtown, Italian Kitchen is on our top 3 options to eat out. Great selection, fresh pasta and ingredients along with a great mix of family & youth atmosphere. Service is also hard to beat.
The service was great the night we went with both our waiter, Jeff, as well as one of the hostesses being very attentive to our needs. Food was very good with our opening Charcuterie platter being so good. My wife had the pasta and meatballs which she enjoyed very much and I loved the braised lamb shank that I ordered. All was excellent!
The service was great. The food was a bit too oily for our tastes (we ordered the Pasta Platter and the appetizer Calamari). The portion of the Pasta Platter was enough for 2 people definitely. The prices were a bit high but may be worth it for a date night type of dinner/lunch. Would recommend for a one-time dining experience.
The reason for the 3 stars rather than 4 for me is that they asked us if we wanted water for the table, we said yes and they brought a bottle of sparkling water without explaining that we had an option of getting still water. Still water (tap water) is free and a lot of restaurants also provide their customers with free carbonated water made inhouse. For this bottle they charged us $7 which you can buy for about $3 from a grocery store yourself.
Wow. Visited once while I was in Vancouver on business, and everything was fantastic. The food set a new bar and the service was great. I ended up sitting at the bar right beside the kitchen, so it was an extra treat to watch the magic happen and chat with the chefs.
Wonderful service, really good food and awesome vibe. I go there regularly and I have never been disappointed. Thanks for your good food and awesome service. I sat at the bar tonight and Gabrielle was really nice and friendly to us. Aso both Pepe and Dylan were super friendly and gave us the best customer service and made sure we had fun. I'll definitely be back.
The place was packed but they found a seat for us, very out of the way at the end of the stretch of outdoor seating. Even though we were almost outside the restaurant, they were incredibly attentive, checking on us often and at useful times, never annoying. They were fairly full, but our food was up way before we would have expected it, even with a modification to one of the dishes. The food was excellent with nice presentation. Everyone we interacted with was wonderful. Can't say enough good things.
I'm visiting from Los Angeles. This place was recommended to us by local people. Very good food. Great service. Catered to my family with a 4&5 year old boys. Great wine as well as kids menu. We went back for a second night.
I had visited this place on the recommendation of a friend, as I had some close friends coming in from out of town and wanted to take them to a good restaurant, well I am so glad we came here, we were lucky we got a spot because they were very packed, the service was friendly and fast I tried the duck gnocchi which was so rich and delicious I couldn't even finish it all. The chef even came out to see how we were enjoying our meal I thought it was a very nice personal touch for a restaurant, I only wish we knew to dress up a bit more, ha! The truffle spaghetti is also amazing!
The service was great. We ordered the seafood platter for two. It was good.. But not sure if it was worth the price A little pricey for what your got.
It is a noisy atmosphere But we got a corner table that was a little quieter.
I have been to Italian Kitchen many times in the past with my partner and a couple of times with a friend. I know it is quite expensive place but the food and service has always been beyond excellent. However the last two times we visited this place, and specially last time (Valentine's Day) we were deeply dissatisfied with almost everything. As soon as I walked in the reception ladies at the door scanned me from head to toe in a manner I can only assume is for judging purposes. Then we sat and ordered a sharing platter to start and a drink. The drink was OK, but too heavy on the ice and what we got from from the kitchen was just the most disappointing of all. Everything but the lettuce in that platter was deep fried covered in batter, including the olives. The whole thing was swimming in grease. We started eating only because we were starving at this point and lunch being the last meal we didn't have the energy to even say a word, but we saw the dissatisfaction in each other as we started to realize how bad this food really was. To top all of these off, the bar tender grabbed my drink without asking, looked at it and decided I was finished and emptied whatever was left in the glass. What was supposed to be a romantic dinner on Valentines turned out to be a night of regret. We ended up going for dessert at the chocolate place next to the restaurant cause we couldn't even see an attractive dessert on their menu. Conclusion: Paid premium and tipped handsomely for what we could only describe as pub food and fast food restaurant service and deeply sorry to say that I am not planning on going back to Italian Kitchen again.
I often read reviews saying the staff were friendly. This place is in a whole new ballpark. Every single staff member we saw (about 6) either welcomed us to the restaurant or thanked us for coming.
The food was also really nice. Perfect portion sizes to fill you up!
I chose Italian Kitchen because I had been there a few times, each time a marvelous experience. My husband had never been and I thought it would be a special place to celebrate his birthday. This time was a complete disappointment/disaster. The food was great as usual but we did not feel welcome and there was absolutely no service other than filling up drinking water and packaging food. When the waitress asked us if we wanted drinks and we said no, you could see that her face completely went from smile to frown. Even though we ordered a pasta platter for two and another main course with a total bill of 82 for two adults, it seemed like we didn't spend enough money to get a smile from her. Not even a Happy Birthday either. She might as well wished us Crappy Birthday.