Nello Cucina

Food: Cioppino is one of my favourite dishes, but the one I had here was simply disappointing. There was plenty of seafood but they were not that fresh at all
Ambience: I felt like I was sitting in a food court

We were in South Coast Plaza, you know, because we people from Long Beach like to be judged while we shop, when we wanted a drink, and we started to look around. With a surprisingly private feel and a lushness not expected in a mall, you had me at Nello. We didn’t eat, though the happy hour menu seems spectacular and it seemed to be full of people who came there to eat based on the lack of shopping bags at their feet. We sat in the darkish bar, nicely shaded from the artificial mall light, where the friendly and hard-​working Juan G. poured me a dizzying Grey Goose and cranberry that earns him Best Pour in OC, hands down. And car keys down.

A cute little Italian restaurant in the middle of the mall? How awesome. We were just looking for a place to have a quick cocktail before dinner. Ambiance is super cute with vines hanging from the walls. The food looked good. Ordered a martini and the hubs got a vodka and cranberry. Both were super strong! Yum! Would totally return.

Day after Christmas early dinner.
Short Rib Ravioli– decadent and pretty tasty compared to our other Italian adventures in the OC.
Caprese Salad– smallish portion and standard issue. Nothing too fancy
Ice Tea– unsweetened. I had to get up myself to go to the bar for sweetener. Being pregnant, that was a feat!
–Service was a little weird. Though our drinks were filled regularly by someone, our server was absent for most of the meal. I kind of felt cheated and blame ourselves. Maybe he thought that since we ordered so little, we didn’t need much attention. We weren’t even offered any parmasean cheese… And that ravioli was in dire need of some savory cheesy goodness to amp up the flavor a notch!

Ate at the bar and experienced IMPECCABLE
service from Jorge! Enjoyed an inspiring flamenco performance from The Amazing Rousz! The food is to die for (ask Jorge for recommendations, you will not be disappointed)

The past two days I’ve placed an order to go and they tell me it will be ready in 15 min. When I show up they tell me no one placed my order. How hard is it to place an order??? Never coming here again!

Excellent food, service, environment and staff. There is something special about this place. While observing the way the staff work together and treat ever single customer there is a sense of family here. From the moment you are greeted to the time you close out there is consistent check-​ins from the waiting staff and a wonderful attitude and pleasure of serving. Will be back soon!

Had the seafood linguini, capresse salad and tiramisu.
All was good, fresh, right temperature and service wasn’t only fast but very courteous. I’ll bring my parents, they love Italian food ;-)

Great service, good atmosphere being at the mall with an indoor seating area that looks like it was outdoor. Even had a really good live guitarist playing– made the meal so much mor enjoyable. Their food was above avg for me but my bf loved it. Also got a 10% off coupon from Unilocal check-​in. What else could you ask for!!! This is by far the best restaurant in SCP!

Fantastic food and super energetic staff. Our waiter seemed to be from Italy and so he had a genuine passion to recommend the best menu items. Even though we were in a mall on a sat night, we were seated immediately and got our drinks and food super quick. Complimentary bread basket came with a very tasty spread! Calamari– classic and perfectly delicious. Carbonara was very greasy but flavorful when you add a hint of salt. But the Rotelle (handmade pasta) was AMAZING!!! A must try!

Our first time here. This place is at South Coast Plaza. It was surprisingly very good. The chicken parmesan was very tender. Came with veges and potatoes. The caprise salad was great. Yummy bread basket. Service fantastic. Will be back. Checked in @ Unilocal and received 10% off. Nice!

I ordered the Rotolo here and while it looked amazing on the outside, the inside which consisted of ricotta cheese and spinach (almost like a cylinder shaped ravioli) was tasteless! It had no flavor whatsoever. I can’t believe I paid $ 17.50 for this! And when we first arrived we asked them for water and the guy said «sure «but then began talking with the other workers for at least 8−10minutes before we had to once again ask them for water. He then stopped chatting with his coworkers and served us water. The was another party that was slowly serviced that they even had to physically had to get up and walk to where the waiters were all chatting away like schoolgirls.
Tl;dr if I am going to spend a decent amount for a plate then I would atleast expect a glass of water after asking for it. My suggestion is to stay away from this place.

Day: Sunday
Time: Afternoon
Server: Emiliano
Paella: Meh, according to my dad. Mussels a bit dank. No hint of saffron.
Focacetta: Crispy, light, and HUGE! Went well with the Eggplant Parmigiana.
Eggplant Parmigiana: Tasty and filling. Served with bucatini. Slightly sloppy presentation.
Scallop Special (?): Seafood galore! Scallops were sweet. Presentation was nice.
Food took awhile to come out, but sitting under the nicely decorated escalators was pretty cool. Server was a bit rushed. If I come here again, I would try the home-​made pasta.

