Luciano’s Cucina di Pasta

4 of us had a outstanding dinner.
The waiter Stan was very attentive.
The chef came out and talked to us and was delighted to know we enjoyed our meals.
We highly recommend this restaurant.

This is by far the best Italian restaurant in Lake Almanor. It’s top notch, not a pizzeria atmosphere. If you’re looking for a quiet place to enjoy great food over good conversation with friends and family, look no more. Their fettuccine alfredo and linguine in clam sauce special is the best I’ve ever had! Oh, and the fresh beet salad… yum!

On a recent outing to visit family in the lovely mountains. We decided to go out to eat, my sister and brother in law are excellent cooks so the idea of leaving their house to eat, obviously threw me. A classic Italian themed Sunday evening accompanied with family is all this Canadian import could have asked for. On various trips to the motherland throughout my life I’ve been no stranger to fine wine and even finer cuisine. This was an evening that will resonate. Clearly a group of likeminded, passionate people go into creating a fantastic experience. Our time spent here was simply euphoric. Never have I found a place to satisfy my love for Classic Italian favorites along with my passion for educated, memorable service. Cheers to Stan, And the other waitstaff. The chicken parmigiana. Transcendental food. Gorgonzola salad for starters with the best damn bread a man could hope for. Thank you for the seconds I enjoyed the next day and the experience. Will be back next time. Chao for now!

Caesar and Gorgonzola salad were good, fresh tasting. Had the bruschetta it was delicious, but had tons of raw garlic in it. Split a special Fettucine with sliced meatballs and sausage in a meat sauce, plenty big to split. Pasta was cooked about right, sausage and meatball were medium quality, little heavy on the sauce but quite tasty. Had to ask for Parmesan on the side, felt it needed more especially since it was saucy. The wine list is ridiculously priced for the quality and limited for sure. How about some moderate $ 25.00 bottles on the list, paid $ 40.00 for a mediocre chianti. You are at the lake in prime season so who cares your on vacation… but it would improve the experience. Our server was a bit militant but quite pleasant, professional and accommodating. Nice atmosphere, unfortunately a slow Monday night so most of the meal we were the only ones in there. Some takeout was picked up and 3 post golfers came in eventually. I would definitely go back if in the area again.

Absolutely delicious and wonderful service! Lesson learned tonight… Always get the special! Will definitely be back!

Took great care of our family with European flair.
Was sent here because the neighboring place was too packed — it worked out great for us. Great food, large portions and fun wait staff. Will come back again soon.

Absolutely the worst service I have ever experienced. Owner/​chef refused to make my entrée, forgot my soup and had the nerve to charge for bread. He also complained about another Patron In the restaurant. While we were still eating at 8 pm they turned out their sign and started picking up our plates. My parmigiana fair at best — I think it had cayenne pepper in it. Bread was good. We were never offered coffee or desert! I wish I’d stayed home! Rude service and most unwelcoming. This is my second attempt to try this restaurant. First time we left because owner never acknowledged us while we waited several minutes for a table. Don’t waste your time here.

Great little Italian restaurant. Service is excellent. Food is absolutely delicious. Love the bread and ravioli. Well worth a visit!

Unbelievable! Outstanding! Excellent! We came here for breakfast and enjoyed awesome omelettes and ended up coming back for dinner. The food is amazing and the service is award winning. We would recommend this place. The calamari steak is incredible! Thank you Anna and Ivan!!! See you next year for sure!

I had a great time in this very laid back comfortable establishment! It is a place where you can feel comfortable dressed up a little for a nice romantic evening or casual as well. The food was excellent and I will definitely be back for more! I am looking forward to trying other things on the menu. I had the calamari dinner and it was great!
The only thing I would change is I wish there had been more people there! The few tables that were there (to be fair I went in kinda early on a Thursday night) were friendly and were not afraid to spark up conversation and as the proprietor joined in the atmosphere was at once very «at home.» I even scored an on the house piece of homemade chocolate cake! Very friendly!
The prices are not outside of what I would expect to pay at a small family Italian restaurant. That being said I have paid more for sub par food and I have paid less for food as good. I am happy with the exchange. I don’t think I could afford to eat there a couple of times a week but I would try to make it as often as I could!
Thank You Luciano’s!

