Cucina Rustica

I gave one because I couldn’t give less. Found an aluminum hair in my gnocchi napolitano.

CLOSED — The Montrose Location of Cucina Rustica was sold and has recently re-​opened as Montrose Town Kitchen and Grill serving excellent Cal/​Ital dishes.

The food was fantastic, the new beef special was superbly cooked. Melted in you’re mouth! The staff was helpful, our servers Jessic and Andre were very polite and helpful. Definitely will be back!

This restaurant never ceases to fail me! I’m always beyond satisfied with their food and service, I just tried the baked ziti (I’m not a big fan from prior attempts at different restaurants) but it is AMAZING, to die for! I don’t know what their chef is doing but whatever it is keep it up!

Love the ambience. It is surprisingly spacious inside with a nice full bar in the middle. It is never busy during lunch time on a weekday in montrose so we got to sit anywhere we wanted.
Service was good since there were only three tables occupied. I ordered one of the lunch specials, I believe it was chicken panini. It was very tasty and the price was good too!

A good Italian Restaurant with a homey feel?!? Sign me up! I work in La Crescenta and I decided to use Unilocal to find some good Italian food. So I did a search and by gosh, Cucina Rustica had some good reviews. I was still skeptical but the reviews looked legit and the pictures looked fantastic.
Few Highlights:
1. The food is creative but at the same time has time has that home cooked meal feel. Lasagna Al Forno, Spaghetti Bolognese, Fettuccini Shrimp Pesto, Lamb Shank?!? OMG, I’m getting hungry as we speak!
2. They have great lunch and dinner specials! You won’t be disappointed with anything on the menu, I promise.
3. Family owned and service is on point! Owner’s daughter is a sweetheart and very funny to talk to. Her and the whole staff always make me feel welcome. The service is as good as it gets.
4. Food is not overcomplicated and very well done. I have been to a lot of high end Italian restaurants and the quality of there dishes is up there. All of there specials posted outside are fantastic.
5. The atmosphere inside and outside is very nice.
Service Grade: A
Worth The Money Grade: A
Overall Impression Grade: A
Cleanliness: A+
Enjoy!
–Dr. Foodie ;)

Meh… sums up the food. We ended up at this place when Basin proved the wrong locale for a groups of gals gathering to chat and catch up. I had a creamy pasta with sun dried tomatoes and chicken. It was a bit oily for my taste. We all split desserts: tiramisu, chocolate lava cake, and a sea salt mousse. They were all okay, nothing to brag about. Our servers were prompt, friendly and attentive. The Server even let me sample the wine before ordering.

Great ambiance and location (right in the middle of Montrose). We dined there mid-​week around 7pm and the place was relatively empty. The wait staff was prompt and courteous and the food was delivered in a timely fashion from the kitchen. The prices were reasonable and the food was flavorful and had a good taste to it. I will be back.

My friends and I came here for dinner on Saturday night around 8. We really liked the ambiance of this place and the menu had a nice wide selection of different pastas and salads and other Italian dishes. Everything was going great until our server came to check up on us.
The first server politely asked if everything was fine — which everything was. But after she left another server came and asked the same question. And after he left another came. My friends and I literally had 3 different servers continually checking up on us throughout the meal. This got tiring and annoying very quickly as we ended up talking with the servers more than talking with each other.
Eventually we decided to pay and go because it seemed like the waitstaff was eager for us to leave. We payed by card and when we were still signing and leaving tip a server came and just took the papers from us! This is VERY rude at any restaurant and my friends and I decided that we would not come back here ever again.
1 star for the ambiance and 0 star for the service

The food here is decent for the area, particularly considering there are not many good choices for Italian food nearby. However, foodies beware: There is an «Insalata di Buffalo» which is advertised on their menu as a salad with buffalo mozzarella, for $ 14. In fact, it’s really just little bocconcini fresh mozzarella balls like you’d get at the supermarket in the little container with water.
I can only guess they think most of their customers won’t know the difference between fresh mozzarella and buffalo mozzarella. I think that’s a bit insulting. The menu I was given seemed updated from what is listed here on Unilocal for their menu. It seems there used to be a caprese salad for a good bit less money, (what this really was), but there was no such salad on the menu I was given. I’m left to assume they streamlined the menu, and decided that most people would not know the difference.
I know the difference, and I don’t appreciate being misled. They’re off my list.

