Mercato di Luigi — Restaurant in Vancouver

This place is what I’d call an Italian neighbourhood cafe and market. It’s low key and quite small, seats maybe 20 people including the patio space they have outside. They sell in house products, along with basic imported Italian ingredients like tomato sauce, sausage, pasta, etc.

During lunch (12:00pm onwards) they have 2-3 rotating pasta’s and sandwiches. It’s a limited menu, but that’s not a bad thing. We had the Spaghetti Carbonara and a latte. Spaghetti tasted fresh and was cooked to a perfect al dente. I believe they used Guanciale for their carbonara (but don’t quote me), I’ll just say it has a decent amount of meat, which was cooked to a crisp and quite salty. Carbonara is a rich sauce, but I think they did a good job of having that creamy and cheesy flavour at a good level where the rich flavour wasn’t “too much”. Also like to note that it looks like it’s super cheesy, but the cheese was subtle and mixed with the egg yolk, chefs kiss! Portion size was enough to make you satified but not stuffed. The latte was also quite good. I feel sometimes latte’s in Vancouver are a bit weak, but I could definitely taste the coffee come through here, which was nice.

Overall, I’m very happy that I visited this place and will definitely return. It’s a hidden gem to say the least. Their prices aren’t cafe level cheap, but I felt like it was worth it - it’s...

Strange experience. Stood there for about 5 minutes waiting to be greeted or have our order taken (no one in front of us in line and multiple people behind the counter). No one gave us a number for our food order so we waited quite a while for our food before we asked if we were supposed to have received a number as our food hadn’t come. There were 4 people behind the bar working and only the guy cooking pasta was working quick and efficiently. Other three staff were working with 0 fire under their butts for such a busy lunch service. Got a hot chocolate for take out as we were leaving and waited about 10 minutes as the barista got around to making it and then it continued to sit on the counter beside him before we finally asked the woman at the counter if she could put a lid on it and hand it to us. Highly disorganized. Awful and very bizarre service. Windows were extremely dirty, as were the windowsills. Not enjoyable to look at as you eat. Clearly do not pride themselves on cleanliness or service, although the pasta was good once it finally arrived. Have heard great things so was thoroughly disappointed with our strange and unenjoyable...

Couldn’t call them to check their lunch hours because I’m visiting and only on a data-based e-sim plan but I did message them on their Instagram account 7 hours prior to visiting. Wanted to know if they still served pasta around 4:30pm. Unfortunately no reply was given (apparently a marketing mishap), and when we arrived at 4:30 we found out the cut off time for lunch is 2:30. Regardless, we were undeterred (though somewhat disappointed) and ordered some dairy free espresso drinks and desserts. My iced oat milk latte was PHENOMENAL! I also enjoyed the pistachio amaretti cookie. The Baci Di Dama (usually one of my most favourite type of cookie) was inedible. The taste reminded me of spoilt milk. I didn’t like my best friend’s almond torte either. Not sure if we will ever visit again…

But I did want to let anyone who might be wondering know the cut off time for...