cucina

dine in is great, do not recommend the grab n go menu. quality of food is superb when you dine in - worth the premium. lunchtimecan be very busy and on 3 occasions i have had to wait 20-40 minutes for a reserved table. would not recommend if you require fast service.

grab n go menu is of poor quality. the cold sandwhichs are very soggy and the bread is tough, definitely not worth the premium price. they should consider adding the dressing when the custoemr orders/ or giving it on the side to keep the integrity of the bread. quite shocking the difference in quality between the take out menu and eating in. this part of their business can use some work.

may 7, 2015 / by t_topcat / in restaurant reviews / post comment i joined a friend at cucina on stephen ave on a monday after work – i chose the location because i wanted to try something new. it was a bit of a walk from my office, but it was a nice day and the restaurant was a pleasant surprise! such a cute little place, with a good looking menu and even a 3 course menu for $35! i’d love to go back with my boyfriend for a nice evening. the service was quite good, but there were only 2 or 3 tables throughout ourtimethere so there wasn’t a large demand for the staff’s time. cucina kitchen we shared the stuffed calamari: calamari stuffed with chorizo, green curry, parsley, garlic, onion, braised in tomato sauce. i was actually disappointed – the calamari was rather tough, and the chorizo was regular dried chorizo sausage cut into small cubes. i was expecting it to be fresh ground chorizo sausage (fluff style) with a smoother texture than the chunks of dried chorizo. the flavours were nice, but i wouldn’t order it again. stuffed calamari i ordered the feature of the day, and it was delicious. it was scallops and a veggie purée and roasted veggies. i couldn’t tell you what the veggies all were, but they were all awesome – if i could have licked the purée off the plate, i would have! scallop feature of the day i recommend cucina and plan to go back, for sure!      

i ate at cucina twice recently and have dined there several times before. for the money, it is simply not worth it--despite the reclaimed wood and the faux hipster appeal. the service was friendly and exceeded expectations, and the ambience was pleasant. however, the food was a disaster. at breakfast, i tried the $16 feature eggs benedict. it was a "blt" benny, which i thought sounded unusual but in a good wayl. its was a complete disaster and should never have been on the menu--an utterly terrible combination of ingredients (romaine lettuce does not belong under hollandaise). the biggest infraction was that they forgot the bacon--one of several kitchen mistakes for our table. the kitchen remade my dish but poached the eggs for such a shorttimethat both white and yolk were an inedible, liquid mess.

at lunch i tried the $14 kale salad followed by the porchetta entrée. the salad hardly contained anything but plain kale and a few crumbs of cashews. what little dressing there was had an unpleasant bitterness. when the "porchetta" arrived, it was a slab of tasteless, fatty meat accompanied by uninspired, limp roasted peppers and a few unseasoned potato wedges that looked like they belonged next to the rotisserie chickens in a grocery store. at over $24 a plate, this was a huge disappointment.

bottom line: the food at cucina has gone drastically downhill and is totally out of line with its exorbitant price tag. save your money andtimeand go to one of the numerous other restaurants or pubs downtown where the kitchen knows how to execute a menu properly.

i met an old friend for dinner here on a wednesday night. it was a nice treat! i really like this place because it’s small and has yummy food! oh, and they have peroni beer on tap! woot!. we were seated in a small table in the far back corner of the restaurant. it was perfect for us to catch-up until another group of two right were seated right beside us (literally, their table was two feet from us in a small corner and we could hear everything each other said). thankfully we were almost done our dinner and conversation by thetimethe two ladies were seated beside us, or i would have asked to move. we could hardly hear ourselves think, let alone hear each other talk. i know the rest of the restaurant was set up for large groups, but the all the tables on the one side of the restaurant were empty… i was not impressed.

perfect place for a date night! service was spot on, romantic atmosphere and the tiramisu is to die for. nexttimewe go, we'll try their coffee.

march 12, 2015 march 12, 2015 | theresa if you read my earlier post on big taste yyc recommendations , you would have seen that i had quite a few reservations booked. nothing beats having a good quality meal cooked for you. that being said, i admit that 4 dinners this week might have been a little excessive. however! when they’re 3 course meals for $35 who can say no? cole and i kicked off the big taste at cucina market bistro – conveniently located in 8 ave, just down the street from his work (and the perfect spot for a bite if you’re finishing up a little evening shopping at the core). we were presented with the menu, with 2 choices for each course. we each ordered different things so we could try all 6 meals, because hey, this isn’t our first big taste. and then, cole took advantage of the wicked wine pairing deal – 3 glasses of mission hill for $15. in notimeour appetizers came out. warm and creamy porcini mushroom bisque, infused with truffle whipped cream. and tender fresh duck meat balls, doused in a spicy tomato sauce and speckled with grana padano cheese. this was only my secondtimeeating duck (and my firsttimeordering it) but if it’s always as good as these meatballs were, then, i get the hype. i thought maybe this dish would have 2 or 3 meatballs, but i was foolish to think so! instead, there was about 5 or 6 delectable meatballs. i had to share a few so i could save room for courses 2 &3. for entrees, he ordered the braised beef oxtail with saba, polenta, and mushroom fricassee. the oxtail was slow cooked and coated in a sweet barbecue sauce, easily pulling apart into long, tender strands.

