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.

We enjoyed a fabulous dinner at Carino's back in March. We opted for a reservation in the piano room and we were quickly seated. While it did take a little while for our server to first greet us, he apologized profusely and all was fine. It was very crowded this night and the servers were quite busy. The piano room is a kitchy, kinda cheesy atmosphere, but I just loved it. Katie on the keys is wonderful! Played for 2 hours straight without taking a single break. The crowd was people in their 50s, 60s, and 70s and they were clearly locals. This just made me feel even better about the place, because the locals know the great places to go. I ordered the Scampi Fra Diavlo ~ Gamberoni shrimp with spicy tomato sauce over linguini. OH MY GOODNESS. This was the best red sauce I have ever tasted and my Italian family is big sauce snobs. My husband ordered the Chicken Marsala and it was amazing as well. We split a slice of chocolate cheesecake which I really liked, but the hubby thought was just so so. It was your standard cheesecake, but with cocoa powder and/or dark chocolate mixed all through. Hard to explain, different, but good. The prices are extremely reasonable here for what I think is pretty authentic Italian.

We went to Carino's twice during the week of vacation. It remains our favorite restaurant for dinner. The pasta dishes are delicious. I also tried one of the veal dishes, which was equally excellent. I had to get the side of pasta with aurora sauce, it is my favorite. Service both times was excellent.