Lucca Cafe

This is my new go to place for lunch. It felt like I was in Paris at a little Italian place. The first time I went, I ordered the Sunday sauce (absolutely delicious) — and now I find myself returning regularly to attempt to try everything on the menu! It is extremely high-​quality food at very reasonable prices, and the service, staff and management are all excellent. It’s always a pleasant experience. I highly recommend this place.

So I decided to give this place another try…
The boyfriend and I get there on Sunday at 8pm to grab a quick dinner since they close at 9…
We stood there waiting for a few minutes as bussers walked by. The hostess finally greets us and says that due to the fire going on in Laguna, they’ve had no business all day and decided to close early.
Finding stuff in the food (someone said it looks like it came from an industrial scrubbing brush, which makes sense)… And then closing early because they are slow… That’s it for me, I don’t see the point in trying again… sigh…

Wow! What an amazing experience! The food was exceptional and the service was superior! Thank you, Mario and chef’s for an unforgettable experience!

I ate here once for lunch when they first opened. It was good! And I wanted to come back and try it. This time I came back for dinner. I’m not sure what is happening here but service staff seems very annoyed at the owner. There were only two people working the whole place, so we just had drinks and headed out. Hope they can make this place good again.

Daily specials are great. Food looks and tastes fresh. Breakfast options on the weekend are amazing. Enough room for parties of decent size.

Our main disappointment was with our waitress Erin, or rather, her attitude. She seemed miffed that we weren’t racking up a big enough tab (we were there at 6 p.m. and we were literally the ONLY party in the dining area at the time), and seemed put out that we asked for additional crostini (we were a party of six and the initial plate had five on it). We had an elderly diner with us and the waitress again seemed ruffled by her questions about the menu and preparation of fish. They don’t have a children’s menu, so we asked if he could have a chicken breast with a veggie, and that too seemed like we were asking an awful lot. Same put-​out attitude when some of our party ordered ice cream for dessert instead of pastry – although I had specifically asked the front staff to arrange for a special desert for a birthday in our party (fully expecting to pay!), a slice of cake came after everyone had ordered (and eaten) their ice cream… so much for the special occasion.
Nearly everyone at our table had fish of one sort or another – all mentioned it was just so-​so. I had the short rib with polenta, which was super salty, green beans were very al dente.
Our bill was $ 262 for six people (includes two glasses or wine). I don’t know, if I want the cold shoulder, I’ll go to my mother-n-law’s house and forego Lucca.

So disappointed. The restaurant was incredibly slow, maybe 5 other tables, but the service was bad. Next to impossible to find our waitress. Ordered a 5 taste cheese platter — not great. Placed an order for plain ravioli, requesting NO sauce-​received ravioli with sauce. Sent it back, ravioli came back with a raw egg inside. According to the waitress, it was supposed to be cooked when the pasta cooked. No such luck. Sent that back and ordered plain penne, got plain elbow macaroni for $ 12. I give up. Never was offered a second glass of wine. Waitress apologized, but really made no effort to fix anything. Didn’t even comp anything in the bill. Won’t be back.

The Skinny: Interesting division of a place that has a deli/​casual area and a more formal dining area. A little strange, but the overall experience is great.
Environment:
I was quite honestly confused when we first walked in here because the normal entrance makes it look kind of like a meat deli/​casual sit-​down. However, when we asked to be seated for dinner, they took us to the outdoor seating patio and it was more along the lines of a romantic/​formal seating. The place is nicely decorated and very clean. It’s a nice place to take a low-​key date on.
Service:
Our waiter was very attentive to us and explained the dishes to us very well. We mentioned it was the first time we ate there and our waiter took the time to describe all the popular dishes and her personal favorite dish. Wine suggestions were also very welcomed. Pleasant service.
Food:
We were here because it was OC Restaurant Week back in March. Our first course was the roasted beets, and those were prepared to near perfection. I am a fan of beets, and I loved the way they prepped it on balancing the taste out. We also had the smoked salmon rolls, which were a little too sour for my taste but still overall good. The capers made it a little too sour for me. My main dish was the New Zealand Sole, which was cooked with just enough sauces that kept its flavor and moisture. This is very ideal because the problem I run into with fish is that a lot of places somehow make it very dry. The sole was prepped beautifully in both presentation and taste. Our desserts were Crème Brule, which was good but nothing to write home about.
Overall: ⁴⁄₅
I’d recommend anyone to try this place out for its food and presentations. The food is a little on the pricier side if you dine-​in, but it’s also the nice ambiance you are paying for. If you are in the area and want a little date-​night place, you can try this place out.

