Italian Kitchen: Upscale Italian food in downtown Vancouver

Italian Kitchen is one of the restaurants under the Glowbal brand. As the name suggests, they offer Italian cuisine with a modern bar. We came here for a date night and visited the downtown Vancouver location back in December.

Interior

We were seated in a cozy corner inside the dining room. This table was close to a giant mirror wall with fake foliage and it was very pretty. Seats were plush and comfy and I found the spacing of the restaurant to be very smart. They were able to fit in quite a lot of tables but it never felt cramped.

Food

We order some dishes for appetizer, main and dessert to get a feel of their dinner menu.

We start off with some free foccacia bread, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. This is not the most fragrant and herby focaccia bread I’ve had (pretty plain for focaccia) but it was soft and tasted nice with the sauce. Also free bread is always nice.

Tomato & burrata bruschetta ($15)

When this dish arrived, I was drooling. It looked really refreshing and it smelled really good! This appetizer uses heirloom tomatoes, burrata (omg yessss), basil and garlic brushed tuscan loaf. The tomatoes were very juicy and refreshing and the burrata cheese was creamy and sweet. I also loved that they added some pesto in there (at least I think it’s pesto? Some type of green sauce) because it made the dish even more flavourful. Overall, a very strong appetizer and one I would order again.

Charred Spanish octopus ($19)

My boyfriend and I love octopus so we choose this for our second appie. The charred octopus is complimented by carrot purée and crispy onions. The salad on the side is kind of bland and the pieces of carrot are a little big. The octopus is cooked really well – not overcooked or chewy. There’s a nice smoky sense from the char.

Portion is really big for an appetizer.

Table side linguine cacio e pepe ($52)

This is the star of the show! We order the tableside pasta which is $52 – I consider this very expensive for pasta, but I’ve seen it on social media. They prepare it for you in this big wheel of melting cheese so we decided to order it and see if it’s really worth it.

So the wheel comes out and it’s just under this cloth. I forgot what kind of cheese it was (parmesan maybe?) but finally a server comes and prepares our tableside linguine. She swishes the pasta in there and it’s a lot of fun to watch.

The pasta itself comes with fresh Atlantic lobster, cracked black pepper, salt cured egg yolk, and shaved umbria black truffles. The server adds on the truffle at the end as a finishing touch. It’s also cool to see that in action and to see the actual lump of truffle.

The actual taste of the pasta is a little surprising. There isn’t really a sauce for the pasta so most of the taste is from the cheeze it was swishing around in. There’s a strong black pepper taste so it’s got a little bit of a kick, but aside from that, mostly a cheesy taste.

The amount of lobster in the pasta is acceptable but not anything I would boast about. The truffle as well is very subtle compared to how strong the cheese and black pepper flavours come out.

All in all, a fun pasta and I’m glad we ordered it, but I wouldn’t order it again at its price point.

Veal scaloppine ($33)

We wanted to order a meaty dish because we had some appetizers, had some pasta, and also had some seafood (I guess the pasta had lobster in it lol) so we chose the veal scaloppine at our server’s recommendation. Usually I don’t eat veal because I avoid gamier meats, but I decided to give it a try since it’s a classic Italian dish.

Italian Kitchen’s veal scaloppine comes with bresaola, fontina cheese, white wine, roasted potatoes, and seasonal vegetables. The veal meat is sliced on the thinner side and there are around 4 slices of veal meat on the dish. I found this dish to be just ok in my opinion, nothing about it really stood out.

Limoncello lava cake ($13)

For dessert, we ordered the limoncello lava cake, which is their most popular dessert. Unlike a traditional chocolate lava cake, this one uses a lemon cake sponge, vanilla bean gelato and oozes out limoncello cream.

Note that this dessert takes 20 minutes after you order it, so you best order it ahead of time if you already know you want this.

I loved this dessert! It was enough to share between 2 people but I also could have easily devoured this alone. The lemon cake was fluffy and light (not too sweet!) and the cream and vanilla ice cream were perfect partners for the cake. This is a very simple but elegant dessert that is a lot of fun to eat.

Final thoughts

Loewe’s rating: ⭐⭐⭐

We enjoyed our dinner and service at Italian Kitchen. Also really loved the ambiance of the dining room and how pretty the space looked. It was also bumping with really good energy and laughter.

Out of all the dishes we had, I liked the bruschetta and lava cake the most. The dessert is a must-try! The pasta was a novelty item, one that I do recommend you try once but it wouldn’t be something I order regularly. I do enjoy that they made it tableside and that it’s fun to watch because I feel that a lot of restaurants need that kind of social media factor. Aside from the pasta, I think everything else is reasonably priced for its quality and quantity.

Sincerely, Loewe