My friends and I decided to dine here to catch up what we did during the school year. Instead of ordering individually we decided to get dishes to share between all of us.
For starters, we ordered fried calamari and swordfish carpaccio. I enjoyed the fried calamari but was a bit disappointed that the spicy tomato sauce didn’t have much of a bite. The Swordfish was delicious. I enjoyed the difference in texture swordfish and arugala. The arugala was sweet which contested well with the lemon.
For a meal, we got Margherita Pizza, Rotello, and Linguine Seafood. Their sister restaurant made fall in love with Margherita pizza. It is simple but delicious. I wasn’t disappointed here either. Rotelle was awesome. The pasta texture was soft and not overly chewy. The linguine was also good. I was happy to see that it full of seafood. It wasn’t just one or pieces of each.
For desert we decided to share a tiramisu. I like that they had stawberry on the plate as well. The tartness of the strawbery meshed well with the richness of it. The cream was fluffy and good.
It was a slow day so I was sirpirsed by how long it took to clear out plates but otherwise service was good. My friend works at the sister restaurant so we got a discount that made the meal worthwhile. I would totally ready here again, even without the discount. That reminds me checking in on Unilocal gives you a ten percent discount.

We’d been dining at the sister restaurant in the main mall and wanted to see what this location had to offer. That was about 3+ years ago and this is a regular stop when in the South Coast area.
Have had pretty much the whole menu and our consistent picks would be:
Margherita pizza
Fettuccine Bolognese
Lasagna
Have also enjoyed
Olio spaghetti’s optioned with mushrooms and sausage but the basic is a fav.
The fillet medallions with a mushroom demi glacé sauce
Chicken and mushroom risotto
Salmon with lemon artichoke sauce…
The crew is great and particular shout to Domingo who knows what we want to eat before we even know. LOL. Mrs. loves Domingo’s caffè macchiato also. We leave here consistently happy.
Food quality –4.5
Taste– 4.5
Service– 5
Overall cleanliness– 4.5
Value– 4.5

Wow for the same price as Olive Garden, the food and service is SO much better! Our server Domingo was wonderful! Very attentive and easy going. We started with the mozzarella in carozza and it was cooked perfectly! Then the butternut squash soup– which unfortunately, was the only thing not up to par. Very watery. Then I had the gnocchi which was delightful and so flavorful, and my boyfriend got chicken Parmesan and the chicken was amazing! The spaghetti was nothing special. We ended our dinner with some gelato and it was heavenly! The strawberry and vanilla were our favorites! The chocolate I could’ve done without only because it was very rich. We will be returning! Thank you for a pleasant surprise in the mall!

My review is on the happy hour. Loved it! Didn’t even realize this place was around and I’ve been the Crystal Court thousands of times.
Happy hour is until 6pm. House wine is $ 4, martinis and well are $ 5. I had a dirty martini and it was nice and dirty! Delish. The wait staff was great too! Very nice.
Happy hour appetizers were for $ 6. My favorite was the mozzarella caprese. The cheese was amazing! Also tried the margarita pizza and it was so good-​and only $ 6.
I love how you sit in the middle of the mall but it’s still nice and secluded. Next time I shall try the hummus!

Food & service is excellent. Fresh & tasty.

This restaurant is situated inside the mall. Which is super random. Makes for great people watching coming up and down the escalator.
The food was good! We came for the pasta. We needed to carbo-​load for the Disney Run.
We ordered by the suggestion of the server and I’m glad we did! The pasta we had was made to order using freshly made sauce! It was perfetto.

Italian Food Hot Spot! Located in South Coast Plaza on the Macy’s Home side off Bear and Sunflower.
Tonight I took the wife out for some good old fashion Italian food and we chose Nello’s Cucina. We usually order the same thing everything time we come here and tonight something was off and it was a bit disappointing.
When we walked up we were greeted by a server right away and he showed us to our table. Everything was going good. The server asked us if we wanted drinks and we ordered water and bus boy brought it out within a minute. They servers here are outstanding but when they brought us the bread/​chips with Pesto dip something didn’t taste quite right. The Pesto was missing something. Usually it’s very silky and have the perfect balance but tonight it had like a twang about it. Like a hint of sourness. It wasn’t good like it usually is.
Then we ordered the Brochette and it was perfect. I mean it’s pretty hard to mess that up. The bread was lightly toasted and the tomatoes were very fresh. I think it had some basil and grated Parmesan on top. It was delicious.
I ordered the Lasagna and it looked great but the tomato sauce was very bland and really had no flavor. I remember have this Lasagna the last time I came here and the sauce was very flavorful so it could be quite possible that they switched cooks because the food tastes totally different. (Like night and day.)
My wife ordered the Vongole which is a pasta with shelled clams in oil, garlic, parsley, and a splash of white wine sauce. She said she always orders the same thing every time we come here and it’s great but tonight she said the soup base was extremely salty and there were like 10 pretty large chunks of garlic in the soup. She said she ate a few and it was pretty horrible and made her choke. She also mentioned that usually she drinks the soups after she finishes the pasta noodles but the soup was so salty she just couldn’t finish it.
Lastly for dessert we ordered Panna cotta. It was very lite and had such a wonderful flavor of vanilla and raspberry. It was pretty expensive thought for what we got. It’s $ 8.50 for a pretty small serving. (Not really worth it in my opinion.)
Overall this visit to Nella’s wasn’t good. Now i think it could be a hit or miss type of place. The only thing that was good about tonight was when I checked in with Unilocal I received a 10% off discount which paid the tax. So that was nice.
Thanks for reading my review.
–Matt