Nice place for lunch. Good break from the fast food. Excellent service. I ordered a linguine with grilled shrimp and artichokes and it was delicious. I would go back to try their brunch menu.

Not my usual type of restaurant… but there I was, staring at the meaty, cheesy menu full of options… and none for me. This is often the case when the work function takes me places I would otherwise ignore at best and disparage at worst.
Yes, I am a picky vegan eater. It’s hard to keep me
Happy. But most places offer a few different options and a easy hack-​it-​yourself meal that keeps my belly full. Not here. I settled for the pesto pasta, knowing that pesto contains Parmesan. I guess I was a «dirty vegan» that night. Not the end of the world.
Service, you ask? How was service? Good. Non interrupting, yet always there when you need them. Ambiance? Meh. There’s room for improvement.
I don’t think I will be back there, but that in no way means that you shouldn’t give it a shot. My meat eating colleagues seemed to have enjoyed themselves. Especially after a couple of glasses of wine — perhaps you will too.

⁵⁄₅ stars for service from Adolfo!
⁴⁄₅ stars for the food
Adolfo recommended great glasses of wine, apps, and a surf & turf special. My fiancé and I walked in a little late (830pm) but were still served graciously. The apps were good, the bread and homemade hummus were a nice touch. Surf&turf was yummy but not knock-​my-​socks-​off quality. I ordered the giant raviolis, which were giant and covered in an excessive amount of butter/​evoo. It was delicious but I ruined my shirt with the drippy sauce. Maybe I should’ve opted for a bib. Bread pudding was a little dry but was improved with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Thanks to Adolfo for making our dinner cozy and special. Will definitely be back, bib in hand.

I’d heard good things about Lucca but was skeptical because of its location. I was looking for a brunch place near home and found Lucca, and I’m so glad I did.
Parking is a breeze in the Quail Hill Shopping Plaza. We got patio seating which was nice. Since we were here for brunch that was the only option on the menu. Lucca has a lot of good choice so we were perplexed on what to order. The table split the cinnamon roll, that was so delicious and rich! Great to share (for your appetite and waistline!).
I started with a cup of Lavazza coffee but others chose to have the mimosa special. That coffee is pretty delicious!
Meals. I originally was going to choose the pancake combo but given we ordered the cinnamon roll, I didn’t want to have too many bad carbs so I switched to the scrambled eggs/​french omelette option. I had the bacon, spinach and avocado option scrambled with egg whites. This came with a delicious berry fruit side, and toast.
My friends chose the croque madame and eggs in purgatory (eggs in salsa topped with cheese and avocado, served over breakfast potatoes).
Everything was delicious. I finished my meal easily and really enjoyed it. Service was on point and he made some good recommendations. I highly suggest a return visit or a first time try if you’ve never been.

My parents and I had appetizers and drinks at Lucca. We arrived early (4:45) but the host was still happy to seat us, take our drink order while we scoured the menu. We ordered the cheese plate with speck, a goats milk cheese and a cows milk cheese. It was DELECTABLE and so aesthetically put together. I definitely recommend the speck over normal prosciutto. Then we ordered the artichoke and pork belly small plates which were fantastic as well. We topped it all off with a recommendation from the owner — the Apple Gallete, it was magical. Definitely a must have! Erin was our waitress and she was very attentive and personable, ¹⁰⁄₁₀! Great ambiance in the place as well. Vast variety & tasty food.

