This place never disappoint me, great food, good service and the best panna cotta in town.
A friendly cozy and casual place with excellent pasta! if you want good Italian food in Vancouver , this is where you should go.
Admittedly, we are no pasta or Italian food experts. After Googling most of the terms on the menu (and playing the game of ‘is this a cheese, noodle or meat?’), we placed our order. Penne bolognese, parmesan: I decided on the penne bolognese with parmesan but substituted with pappardelle noodle instead because I was craving wide and flat noodles that day.
I went to Ask For Luigi a couple of months ago on a cold evening looking for a warm, hearty meal. The restaurant's food was excellent and the portions were good.
Amazing food if you get a spot in the cozy place. It is a lil annoying the server keeps filling your half glass of water everytime you take a sip of water.
I don't usually go out for pasta, so I still haven't tried Ask for Luigi despite how popular it is. Knew it would be busy so we went there at 5:45pm and the place was already fully packed. Luckily we got the last table :) Order the featured starter, a beef tongue garnisheed with pickled cherries/scallion..., the bocconcini fritti, spaghetti nero and pappardelle & duck ragu. The flavours, texture of the pasta and portion size - equally great. On top of that, the servers were all attentive and friendly. One unfortunate thing, they had turn up the ceiling fan during service which cause my pasta to cool down extremely fast, so I was pretty much eating cold pasta, which I'm still happy with. Would definitely come back again in the future, been eyeing all the meatball starter that most people got but I didn't.
The happy hour drinks and appies are excellent. This is one of my favourite goto restaurants whenI am in the area. The servers are very attentive.
Cozy restaurant. Quaint and inviting. Some may find the area sketchy but a few years ago that’s what some people said about Commercial Drive and Gastown! I came during lunch hour and arrived at opening. Only three other people there then 12 pm hit, the place filled up quickly. The servers were friendly and kept my glass of water filled. The food was delicious! I ordered their special to start. Then I think I had garganelli, octopus & puttanesca sauce as the main. I honestly forgot what I ordered.
I drank two glasses of wine. But the meals were delicious! That I remembered!
Ask For Luigi is located on North of Chinatown. It is in a sketchy neighborhood on Alexander Street and Gore Avenue. It is a pretty small restaurant with approximately 12 tables.
Try the pasta. Their pasta are well-known in town. They were chewy and perfectly flavoured.
I took off half point because the tables are very close together.
Food: 🍽🍽🍽🍽🍽 Must Try!
Service: 👩🍳👩🍳👩🍳👩🍳👩🍳
Price: 💲💲💲$50-$100 for two
Presentation: 📷📷📷
Parking: Street Parking
Would I Return: Yes🙋
Explore the Menu: Luigi's Meatballs, Squid Ink Radiatore & Octopus Alla pizziola, Fregola Sarda, clams and Nduja
Tips:
📝Arrive early and put your name down for a table (they don't take reservations)
📝Tiniest bathroom
One of the great places for pasta in town.
Do not be fooled by the cramped space and humble decor. The menu features simple genuine traditional Italian kitchen favourites with a fresh twist.
We absolutely love the fact that they make their own pasta from scratch!
Overall, we enjoy their food, even though the portions are a tad small for our taste. The flavours are well balanced, and you can tell that there are some magic happening in the kitchen.
Ask for Luigi is a cozy restaurant in a sort-of-sketchy neighborhood charging fine dining prices for fine dining food and thankfully, fine dining quality service -- friendly staff with easy smiles and a server quick to put you at ease if you show signs of being daunted by the menu. No pretentious attitude here.
Amazing food! Love it! The service is fantastic! I loved everything we ordered that night. Will definitely go back there ! The clam was amazing
Wish I could give this place a 4.5 star instead of the 4. That's honestly what I thought it deserved. It's a nice and cosy restaurant. Our server was excellent and helped us pick our dishes. The pasta was fresh and tasty but I've had better. The vegetarian one in my mind offered up the most flavor. The Burrata cheese and Crispy Cauliflower was awesome. Definitely go check it out for the experience.
Amazing food! Very delicious and filling! ❤️ The service was incredible. Our waitress was extremely polite and on top of it!
I personally believe the menu is missing a classic pasta served with your famous meatballs. But what do I know!
We also forgot to ask for Luigi 🍽
Absolutely fabulous authentic Italian meal in this quaint little restaurant. Definitely lives up to all of its hype. The staff was super friendly and attentive. The food tasted every bit as good as it looked. Portions were perfect and quite generous. The perfectly balanced desserts were the perfect end to the meal! Looking forward to our next visit already!
Good but not mind blowing! They asked us if we wanted bread and went on to charge us for it without informing us about it. The pasta was good but just needed more flavor. Overall, worth a visit but expect to pay for the name and be just a little disappointed. I have to say though, they were very accommodating and provided a walk-in with much ease. Thank you!
Small quant Italian place with excellent service and amazing food. Really cannot go wrong with anything you get. We had the meatballs, one of the specials, and the bigoli nero seafood pasta. Make sure you make a reservation as the place gets packed pretty quickly. Thank you for a great evening! :)
Love this spot ! Super cosy (I would say roughly 40 seats in the whole place). So far it is the best Italian food I’ve had in the city. Excellent pasta, buratta, wine selection and vermouth. Great service and an intimate venue off the beaten track. What else can you ask for !? (Ps. If bookings are full you can still go earlier in the evening and try for a walk in as they do accept walk-ins)
Beautiful place to go out for brunch or lunch! Great experience except that pastas were way too salty for our party so we had to leave half of the portions left.
Would recommend asking for less salt for pastas so you could control it on your own :)
Probably one of the best Italian restaurants we've ever eaten at. This small unassuming restaurant had a very home family vibe to it. Everyone working here were extremely friendly and attentive. I think if we had room to, we'd try every dish in this place. The food and flavours are absolutely amazing.
For starters, we had the bone marrow with morrel mushrooms and the burrata, both were amazing. For mains, we had:
- bigoli nero, seafood, cherry tomatoes, uni butter & pang ratatouille
- pappardelle, ragu del giorno with bison
- beef short ribs, fregola pasta,pork belly
We shared the dishes we ordered so that we could all experience the flavours of each dish, and we can honestly say it was hard to pick a favorite. It's obvious with this quality and quantity of food that Ask Luigi is booked solid for months in advance. Will be back for more!!!
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