The Golden Boot: Northern Italian restaurant in Coquitlam

I don’t want to over-use the phrase “hidden gem” 💎, but I heard from a lot of folks who live in Coquitlam that this restaurant has the best pasta.

The Golden Boot is a local restaurant located in Coquitlam that opened in 1997. The chef and owner dedicates this restaurant to his wife 🥹 and they boast an authentic Northern Italian menu where you won’t find pineapple on your pizza.

We came here on 2 occasions – once for lunch and once for dinner. Here is a combined review of both experiences.

The Golden Boot
1028 Ridgeway Ave, Coquitlam, BC V3J 1S5

---

The vibe

Both times we came here we walked in without a reservation.

The Golden Boot is a decently spacious restaurant that can seat large groups. Seating is a mixture of booth seating and wooden chairs. Table space is pretty large so there’s lots of room for big dishes.

The overall vibe is pretty dark and casual – almost all the furniture and decor are black. It has a sports bar type of atmosphere with large TVs and a full bar.

---

Food review

Here are the dishes we’ve tried so far. Prices are in CAD and rounded to the nearest dollar for simplicity.

Free bread

They served us free bread (gave us a second round also) with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Nice little appetizer, although the bread didn’t have much flavour.

Seafood cannelloni ($25)

My husband ordered this both times because he really liked the taste and felt it was the most “worth it”.

This is a baked pasta dish that features 3 large pasta tubes stuffed with crab, cod, and shrimp. It can be baked with your choice of tomato, Besciamella or tomato cream sauce. In this photo, he chose the Besciamella sauce, which is a creamy white sauce made from butter, flour and milk.

This pasta came piping hot and I liked the taste of the white sauce with the seafood. Indeed, there was quite a bit of seafood in here, and I felt for $25, this was a reasonable price.

Spaghetti alla carbonara ($25)

This is so basic but sometimes I just really want to eat carbonara. Maybe it’s because I also love breakfast.

Anyways, during my first time here for lunch, I ordered the spaghetti carbonara. It has panchetta, egg, parmigiano and a touch of cream.

One thing that immediately stood out to me was how delicious the pasta is 🤯. Not only was it cooked al dente, it just tasted fresh and had great texture – as expected of handmade pasta.

Pasta aside, this carbonara didn’t really hit the spot for me 😣. I prefer my pancetta more crispy and my carbonara more saucy, whether that is true to Northern Italian cuisine or not (because I do not doubt this place’s authenticity). This is just my preference. I also think $25 for carbonara is edging to the pricier side when I could’ve had seafood cannelloni for the same price.

Tagliatelle alla Vodka ($23)

During my second visit, I really wanted to try the vodka pasta because I love vodka 🙂.

Just kidding 😂 – I have been super into spicy vodka sauces recently, so I also wanted to try the vodka pasta here. Unfortunately, the menu has it with penne pasta. I’m not sure why, but I hate penne pasta 🙅🏻‍♀️.

Luckily, the server says I am able to change the pasta. I was really hoping for rigatoni (this is my favourite pasta), but they do not have this. So instead, I settled for the tagliatelle, which is a wider wavy pasta.

My modified order came with tomato sauce, pancetta, cream and vodka. Again, I prefer my pancetta more crispy, but I see there is consistency here. I did like this tomato vodka sauce more than the carbonara and overall the sauce clung to the pasta well. Again, the fresh handmade pasta was delicious.

Tiramisu ($12)

After dinner, we ended our night by sharing a tiramisu. It came in a jar and was large enough to share between 2 people, although I could see parts of the jar that weren’t fully stuffed with tiramisu (some gaps here and there).

The tiramisu had layers of mascarpone cheese, dark rum soaked lady fingers and chocolate shavings. This was a pretty yummy dessert and very moist and boozy.

---

Final thoughts

Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

We had a delicious lunch and dinner at The Golden Boot in Coquitlam.

I highly recommend the pastas 🍝 – all of them are delicious, fresh and authentic. Portion size is a little awkward for me because it’s almost too much for me to finish in one seating, but if I pack it home it’s like 2 bites left. I would say portion size here definitely is on the larger side. I would love to come back and try their pizzas – I’ve heard great things about them as well.

Service was good although we felt like we waited quite a bit during the busy lunch service. I appreciate being able to modify my pasta order and the server was very nice in recommending alternative pasta options.

Overall, a cute and local restaurant that has a great story and is passionate about creating a homey and authentic restaurant to its customers.

Sincerely, Loewe