Lucca Café brought major disappointment for a long time Unilocal bookmark that finally was checked off. It is a smaller non-​chain spot in Irvine at the start of Quail Hill living, had indoor/​outdoor seating and was quite busy on Saturday for lunch on the last day of OC Restaurant Week. They have won Golden Foodie award for Mediterranean cuisine, I just don’t know why? First, I’d classify the cuisine as Italian and second, the food was very subpar in my opinion.
Starters: we started with Minestrone soup (clearly homemade but boring, lacking in flavor and very little pasta/​beans, more like vegetable soup) and house salad (small with 1 grape tomato and 1 olive, no pine nuts and a severe lack of dressing, perhaps a good thing as the balsamic vinaigrette was not a winner)
Main: Hubby had Short Rib Bordelaise Pasta (pappardelle egg noodles, braised shortrib, mushrooms, bordelaise sauce and more) and I had «Sunday Sauce» (penne with meat ragu, meatballs & italian sausage). Both dishes were clearly fresh but both were pricey, smaller in portion size and very lacking in flavor and taste. The pasta was the correct al dente, the short rib and meatballs both tender, yet neither was close to being a winner.
Dessert: Cannolis (3 – 4 stars but I’ve had better) and bread pudding (the best I’ve had but I do not tend to ever like this and there was a severe lack of bourbon sauce which was one of the winning ingredients). Just a mention, desserts were also pricey but all in all, desserts may be where Lucca shines a bit.
Service: better training needed as dishes were not cleared until after main course, so the little table was full of plates and bowls. Our waiter did not know the menu as he had to go back twice to find out if certain dishes contained certain items. I ordered iced tea, he brought it and never thought to ask or tell me that they had bottles of Republic of Tea, which I love and is hard to find. Fresh cheese not on table, nor was it offered, I had to ask.
Lucca is now permanently checked off ever going back.

This used to be one of my go-​to places to eat but service has declined considerably. Came here for restaurant week and they clearly were not prepared. Food took way too long to come out and wait staff was hard to track down for drink refills and putting in our order.
The tri tip in the salad was cold and tough, and the soup was like Denny’s level soup. The dessert brownie was good and had a fudge texture but that was the only good dish. I hope they improve because I do love their charcuterie and pasta dishes.

Ick.
First, I have a rule about brunch establishments. If they offer you those pre-​packaged Smuckers high fructose corn syrup squares people think are jam, this place doesn’t care about quality. Lucca has proven me right yet again.
I ordered the eggs Purgatory. The very concept of this dish is ill-​conceived. It tastes a lot like they poured a massive jug of oil and a can of crushed tomatoes in a bowl, smothered it in greasy mozzarella cheese and buried 2 very overcooked eggs in there. The dish arrives swimming in water with an oil slick on top. Unless if they add the eggs to this thing raw, the eggs over-​cook from all that hot, oil drenched mess.
You cannot visually tell the difference between the mozzarella and egg, so you expect one and bite into the other. Very unpleasant. Also, the whole dish was over salted. I ended up with a hard boiled «poached» egg. It was really just mush, buried in oily mush with more greasy mush on top. My husband’s breakfast choice, the eggs Lucca, didn’t look much more appetizing than mine.
The fruit cup is a single grape, a ¼ strawberry, and 2 melon squares, one of which is crunchy. That’s it. Why even bother including a fruit cup if that it the sum of it?
Bottom line is this is really not a breakfast place and it shows.

This was our last delving into OC Restaurant Week, one of the stops on the better half’s birthday weekend tour and «Bookmark Saturday,» but there was no reason to celebrate the food or service here!
Laina had this restaurant bookmarked for years and the restaurant has several (
) recent awards to its credit, so there were high hopes we were going to have a noteworthy lunch.
Upon arrival, we confirmed our reservation through OpenTable and were seated (
) in the back corner of the restaurant. There is a heated patio area as well, but a screaming child deterred us from sitting out outside.
Our server came over, took our drink order (Iced Tea for the better half and I opted for Lemonade) and returned with them in good order. We originally planned to order off the Restaurant Week menu, but the «Sunday Sauce» on the Brunch Menu caught her eye and she decided to order this item. There is a soup or salad option with this dish and she chose to start (
) with the Minestrone Soup. I stuck with the original plan and started with the Lucca Salad (
) and selected the Short Rib Bordelaise Pasta (
) as my entrée.
The starters came out in good time, but both were equally disappointing. Laina compared her Minestrone soup to a vegetable soup party with a couple pieces of pasta, one garbanzo bean and two kidney beans acting as «crashers.» The salad was what Marc S. would call a bowl of «that green stuff» and not much else. There was literally one grape tomato, one olive, a few pieces of sweet peppers and not a pine nut to be seen. The website menu mentions goat cheese, but the restaurant week does not and it was missing from my salad. The vinaigrette was decent, but nothing special and was lightly applied to my salad. Even after I tossed my own salad, some of the greens remained barren of dressing.
The timing of the kitchen was way off on the entrees, because my wife hadn’t even finished half her soup before the entrees arrived. My birthday girl’s pasta overall was very bland with the standout being the sausage, it was really the only protein that had a flavor. The meatballs were very soft, but completely void of flavor and the shredded pork pieces were equally nondescript. The ragu was pedestrian at best and was definitely missing seasoning. The only other item noteworthy was the pasta which appeared housemade and was prepared al dente.
My pasta dish was equally boring in the flavor department. Like the better half’s pasta, this appeared housemade, the preparation was correct, however the pasta wasn’t properly strained leaving a large puddle of water at the bottom of the bowl. The short rib was tender and the mushrooms were plentiful, but the dish as a whole just left me thinking «meh!»
What is birthday without dessert? I ordered the Cannoli Duo (
) and I wanted to try the Signature Bread Pudding (
) to satisfy my sweet tooth. The cannoli were middle of the road, we have eaten better and far worse. The chocolate chips were only on the outside and mixed in with the mascarpone, but at least the shell wasn’t rock hard. Laina commented the bread pudding was the best she has ever tried, but still wasn’t a fan. I really enjoyed the bread pudding and combination of items worked well together and wasn’t sickeningly sweet. My only minor complaints would be there wasn’t enough bourbon sauce and I would have liked to have seen pecans instead of walnuts.
Service was off the mark at times as well. My better half noticed later Lucca serves The Republic of Tea Bottled Ice Tea, which she would have ordered had the server mentioned it. The server didn’t remove our appetizer plates until we were done with our entrees and had run out of room on the table. He did keep the drinks refilled and checked back on us, but I expect a little more when I am paying $ 30 a head for a meal.
Rohlinism: You should never get Denny’s service at PF Chang’s prices!
Not only was this disappointing cause it was supposed to be a celebration, but the food and service in no way justified the prices charged here.

