There’s a new Italian restaurant in the works on the main floor of the four-storey brick heritage building at 901 Homer Street. Named “Tutto” – Italian for “all” or “everything” – the 180-seater is aiming for a mid-summer opening.

I looked inside for the first time yesterday afternoon. The 6,000 sqft space – owned by luxury condo developer Michael DeCotiis (Pinnacle International) – has been in the renovating works for about a year. It’s a multi-zoned restaurant with interconnected, semi-private rooms on a platform overlooking Homer Street; a huge, 18-seat flat-sided oval bar; built-in wine shelves everywhere; big booths marking corners; a sprawling dining room with gorgeous windows; and a massive open kitchen armed with a pizza oven. It looks to be fully framed in and nearly ready for setting and finishing touches.

It’s definitely an interesting/promising address for a hospitality project. To situate you, it’s kitty-corner to the popular Homer St. Cafe & Bar, opposite The Social Corner, within a stone’s throw of Yaletown’s promenades, and just far enough from the shitshow of Granville. The old (1910) brick bones of the corner building certainly give it a leg up with character, and the entrance feels a little Narnia-like, if instead of a wardrobe there were steps through a threshold of wine cabinetry.

Tutto has hired well, bringing in BC Restaurant Hall of Famer Patrick Corsi (ex-Quattro) to run operations and Andrea Vescovi (ex-Ancora) to be the GM. Chef Adam Shaughnessy – a veteran of Umberto Menghi’s restaurants – will run the kitchen, which plans to plate both lunch and dinner services.

In discussing the scope of the concept in shorthand (comparing it to other restaurants of note in Vancouver’s dining scene), Vescovi and I narrowed it down to the kind of refined but casual experience one gets at Chambar with the cuisine of a modern Italian restaurant that is steeped in the classics. As the name suggest, the food won’t be regionally specific but rather encompass tutto — all of Italy.

They’re looking to a mid-July launch if all goes well with the final stages of construction. Obviously, Covid-19 isn’t making things easy for them and they’ll have to open with far fewer seats and a completely different floor plan, but I appreciate that they’re already looking around the corner, so to speak. I’ll have more on Tutto as it develops. In the meantime, take a look inside…

Tutto Restaurant & Bar

Neighbourhood: Yaletown

901 Homer St.

604-633-8868

WEBSITE