Carino's Italian Albany

5 stars all around. This restaurant is beautiful inside and out, and they have the staff to match. Everyone was so friendly and helpful and made our food not only delicious, but efficiently. Placed an order for pickup and it was so good we had to go back a second time to get another order of the chicken parmesan for my boyfriend because let me tell you - this is by far the best chicken parmesan I have had in a while. The chicken is perfectly crisp and the sauce had tremendous flavor. I ordered the minestrone soup on the side and that also had great depth of flavor. My taste buds are doing a dance right now just thinking about this food. The baguette they served on the side was so fresh and soft too, with the outside of the bread being the perfect amount of crisp! Tasted amazing with the oil and herbs. The only thing that maybe wasn't a full 5 stars was the chicken Alfredo, which is why we went back and got another chicken Parm. My boyfriend said that he wished the Alfredo sauce was more thick/cheesy. He also said that the chicken could have had some more flavor to it too. But again, that chicken parmesan was amazing, so it definitely made up for the Alfredo and then some :) The desserts?? Oh man, the desserts were SO good. As I was paying for the food, the hostess told us that she was excited for us to try the apple skillettini because it was her absolute favorite thing on the menu and we definitely found out why. The puff pastry was nicely crisp and the apples were soft and juicy. The caramel on top as well as the caramel on the ice cream was a nice touch as well. I'm also a huge fan of cannolis too, and these ones were picture perfect, but they tasted even better than they looked. The shells on these cannolis were so crispy fresh and the filling was perfectly smooth. No one likes a soggy/stale cannoli shell! Man if I could give this place 100 stars, I would. The only thing that could have possibly made this better way eating in rather than ordering everything to takeout, because the ambiance inside was so chill. Definitely would eat here again and strongly recommend!