Food is good overall. I tried one of their king crab pasta dishes and I didn't like it, the first time I went there. But the second time around, that seafood salad was 🤤. Highly recommend. The service is slower but they make everything fresh and it is just a two person team. So expect to wait awhile for your meal. Creme brulee cheesecake for dessert was fantastic. Parking is also validated.
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Restaurant Review: La Cucina *****
This is my favorite Italian restaurant and in my opinion (and many other foodies) is the best Italian restaurant in Hawaii. Every dish was sooooo good!!! Chef Don makes fresh noodles every day and his sauces are very delicious. Dara, Don’s wife & co-owner, provides excellent service and recommendations.
Recommended Order:
Midollo Osseo = A+
Roasted seasoned bone marrow topped with pesto and served with toast points
Risotto Funghi e Tartufo = A+
Porcini mushrooms and whole mushrooms topped with sautéed foie gras, a touch of truffle oil and Parmesan
Pappardelle Norcina = A
Homemade Italian sausage sautéed with onions, garlic, porcini mushrooms, whole mushrooms, and topped with Pecorino Romano
Fettuccine Aragosta = A
garlic, and chopped Maine lobster tail in a pink sauce
Ravioli Neri = A
Squid ink ravioli filled with lobster in a saffron cream sauce
Spaghetti Granchio e Vodka = A
Dungeness crab meat and vodka sauce
Osso Buco = B
Braised veal shank with fresh herbs in a tomato sauce
Tagliatelle Neri e frutti di Mare = B
Squid ink pasta sautéed with chopped clams, shelled clams, mussels, tiger shrimp, calamari, fish, garlic, capers, and parsley in a light tomato sauce
Insalata di Prosciutto = A
Thinly sliced prosciutto over Romaine and fresh mixed organic greens, olive oil vinaigrette, fresh tomato
Crostini al Porcini = B
grilled bread topped with fresh mozzarella and porcini mushrooms 4 pieces
Bruschetta = A
grilled bread topped with fresh tomato, basil, garlic and olive oil (4 pieces)
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I went there with a group of people, and we all thought the same thing of this nice restaurant. The best thing about this place is the food, every bite of every dish was amazing. Our favorite foods were the black, squid ink pasta with seafood, and the Burrata cheese appetizer. The food is absolutely amazing and taste fresh. There is lots of thought into the recipes of all these dishes.
There was a few problems though about this restaurant. It is understaffed by one or two people. the one waitress that we had was handling all the tables, and I think preparing dishes in the back as she was in the kitchen a lot. she was a very hard worker, and did what she could by herself. She was awesome. But because of missing some help, she wasn’t there when we needed her for certain things.
Because the restaurant was understaffed, we also had the problem of long wait times on the food. We would get one dish, and wait another 20 minutes to get the next dish. It took about a total of an hour and 40minutes to get our full meal.
The next problem I had was the sound in that room. When people talks it bounces all over the walls. On our night, we had 50 people talking at the same time, we couldn’t hear ourselves at all. The sound carries really well, and you can hear other peoples conversations. So I didn’t feel like I had much privacy and my head was going to explode from the sound. They could probably use some partitions in between the tables.
Lastly, There’s no street parking, because all the metered parking was taken. And we didn’t know we can park inside the back parking lot behind the building.
Besides these other problems, I would highly recommend this restaurant. The taste and quality of their food cancels out all these other issues. Probably the best Italian food on the island.
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