Ristorante Picolinos

The cutest italian restaurant in ballard! A lovely and romantic ambiance. But also a very family friendly restaurant for large family dinners. I had my birthday dinner here with a good friend of mine. It was lovely. We had made a reservation just to make sure that we got a table which I highly recommend doing. We got the shrimp appetizer which was delicious. I highly recommend it if you are into seafood. For our main dishes we got the carbonara and their house spaghetti and meatballs. I think their spaghetti and meatballs was good but not the dish that I kept reaching for. The Carbonara was so delicious. I crave this dish all the time now. The carbonara is a MUST TRY!!! The flavors in the dish just melts in your mouth and makes you want to take another bite one after another. We ended the night with the cannolis they were very good. By the end we couldn't finish it because we were too full. The cannolis were a little bit too hard to bite in my opinion but it still was delicious. Our waiter was very sweet and gave us great wine pairings with our meals.

I dined with a group of 14 friends for a birthday. The ambience was so nice. And the service made me feel like I was actually in Italy. I tried several of my friends plates, Veal Saltimbocca, lobster ravioli special, and Capellini Al Pomodoro. All were quite good. I had the burrata starter special, which was fair (why did I think 'vine ripened heirloom tomatoes' in a Seattle January would be great?). But then I had the crab cake started special and was blown away. The best crab cake I've ever had. The only thing I'd change is have them out the sauce on the side. The crust was crispy, and paper thin. Sauce will make that go soggy. I scrapped it off quickly and was so happy.

An excellent birthday celebration at Picolino's on Saturday evening. When I made the reservation I was told the Christmas decorations would still be up, and they were, and they were gorgeous, as they made the experience even more enjoyable. The table décor was beautiful as well. We started the meal with a cocktail, as my wife asked for a non-alcoholic drink of cranberry juice with soda. She commented it lacked any fizziness, and I did overhear the bartender telling another server that the carbonation was out. Not sure why our server didn't say anything to us. I had the Berry Sparkler and it was excellent. We had an excellent bottle of the Super Tuscan, Lucente. The appetizers of Broccolini Saltati and the Bruschetta were both excellent. I had the Insalata Caesar and while it was very good, I personally feel the croutons, that were large, should be tossed with the greens and dressing. They were placed neatly on the plate and they were just dry and hard. On the table was also a basket of bread with a very tasty pesto/olive oil mix that was so good. My wife had the Pomodoro and I had the Chicken Milanese and wow...they were both excellent. I did notice the busser going thru the section of tables and not doing much. I actually asked him to take one of the dirty plates, but he left the two empty cocktail glasses that were on the table. Plus, each time I looked up, I noticed the busser drinking a beverage by his station. Very unprofessional. The server Dathan was very friendly and cordial. It did take awhile for the initial greeting and for the beverages to be delivered.

Pizza was wood fired but undercooked. Generous with the Parmesan cheese is always a plus. The veal piccata was okay not as tender as I have had before. Atmosphere was very nice for the holidays. Old style Italian, solid experience but nothing earth shattering.

This is a quality Italian restaurant with notably charming ambience. Honestly, when we stopped in we weren't expecting to get a whole meal. We just wanted to hang out on a cute patio. But this is a place for a meal, with good food and service.I got Spaghetti Carbonara, and although it seems like it was very authentic (you don't see that too often with Carbonara), the noodles were undercooked. Tasted good otherwise, and my friend got a seafood pasta that he LOVED the flavor of, but he also noted that his noodles were undercooked. I would still come back here, since they probably just had an off night with pasta-cooked-ness, and their pizzas looked worth trying. And such a cute bunch of rooms & patios, very pleasant spot to sit & eat.

This might be a very controversial take, but there's no good Italian food in Seattle. My exposure to Italian food started from Rhode Island and I didn't realize how much I took things for granted until moving here. It ruined all Italian food for me. This review is solely based on the Seattle level, not my overall rating. Came here for our anniversary and had dinner here. Generous portion, quality pasta, cute interior (the place was way bigger than expected), and we even got some live music. (Mario theme song on violin gave us good giggles) Service was pretty meh, but I didn't expect much after seeing our server managing over 10 tables in my area. Our ambiance candle went out mid-dinner and for an anniversary celebration, it didn't feel too great. Also, using an online form for any reservation inquiries was lowkey painful. Maybe that's why we were able to secure a table pretty last minute. Is it because of the no show people? Or is it because of the people who abuse online systems like OpenTable or Tock and hog all the spots? I wouldn't complain if you go back to the old-fashioned phone call systems. Let people leave the credit card info and charge them if they don't show up haha.

Yummm!! I've been wanting to try this restaurant for years since i came across it on my afternoon jog. Finally booked it for a Christmas dinner and everything from the complimentary bread to pastas, and tiramisu tasted cozy, homemade, and authentic. The garden was romantically decorated with red draperies and nutcracker sculptures - loved the ambiance!

Huge cool venue!! What a treat this dinner was!! I kind if feel like there aren't a ton of good Italian restaurants around, but this one was delicious!! We tried all the things, appetizers, dinner, desserts and wine!! We sampled 3 different dishes settling on a favorite. Michael our server was well versed and full of recommendations that didn't disappoint.The winning dish of the night was the Pappardelle Al Ragu Di Vitello!! We also has the Ravioli Al Formaggio Con Burro E Salvia and Chicken Marsala. The appetizers were the chop chop salad and burrata dish, both amazing!! Dinner was accompanied by a bottle of Chianti Classico and dessert was a berry crisp ala mode and tiramisu. We will be back for sure!!

My husband and I came here for a wedding dinner. It was our first time to try the Italian food here but we had high expectations as this restaurant is a highly rated on Google reviews. We started with two appetizers. They seasonal salad of mixed greens and gamberoni alla griglia (shrimps) accompanied by freshly baked artisan bread. The dish of shrimps tasted great among the appetizers. The main course included rigatoni bolognese and tagliatelle with cream sauce asparagus as well as grilled seasonal vegetables and veal. All of them tasted great. Only the texture of the rigatoni was a bit harder than expected. The desserts were a variety of Italian or European sweets. We were too full that we tried a couple of them. We had to pack the rest home. There is no parking at the restaurant. But there is street parking. The size of the restaurant was quite big. We couldn't tell when looking at the exterior but once we got into the restaurant, it was like a corn maze that it had many rooms and a lot of space for many tables. I personally loved everything here and would love to come back and try other dishes but the food might have a lot of sodium or MSG. I kept drinking water the whole night.

We enjoyed this spot in a cute neighborhood location. The patio was very busy but we were able to get a table for 5 at the last minute. The service felt extremely rushed. Like everyone from food runners to servers to bussers were on a race to the finish. We waited a long time for our drinks and bottle of wine, which we didn't mind. We had questions in the menu, a couple of questions our server didn't know (one was what was Aquavit on the cocktail menu). We had to ask for bread with our meal, and extra plate, a serving spoon, and cheese for our pasta. It felt like we were an inconvenience. We enjoyed the two appetizers we ordered. One was a spicy prawn appetizer and a Burrata appetizer. Both very tasty. The prawn appetizer was not too spicy but had a good kick. I ordered the chop chop salad. Very good, fresh and flavorful. I also had the Pollo Marsala. It was a good portion, good flavor. Not the best I've had though. A friend felt that her dish was too salty. We really didn't have our servers attention to address it. This is a case where the service really makes or breaks an experience. I wouldn't likely come back because of that.