Osteria Savio Volpe — Restaurant in Vancouver

April 2024 update: very sadly and unfortunately downgrading savio volpe to 3 stars. I made a reservation for 5 people and opted for the tasting menu for my brothers birthday celebration. The server was impeccable but the actual food and timeliness was questionable.

Evening started great. Sparkling water and a bottle of red wine to start. 7:09pm, we get a beautiful plate of charcuterie, a deep fried pork appetizer and two bowls of kale salad promptly. Not bad and pretty good. Kale salad was a little bland - just tasted like salt but it was fine for salad.

That’s when our experience soured. We waited ONE HOUR for the next round of food to arrive. This, to me, is unacceptable. We were starving and our server could only keep refilling our water …

8:11pm rolls around. We get risotto and two bowls of pasta. Portions were quite small for 5 people and we waited an HOUR. The long swirly pasta dish with capers was just so mediocre and bland. The tagliatelle, however, was the star. The redeeming part of our dinner…

Now we wait again. 30 more minutes. Finally, main main entree at 8:40pm. Finally, steak, chicken, potatoes, broccolini. These all tasted good by the way, but at this point we were just miffed by the late timing.

And at last, dessert. We just wanted to leave at this point. 9:25pm, tiramisu and cannoli. Tasted great by the way. Loved the airiness and flavors.

Overall… I don’t think I would do the tasting menu again. Quite disappointed. I would only order the tagliatelle and broccolini and call it an evening.

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Wow. 10/10 experience. Food, service, ambiance, vibes, everything!

In Preston we trust. Preston was a phenomenal server and gave us the most amazing experience and culinary adventure. The three of us dined alla famiglia at $75 each for appetizers, two pastas, an entree and dessert. We loved being able to try as many things as possible and Preston asked us what we liked and didn’t like to curate the dishes and experiences.

Every bite was amazing. For starters, we had the halibut croquettes. It was on special tonight and it was nice and crispy with a great aioli. Served next was the charcuterie board with an assortment of meats, grapes and plums. The star for me was the salad - wow. The dressing was stunning.

Pastas were perfectly cooked. The spaghetti was so tasty and reminded us of an elevated carbonara of sorts. The other pasta whose name I forget but looked like/named after a rooster head was equally stunning.

The entree - the feature specials - butterflied grilled fish, served with grilled zucchini and this eggplant stew. The fish was so soft but not over cooked and served over corn and beans. The eggplant stew was tasty but a tad oily. The star was the zucchini. Just grilled perfectly with a nice mint twist. A restaurant that makes vegetables taste good is truly a keeper.

Dessert - we shared the feature gelato which was unreal - it tasted like a terry’s orange. I would’ve bought a whole gallon of it. The chocolate tart was also amazing - perfect dark chocolate, not too sweet with sea salt and pine nuts on top. I personally could have gone workout the olive oil.

We also had a ton of great cocktails and wines recommended by Preston. Ended off the night with a digestivo - which is meant to be sipped and not taken like a shot! Preston recommended me a drink with an orange undertone to match the gelato, but my friends also really enjoyed the no. 82 amaretto and limoncello.

Stunning...

We were able to secure a table for 2 on a Saturday night at 5 pm the day-of through their online reservation system, which is quite handy. We had seen the restaurant when dining next door, but were hesitant to try because it seemed so busy all the time, and we hate lining up and waiting. However, after multiple different people consistently recommending it, we decided to give it a go.

We ordered the “alla famiglia” dinner, which is like a chef’s menu. We were asked a bunch of questions about how we feel about certain types of food (e.g., olives, onions, capers, mushrooms, meat, seafood, raw food, truffle, etc.). Because we have no idea what we’ll be eating, we asked the server if they have wine pairing for the menu. The server set the menu and consulted with the sommelier to recommend two wines. We ended up trying both and they went well with the food.

For our visit, we had: • Kale, pecorino, pangrattato, lemon pepper dressing: this was very well cooked, and thoroughly seasoned. I thought it was a little too lemony on its own but it went well with some of the other rich food served afterwards.

•Truffle arancini, black pepper aioli: creamy and rich. The aioli was perfect.

•Carne cruda, black truffle aioli, calabrian chili, focaccia: I don’t know if they hand dice the cruda, but it tasted very different from what you’d expect of “ground meat,” because it still had a bit of bounce to it. The focaccia were a bit burnt though, so left a bad aftertaste.

•Fettucce ricce, venison ragù, red wine, sage pangrattato: this was my partner’s favourite dish of the night. I wanted to say it was very salty, but it wasn’t actually, just very flavourful and rich. The meat was tender and the pasta was perfectly al dente. We had to take home about 25% of it.

•Primrose Farms pork chop, brown butter, mushrooms, lemon potatoes: butter mushroom sauce as very well balanced and super creamy. The fat on the edge was perfectly rendered. Cooked perfectly to a medium. We had to pack about 75% of it to take home.

•Grilled broccolini, aglio e olio, chili, lemon: partner thought this was bordering on undercooked, but I liked the crunch.

•tiramisu: fine, nothing special, kind of too late and lacking in mascarpone flavour.

The service was professional and attentive. Dishes came and plates cleared promptly. The entire affair wrapped up in about 1 hour and 40 minutes.

The restaurant was bustling and though we were able to hear each other and the tables next to us, it felt a bit loud, crowded. They’ve opted for the Scandinavian design of lots of white and light wood, which I appreciate over painting the ceiling black, it also requires more maintenance. It’s kind of unappetizing to look up and see a layer of greasy dust on the vents.

All in all a fine experience. Will recommend and...

First of all, we arrived 15 minutes before our reservation and be treated unfairly with no complimentary like other guests treated because we observed one of the front desk with blond hair ignore and avoid served us complimentary while we were waiting. The reason why we said this because other guest who came after us 5 minutes received all the complimentary like wine and snack while also waiting for the table. Also, the second front desk with long black hair didn’t even approached us when we arrived to check-in unlike other customers and also avoid to talk to us as well. Also, the blond hair front desk said we would get the table but it ended up giving it to other customer as well as the long black hair with black t-shirt also did the same by giving our table that she said it would be ours after cleaning to other group of the customers who arrive 5 minutes after us Luckily, the third front desk with blue dress was very nice and talked to us very nice and professionally which it was supposed to me. Next, our Tortelli di zucca, pecorino toscano, pumpkin seeds, brown butterwere were cold when they arrived. And our service tended to be avoided us as well since we ended order dessert with other waitress instead but she did expressed unprofessional face with eye rolling when we only ordered on dessert because we wanted it for the photo and we already kind like not enjoyed the food, vibes and service. Finally, after we paid and were leaving, no one cared about us and avoided talking to us because we wanted to get our jackets back. We ended up walk to another side and asked other waitress to help us with jackets instead. And we saw the long black hair front desk was sitting in guest waiting area playing phone and comfy on the chair like I didn’t care if there still customer inside.

We were very disappointed and felt because we are not local that why we deserved to be treated differently with disrespect and carelessness even we paid the bill as other customer. By the way, we are Asian. We observed that two out of three front desk (1.blond hair with black t-shirt and 1 long hair with back t-shirt) only welcome local and ignore people who are Asian or trend to be Asian. We felt that it maybe because of our race and skin that was why we were treasured differently. However, The only good thing we got was well treat with great customer service from the lady with blond hair with blue dress from the front desk. Other than that “ WE ARE...