This place was highly recommended by the Don Cesar Hotel crowd as authentic Italian, kid friendly etc. In reality the food is average the service was terrible and the atmosphere rather dominated by the local retired community. Surely there is something better in the vicinity ?

The food quality was good but a little on the expensive side. The reason though for them not getting a 3 or 4 was the service was simply terrible. We were a party of 6 all couples out for the night. Our server didn't let one of the ladies know that their lasagna came with white or red sauce. Typically you would expect red sauce unless otherwise stated. It came out with white sauce which she was not thrilled about. He also didn't ask us about separate checks at the start. When he brought the bill he refused to split up the check, "it has already been written". When I confronted him with "It's not that you can't split it for us, it's that you don't want to, right?" he responded to us "THAT's Right!". Unbelievable. I get better service from a chain like Applebee's. If I asked this at any other restaurant I would get "no problem, I'll be right back". Instead at Carino's I get grief. You would think this would impact his tip. We no because he added that on to each bill. So he had no reason to provide any level of service as he was going to get his time no matter what. Stay away from Carino's the St. Pete/Clearwater coastal islands have to many good restaurants to offer. Don't bother with this one. You can find better food for less money and better service.

This is not a terrible place. Overall we enjoyed our evening, mainly because of the company of 6 friends. The food quality was spotty. The atmosphere was comfortable and the piano player was delightful. I did not finish the glass of a poor quality house merlot. I switched to water. The carpaccio was very tasty, but was delivered late to the table after most of the other appetizers were consumed by my fellow guests. The bread was great and the salad very good. The veal dish was fair. It was prepared with button mushrooms although the menu described this dish as containing wild mushrooms. I loved my cappuccino but the blueberry torte was just fair. There are more than a dozen Italian restaurants between St. Pete Beach and St. Petersburg. For about the same cost you'll get a much better Italian meal at Gratzi's, downtown St. Pete. It’s worth the drive from the Beach.

This restaurant delivered fairly good food for the money but has some issues. The dining room needs much better oversight as we had constant issues with the 3 servers on duty. They seemed to have no obvious plan as to how we (a party of five) should be served.

Even though we clearly requested 3 separate checks from the beginning we received a single bill that then was split with no small difficulty over about a 30 minute span of time. One final problem, the gratuity was included in the final handwritten totals but not identified as such and the waiter presenting the bill insisted that it was not included. Our own review of the bills indicated otherwise. Just to be fair, I have no problem with the restaurant adding the gratuity for a party of this size and their menu indicates that they reserve the right to do so but please don't try to hide that action from your customers since it reflects poorly on the restaurant.