Fiorino, Italian Street Food Lonsdale Quay — Restaurant in North Vancouver

It makes me a little sad to write this review, as I really wanted to like this restaurant. The Chinatown branch is very good, but something has gone badly wrong here, and I suspect it begins with the kitchen. My wife and I decided to have a light lunch and check out the replacement for the venerable Cheshire Cheese. Service was friendly and casual and we were given our choice of table. It was a touch chilly, so we settled on an inside one with a nice view toward the Shipyards. I started with an espresso, which was poorly made and obviously used generic beans - I would guess Lavazza - which tasted decidedly stale. There are so many great roasters in Van - why not use something local and fresh? We settled on sharing a Fritto Misto and a Panzanella Salad, or a twist on a panzanella, made with roasted pineapple, which sounded intriguing. I was imagining perfectly caramelised pineapple pieces with just a little char, but what arrived was a very different proposition. The pineapple had obviously seen no heat whatsoever. My guess is that the kitchen failed to prepare it in advance, and it would not have cooled down in time to serve it, so they slapped on raw pineapple and prayed we wouldn't notice. My preference, if the kitchen messes up, is that they inform us that the dish is not available and I can then choose another. Better that than sending out a half finished course. The salad was uninspiring, but edible. The tomatoes were not ripe, and there is no excuse for that at this time of year. The croutons were tiny, so they disappeared into the dressing. The dressing itself had very little to recommend it. We did finish it, but only because the other dish was such an unmitigated disaster and we were hungry. Fritto Misto di Mare is one of the simplest dishes to prepare. It's just mixed seafood and veges, deep fried - like tempura - and served with lemon. If you can't make this dish, you don't belong in a kitchen. This was the worst example I have ever seen. Everything was overcooked, the seafood had gone hard, the broccolini was almost burnt and very sad, everything was plastered with salt and to add insult to injury, the dish had obviously been sitting on the pass for a while, because although everything was over-fried, it was also completely soggy. What a mess! They could not have made it worse if they had tried. I couldn't even extend the excuse that they were busy - there were five or six tables, at best, and almost as many wait staff. The waiter, to his credit, obviously noticed our horror and asked how the food was. We told him the truth, and to their credit they removed the Misto from the bill, which is why this is not a one star review. At least they did the right thing. I suspect the wait staff have seen this show before, and they did their best with what they were given. It takes a long time for a restaurant to build up a solid reputation, but it takes one meal to destroy it. If this is representative of the other food here, I would be very surprised if the restaurant is still there a year from now. I just hope that the reputation of the flagship branch is not damaged by the poor quality on show here. If I had eaten here first, I would certainly never have gone to the other branch. It's a real pity, and I hope they can improve. A better chef would be...

I went into Fiorino with high expectations having dined at the Chinatown location a few times in the past. I generally had a really good experience here, as expected. The food was great, very tasty. The arancini were really crispy on the outside, moist on the inside, with great flavour. The tagliatelle was nice, and the added prosciutto was a generous portion and absolutely delicious. The dish as a whole was good, not great, but I think this was just a bad menu choice rather than an issue with the food itself as it was cooked very well and came as described. The rosemary ribs were fantastic as always - meat falling off the bone and melt in your mouth, with the sweet cherry glaze always to die for.

Where they unfortunately lose points is on the service, which is a shame as everyone was lovely, and very friendly. However, we found it difficult to get the attention of a server, they felt a little run off their feet. That's not a big deal on a Friday night, but what was more disappointing was ordering a drink (simple soft drink, nothing elaborate) mid way through the meal, that never showed up. About 15 minutes later I ordered a dessert and mentioned to the server at the same time that I'd ordered a drink that hadn't arrived. The dessert arrived almost immediately, but still no drink. About another 15 minutes later the bill arrived, which had 2 additional drinks listed, proving that the order actually went in both times but never materialized. As I stood up to leave having paid the bill, a drink finally arrived, which I declined as I was already on my way out. Waiting 30 minutes for a diet coke that never arrives isn't a great look for a high end restaurant, and it was a shame to leave the restaurant thirsty after an otherwise good meal. I'd suggest management takes a look at how it's handling orders and check that there's adequate bar staff.

Overall good meal, I hope they can tighten up the order...

I was really excited to try the new Fiorino on lonsdale quay given the location in Chinatown has been a hit on many occasions. But I was pretty disappointed by the experience.

First the food.

Having had the panzanella salad from the Chinatown location I was expecting to get the exact same thing or something similar but instead it was a soggy tiny mess. The dressing was far too runny. The tomatoes were soggy and not heirloom. The basil was sparse. And the worst part about it were the croutons. Instead of it being large toasted pieces like the Chinatown location they were these tiny dry pieces that were unappetizing.

The Arancini has also been ruined. For some reason, they decided to add corn to the mix which makes the flavour really odd and doesn’t work with the Parmesan at all. I’d say this was the worse thing we had.

Also, the Tagliatelle is a spinach Tagliatelle, which isn’t a problem at all, but there are so many capers in it that are such a strong flavour that it is a very untasty combination with the sunflower pesto, and also the fried artichoke.

Also not good was the gnocchi . It had the opportunity to probably be the only redeeming dish, but it was so unbelievably salty that your mouth puckered at the taste.

The service was also very slow, and it seemed like everybody there was speaking very quietly because we had a hard time hearing them or making out their suggestions .

I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt because they’ve just opened a month ago and it was a Wednesday so maybe not the best chef but there was a lot of work to do to bring themselves up to the Chinatown location.

The quay is a super competitive area for restaurants and if they don’t improve their service, their timing, the food and the experience I don’t expect them to be...