Love the food! My husband and I come here as often as we can. Nice big portions we always have leftovers for lunch the next day. I have to say that the other posts on here are absolutely wrong about this place. We have never had a bad meal here. They close in the winter and by summer we can’t wait for them to open up again. Best Italian food around.

We were 6 gals, willing to spend $$$$ and he honestly kicked us out. Was he mad because we were 10 minutes early? Ok, Lake Almanor, Monday night, 8 other patrons and he sent, say, $ 400 out the door… what the f…

We went to eat breakfast there on labor day weekend because we had been given a gift certificate. They had about 6 choices for your meal and you could only have wheat toast with any of them. The 2 egg breakfast came with hash browns and wheat toast. What shocked us the most was the hash browns. It was a fried patty, like one you get at McDonalds. No offer of coffee, very runny scrambled eggs and very poor service. Don’t waste your money.

Not Great! I wish it were better because it’s nice to have good restaurants ont he Peninsula, but I went 2 years ago and it wasn’t great… decided to give it another try this year… still not great. The home made rolls are to die for though! If at first you don’t succeed…

We were incredibly dissappointed in Luciano’s. Although the food was fine, the customer service was non existent, leaving such a bad taste in our mouths that it was difficult to truly give the food the attention it deserved. We went on a weekday evening when the restaurant had no more than 5 tables full and did not fill up much more while we dined. Upon entering the restaurant, we were seated on the deck at a table where the sun was fully facing us. Upon asking, politely, if we could move to one of the (many) other open tables so that the sun would not be in our eyes, we were treated as if we’d asked to have something completely out of the question. We were astonished that this simple request caused such a stir and they were so unwilling to accomodate this request. We were finally allowed to move and began to read over the menu. We had two under 12 children with us, who couldn’t find anything on the menu that really appealed to their age related tastes. Both really wanted pizza or something a bit more basic than what was listed on the menu. We were told that there was no pizza on the Luciano’s Cucina di Pasta menu and that if we wanted pizza we needed to go to the ajoining restaurant (Luciana’s Pizza and Wine Bar) Although the two restaurants are ajoining, we were told that they are entirely separate and we were not allowed to order from the Luciano’s pizza and wine bar menu and bring it over (ourselves) for our daughters. Additionally, they did not have a children’s menu to help appease the less seasoned palate. The lack of understanding/​empathy upon their part and possible suggestions for solutions or accomodation was very surprising and dissappointing. In the future, we will pass this place up and head to Gamboni’s or Tantradino’s when we go out in Lake Almanor.

We found this by accident. Talked to hotel staff and they seemed to highly recommend it.
It’s a spacious place at Peninsula Drive. From the wall decorations, it seemed to be an Asian restaurant before since some of the wall decos didn’t seem to coordinate well with the place.
Not very crowded even during the labor day weekend. It has a bar and pizza area and the regular dining room. The talk guy carrying an Italian accent greeted us in. He was pretty laid back and so was his family/​staff. From what we saw around the place, we were not sure about the food. The menu had a big selection and so was the portion of each dish. Bf ordered his penne pesto and I had the orange roughy. The salad and minestrone soup were merely OK to start. So our faces were tight. But the entrees turned out to exceed our expectation. The penny pesto was tasteful and my fish was perfectly cooked and I finished it all.
We were so happy to find this place in the area, not expensive but still had a good food. If you happen to stay in Chester/​Lake Almanor area on the way to Lassen National Park, it is a place for casual food plus a great lake view.
if you’re a garlic lover, you will like the penny pesto. And not everyone will carry the smell through next day.