Came to Lucca with a friend for restaurant week tonight (3 courses for $ 40), and as a regular at this restaurant, I can honestly say we will not be giving our patronage to this restaurant ever again.
To start with our appetizers were tossed on our table on top of the butter knife and the waiter made no effort to fix it. Then the rib eye steak was COLD and we had to ask for steak knives. Then the desserts were brought to us while we were still working on our entrée… and of course no spoons were given to us to eat the dessert with and we had to ask for those also. Frustrated with the whole meal, we then asked to box up the entrée, to which the waiter said «I will do it LATER.» This is not the way you treat people at these prices.
When the waiter came over to ask us how our dinner was we began to tell him what happened and he just looked at us placed the check on the table and walked away with a pissed off look on his face.
We were astonished at the complete lack of professionalism, the cold food, and the inability to even admit they did anything wrong.
After this whole incident we looked up the other recent reviews on Unilocal and saw that others have commented on how Lucca has gone downhill from a service standpoint. It is sad, this was one of our favorite restaurants, but after tonight we cannot in good faith give our business to Lucca.
Overpriced cold food + terrible service = 2 less customers.

I have been going here frequently for over 2 years now because the food is amazing. My favorite item on the menu is the tri-​tip wrap. With that said, I have noticed that the service recently has been extremely average. On my last visit, my friends and I waited 50 minutes for our food (the restaurant wasn’t even busy).
Given that this restaurant serves some of my favorite food, I brought some of my co-​workers in for lunch a few weeks ago. They were extremely disappointed with the service they received. Long story short, great food but average service.

Checked out Lucca for OC Restaurant Week. Cute place, nice, cozy enclosed patio – although the view is of the parking lot, but that’s OK.
The food was very good but the best thing about Lucca is the staff. Everyone was super friendly, funny, efficient and accommodating.
We ordered off the Restaurant Week menu and started with carpaccio and a kale/​quinoa salad. I am not a salad person but I would order that salad again. Great taste, texture and presentation.
Our entrees were the surf and turf and lamb shanks. I would have liked my lamb slightly rarer, but it was still very tasty. Loved the potatoes that came with it. My friend was extremely happy with her surf and turf: filet mignon and shrimp.
Dessert was three choices. I don’t like crème brulee so my friend got that. It was chocolate, which wasn’t what she expected, but it was awesome! I wish I’d have ordered it. I got an Italian ice cream and sauce thing, but it was coffee/​hazelnut flavor and I didn’t like it. Not that it was bad, just not my taste. No problem. Our very accommodating waiter brought me the strawberry shortcake, which was very good.
Good food and great service will bring us back to Lucca. Our waiter showed us their cheese menu – looks amazing. We’re going back for that soon!