The food here is fantastic!
The have a very friendly staff and the owner really seems to care about his costumers
and business. I started off with a delicious small ceaser and the stuffed mushrooms appetizer.
Everything was fresh and tasted good.
I also has the Seabass and it was worth every penny.
The seabass was bakes and was on top of a angel hair pasta with a dijon sauce, fresh spinach, and fresh tomatoes.
The staff was attentive and friendly.
This place is magical and the food is the best in town.
I definitely recommend this place you have to try it.

I had a poor experience years and years ago at Cucina Rustica, but some clients of mine wanted to eat there and I decided to give it another chance.
Thankfully, I did!
Very much contrary to my last experience, everyone was friendly, the food was delicious, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The almond risotto is an absolute knockout! I even brought my sister back a few weeks later, and she agreed that the food was quite tasty. Portions are generous, and the cocktails are quite tasty.
Sometimes, I think small businesses deserve a second chance, and people have bad days. Cucina Rustica is a good example of the benefits that might come to you after letting some time go by and giving things another shot.

The décor is nice and staff is friendly with good service.
I ordered the lamb shank and the company I was with ordered various pasta dishes and also a rib eye.
I highly recommend sticking to just pasta dishes.

At first glance you are attracted to the décor and the modern look of this establishment. This is where it all stops.
The service is lousy. The staff is not familiar with the menu.
The food is very oily & greasy. I hope they can make some changes before they shut down the doors.

Ready for a contradictory sentence. Here is goes, the décor is really nice and the server was friendly but the service was really slowww. She brought us bread but this style of bread I was kind of expecting that it would be accompanied with butter or some spices to add to the olive oil at the table. All of our meals were good but nothing that left a lingering thought of I want more except for the appetizer. It was two quinoa cakes served with a salad. I would definitely go back for these in an instant, they were so good! The other menu items we had were good, but not a «go to» place.
Caesar salad– good
Pollo Parmigiana– better than Olive Garden
Pollo Con Crema– bland

What a HORRIBLE experience on Mother’s Day. I AGREE with everyone here that this is one of the worst Italian restaurant in the world. I just got back from there and am close to tears. First, I used a Groupon certificate and decided to try it out on Mother’s Day. Let me preface that my mother passed away 17 years ago and each Mother’s Day I find a different Italian restaurant to have dinner in her honor. She love Italian.
I arrived and sat at the bar and handed the waitress my Groupon certificate and she said, «You have to have two people.» I said I was here in honor of my mother and it was a sacred occasion. She continued to argue with me as I said, I needed two people. I politely said to her that I did not want to talk to her anymore and to get the owner. The owner was standing next to her and literally told me, «Don’t be rude to my waitress.» Well, there goes customer service out the door. I told him I was not and that I was there for Mother’s day and she would not honor the certificate. He went on in what was not an Italian accent but Armenian and that is when I knew I was in a FAKE Italian restaurant.
After some arguing, he finally said he would honor the certificate, which was FULLY PAID FOR, but it was clear that they just wanted MORE MONEY and was not interested in customer service. BTW — This was my first time here. I had a drink and some food, but it was HORRIBLE, TASTELESS and had no seasoning whatsoever. I agree 100% with everyone who said this is an FAKE Italian restaurant owned by Armenians, who basically don’t give a CRAP about anything but money.