we won't be going back!. four of us went to cucina a few weeks ago; we had made a reservation long in advance. they gave us the worse possible table in the restaurant. it was very busy and the waiters were constantly in our space to get cutlery and dishes.

their wine list is limited and they don’t bother to decant a $140 bottle of wine.

nothing that we had picked ahead oftimefrom their website was available. apparently, they had some technical problems with their website. fair enough. we ordered two appetizers to find out that they were out of them by 8pm. the meat balls were quite bland, the lamb shank was just pasta with no shank, the cornish hen prosciutto was overcooked. the fish of the day was good but it was soaking in maple syrup, too sweet for our taste.

the service at cucina is okay but the food is mediocre. overall, cucina is not worth a visit. 500$ later for 4 people, we expected a great dining experience but we did not get it. we all agreed we would not be going back to cucina. there are so many good restaurants in calgary, don’t waste yourtimeand money here.

really want to like this place but they can't cook eggs to save their life. i have been here for breakfast at least 6 times and everytimei have ordered eggs i have had to send them back. over easy always come out hard as pucks. i have also had the chorizo skillet and actually got eggs that were see through, sent them back and the cook over cooked the skillet so much the eggs were black on top. seriously, it's eggs not rocket science. hire someone from denny's to train your morning staff.

in a brightly lit space sits cucina, a casual eatery with a strong victorian influence, making me feel like i've been transported back intimeto have brunch in a summer cottage. the furnishing and decor is carefully chosen to mimic country elegance, but there's definitely some quirkiness as well when i see the portrait of chef macneil with a pig head.

food is so good but latest visit looks to be the last. we have been to cucina numerous times for lunch, a few grab and go breakfasts , several dinners and just has my mother's birthday dinner here. the food is really good. we just went this saturday for breafast and sadly it wil be tough to get my husband to return as the service was so lacking. we waited for almost an hour with those arriving after us having eaten and left. our waiter came by once with water and to ask about another cappuccino, never with water for the tea and when we finally said we had waited far too long on a weekend before the place was even full he said the kitchen had missed an order. we were a party of three. there are many things a good server could have done to advise diners of the situation and the timing, rather than ignoring you and letting our frustraton levels rise. my husband had recently declared this as his new favourite spot but the waste of precious weekendtimeby inexperienced (or uncaring) wait staff has him saying he will never go back. management needs to do a better job training the staff to be cognizant of what the status is of each of their tables.

so good. i've eaten at cucina several times since its opened and i keep going back. its great to see a place like this open up in calgary. the food has been excellent everytimeand i like the feel of the place. try the stuffed pasta shells and the chicken liver pate.

they have had their last chance....... this place can't seem to get it together. their service when making and serving coffees is very slow. maybe they need new front staff? i have had a luke warm latte, a hard pecan tart and this week on jan 21st they didn't have change at 9:00 am??? what? everytimei give them another chance i get disapointed yet again. never going back!


-----27 nov, 2012-----

not worth it. i just went to cucina. i ordered a small non-fat latte and a pecan tart. the non-fat latte was only mildly warm and 3/4 full of milk. i had to put it in the microwave at work to heat it up. the pecan tart was hard as a rock. patries should not be this hard. overall i felt ripped off. that and there were only 2 people in front of me who had already ordered and i still had to wait for about 10 minutes for my coffee that wasn't prepared right.

great decor..... beautiful interior, however the service and food was average at best. the room (for once) was half empty at 12:00 for lunch and yet it took our average table of four, 45 minutes to get only half of our tables lunch (which was very under seasoned). as someone who works in the downtown core, this is not acceptable to us that have limitedtimefor lunch. however, everyone else around us got their food in a timely manner so maybe it was just an off day, the servers seemed to be standing around chatting on the end of the bar, and their was not much movement going on in the kitchen, i guess you see it all when you go with the open room concept. overall not that impressed, it will be a while before i go back.

expensive for mediocre food. had dinner there yesterday with a group of 6. ambiance is extremely nice, and the setup is interesting, intimately, but pleasant. food was pricy and so so. as we had to make a reservation, we had to have the daily tasting's menu. normally i don't have a problem with that, but thistimethere was nothing really that i liked in the menu. it started with pumpkin soup, nothing special. next a mixed salad, plain and boring, followed by mushroom risotto. i normally never order risotto in a restaurant, as it almost impossible to make for larger groups in a short amount of time, and this was proven again; it was way over cooked, smushy, and salty.. just not nice. entree was swordfish, again, overcooked. dessert was a browny and some chocolate... nothing special. we did have some really nice wine though (but we could pick that ourselves of course), and ended up with a 1100$ bill, for 6 people (of which 215$ for wine). might go there again for lunch, or just with 1 other person to try the rest of the menu, but will never go again with a group.

mad love for cucina. i love this new bistro on stephen ave, i have been 3 times in the last month. once for dinner and twice for lunch. eachtimethe food has been fantastic, the shell pasta cioppino and market risottos are my favorite items so far. i love the attention to detail in both the food and decor. can't wait to visit again.