Carlino

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

Where Friuli Meets British Columbia

Carlino draws a quiet but compelling line between two places that share more than most people realize: the Friuli region of northeastern Italy and British Columbia. Both have mountain ranges, forests, lakes, and coastal waters — and both shape what ends up on the plate at this restaurant on the third floor of the Hyatt Vancouver Downtown Alberni. Recognized by the MICHELIN Guide and awarded by Gambero Rosso, Carlino has earned its place among Vancouver's most thoughtfully conceived dining rooms.

The kitchen's philosophy is stated plainly: "Simple and soulful, the cuisine of Carlino relies on the quality of the ingredients and flavour combinations to delight and seduce." Pasta is made fresh in-house daily. The menu changes with the seasons, dictated by what local farmers, fishmongers, foragers, and ranchers can provide — including eggs from 100 Black Copper Maran hens raised on the restaurant group's own family farm in Abbotsford, Fraser Valley.

The Menu: Northern Italian Roots, BC Ingredients

The northern Italian framework is evident throughout. Lunch and dinner menus open with dishes like Frico Friulano — a crispy Montasio, caramelized onion, and potato pancake — and Cjarsons della Casa, a ricotta and Okanagan tree fruit stuffed pasta finished with smoked butter and toasted hazelnut crumb. These are specialties rooted in Friuli, Trentino, and Veneto, reinterpreted with ingredients from BC's own backyard.

Pasta dishes range from squid ink Bigoli with wild Pacific blue prawns and bottarga to a slow-braised veal, beef, and pork ragù over house-made rigatoni. Among the secondi, a 36-hour braised Fraser Valley veal shank arrives with saffron barley risotto and Pemberton Meadow gremolata; wild boar cutlet from Peace Country is finished with roasted pepper romesco and pecorino. The sourcing is specific, and intentionally so.

The aperitivo hour — daily from 2:30 to 5 PM — brings the northern Italian tradition to life with small plates like Montasio potato cake, oxtail francobolli ravioli, and Pacific blue prawns in garlic butter, alongside Campari-forward cocktails and glasses of Lambrusco or Okanagan Pinot Gris starting at $5.

Setting and Private Dining

The dining room occupies a warm, elegant space on the third floor, suited equally to a weekday lunch and a private occasion. Two dedicated private dining rooms handle events with customized packages — an extension of the same hospitality that defines the main room. Breakfast runs daily from 7 AM, with a buffet anchored by free-run eggs from Rabbit River Farms, house-cured West Coast salmon gravlax, and a nod to Vancouver's Pacific Rim character through congee and dim sum alongside Italian salumi and artisan cheeses.

Carlino is part of the Kitchen Table Restaurants family, a group that includes several of Vancouver's more respected Italian addresses. The northern Italian identity here, though, is its own — specific in geography, serious about provenance, and grounded in the kind of cooking that doesn't need embellishment.