I was warned about this place, but I unfortunately did not heed their advice. This is without a doubt the worst Italian food I’ve had in a very long time. I’m not sure how people can give this restaurant anything remotely close to 5 stars, unless they own the place.
We ordered their take on Bruschetta, which came out soggy, on a single giant piece of bread, with virtually no taste.
For entrees my wife ordered the Pesto and I ordered the Lasagna. After two bites of the pesto, my wife had to switch plates with me, as hers was barely edible. The Lasagna did not look like a typical lasagna at all, with almost no layering of pasta or ricotta cheese. It resembled a scoop of meat sauce with some melted cheese on top.
I don’t think the Chef knows how to cook Italian food, or was properly trained. Seems like they learned from a cook book. I will not go here again.

Interesting place — it talks like a duck, it walks like a duck but it’s actually a rabbit! It’s what you might call an imposter Italian restaurant — the name and the décor say Italy, and the menu would be considered Italian, but literally all the employees are Armenian. Quite funny. Service was actually very good — we were greeted as soon as we walked in and invited to pick a table of our own choosing, which was nice.
All the servers who helped us were attentive and friendly. One thing I loved was that the hostess just very casually questioned if there was a reservation AFTER showing us the available tables (answer was yes) — as opposed to certain overzealous idiots at some places who just stand there like an immovable mountain and bark out «do you have a reservation??» as soon as you walk in, and act as if it’s a crime akin to mass murder if you don’t. So first impressions were definitely positive. I also liked the design of the place — it’s a spacious and modern set up.
The big letdown here is the food. It just didn’t live up to expectations. Some dishes were good — some were appalling. Caesar salad was okay but calamari not so great. Beef ravioli, which is in fact not on the menu, was pretty decent though drenched in sauce and fairly heavy duty. Surprisingly, the lamb shank was the best dish at our table, mercifully odor-​free and tasting pretty damn good.
My biggest complaint concerns their sea bass dish; word to the staff: Do NOT ever recommend your priciest meal, unless it is absolutely the most amazing thing on god’s earth! Sea bass was far from that; it was certainly among the most expensive items on the menu, but of the three entrées I tried, hands down the worst. The angel hair pasta under it was bathed in garlic of course but the fish itself was entirely tasteless. This is truly mind-​blowing as it would have taken very little effort to give it some flavor. Anything would have worked — miso sauce, soy sauce, even plain old salt and pepper, any kind of seasoning at all, but it was as bland as they come, and this was after the server promised it was the best sea bass she’d ever had! I felt pretty ripped off to say the least.
This is a comfortable and cozy restaurant; service is very good, location is great and there is plenty of parking at the back; unfortunately I was just too disappointed with my dish to be able to genuinely recommend the place.
Okay, rant over.

Very Good Italian Restaurant. I like my Cesear salad with a little more of a tart dressing, maybe some lemon juice and some garlic in it, BUT, they actually will give you real anchovies if you hunger for the salty little stinky fish on your salad or Pizza.
My wife just had a Bolongese Eggplant dish which was excellent and I had a Nepolitana pizza and it was one of the best I’ve ever had. Mozarella, basil, tomato sauce, Pepperoni and ham. Just a killer pie.
Good service in a comfortable atmosphere. Give it a try. The Lasagna, spaghetti are also excellent.

It’s O.K., but I don’t think I’ll be back.
WEBSITE:
PROS:
When you walk in it is beautifully decorated. I love the big painting of Venice in the back corner, the light fixtures above the bar and the Italy motif throughout the whole restaurant. The restrooms are even nice with top of the line sinks and granite counter tops. It is probably the nicest looking restaurant in Montrose.
Free parking in back.
Close to many other shops and restaurants in the Montrose Shopping Park.
CONS:
Italian food is one of my favorites and I really want to love this restaurant because it is really aesthetically pleasing. The bottom line is I just don’t like the food.
My dinner a couple months ago wasn’t memorable. I had the trout lunch special today and it didn’t taste very fresh. Most lunch plates are served with potatoes that are a little greasy. Eggplant wasn’t on the menu at all, but the server said they had it and could make it for my friend. She liked it, but it didn’t look too great. My other friend ordered the chicken parmesan. She said she liked it. I have a photo of the trout and chicken parmesan dishes.
The server refilled our water once and I think and that was it.
$ 15.00 per plate for lunch specials is a little steep if it isn’t great.