Cecilia Santa Cucina — Restaurant in Rome

I don’t know where to begin with this restaurant. I have never had a dining experience this bad at such a nice restaurant. Based off of the previous fabulous reviews, the atmosphere, and the prices I never would have expected this. We ate here because of the fantastic reviews and the “culinary experience”. Unfortunately, our experience with the food and the service was extremely disappointing. From the start the wait staff was very cold towards us and did not seem to care much about us. We were seated and had to wait 10 minutes for our menu. We ordered our dishes which were the bread, crispy duck, gnocchi, and the carbonara. We receive the bread shortly after and it was very disappointing. It is labeled on the menu as “bread, focaccia, and..” but, they must’ve forgotten the focaccia at the bakery. This was a plate of stale crackers and hard, tasteless sliced bread, with ok anchovy butter. Then, they bring out the gnocchi. This dish consists of small cut up tomatoes with no flavor, 4 gnocchi stuffed with bland lamb mixture, and a bland sauce on top with buffalo foam. This unfortunately lacked flavor and was an extremely small portion for 16 euros. After we finished the dish, we had to wait 40 minutes for our next 2 plates. No one addressed us during this time (mind you, the couple seated next to us ordered way after us and already had received both of their courses). By this point we were pretty upset, but try to see the light of things as we wait for our second courses. They come and sadly were extremely disappointing. The duck itself was not crispy, but breaded, lacked flavor and was accompanied by an undercooked cherry wine reduction. It was presented very poorly, compared to other tables and pictures online. The duck meat was cooked very well but was also very bland. The carbonara sauce was good, but the pasta was not fresh or homemade. The pasta itself was very bland and tasted like box pasta. At the end of dinner no one addressed us or asked how anything was. Clearly they could see we were not happy with the food or service. During our entire time waiting for our food, waiters kept passing completely ignoring our table. They kept lingering outside sitting and talking together without a care in the world. It was genuinely ridiculous. We saw all tables next to us receive complimentary shot of sweet liquor and amaretto cookies however, they did not bring those to us. The service of this place was quite despicable. We did not bring this up during our time here, because it just felt very uncomfortable and I did not want to cause a fuss in this very small restaurant.

I just truly want to highlight how awful this service was. There was no greeting when we came in, no one explained the menu to us, and no one cared about the dishes arriving extremely late. In addition, this restaurant seems to be very pretentious and elitist. They do not seem to care about providing the best experience possible to the customer and that is extremely unfortunate.

The dishes just seem to be “picture perfect” with little to no flavor. There were 6 cooks in the kitchen and 4 waiters. How could they get this so wrong? The chefs all seemed to be busy doing something, but yet the food arrived cold and tasteless. This restaurant does not deserve any of these reviews and I’m shocked it’s still running. Overall, this was an extremely saddening experience and I would not recommend this...

Saw all the recent great reviews, and decided to stop here for dinner. Unfortunately, was disappointed by the food.

I got the 3 course tasting menu for about 45 euro. It actually was 4 courses; not sure why the menu just says 3.

First course was octopus swimming in a creamy, slightly smoky sauce. The octopus was slightly overcooked and tougher than ideal. The sauce was nice and creamy, but had a mild flavor, and didn’t really enhance the octopus flavor.

2nd course was cannoli stuffed with minced cod and some pistachios pieces at the ends. The concept of this dish was uninteresting; you take a relatively boring fish in cod, mince it, stuff it in an ordinary cannoli shell, and sprinkle some pistachio. Wasn’t bad, but not exciting at all.

3rd course was a carbonara-style ravioli stuffed with some meat (forgot which kind). I don’t think it was listed on the menu. The bright yellow sauce reminded me of cheese whiz; not something I want to be reminded of in an italian dish. The ravioli itself was nothing special. The sauce was flavorful, but had a weird artificial cheese flavor; i’m not sure if it was because of the color that reminded me of cheese whiz, but it was not delicious.

4th course was baby pig with green peppers and potatoes. The sauce was quite mild and again, didn’t pack any sort of punch. The pig itself was fine, tender enough, but nothing special and a tad bland. The peppers were also just ok.

Now, this next part deserves a special dishonorable mention: the potatoes that came with the pig (pictured below) were BAD. They had a dry, chalky taste like partially cooked frozen french fries. Probably the worst potatoes i’ve ever received at a restaurant. They were SO BAD I was tempted to ask my waiter to taste them, but I was in a rush to meet some friends afterwards, so I didn’t.

Overall, I really wanted to enjoy the food more, but each dish fell flat, and looked more appetizing than it actually tasted. I appreciate the effort of the chef to put a modern, creative spin on dishes, but the execution just wasn’t there. I am surprised at the other glowing reviews here; although there are some bad reviews that describe the food more in line with what I tasted. Maybe the kitchen had an off day; I cannot imagine any chef would have been impressed with the food I had.

I hope that the restaurant reads this review and takes it to heart, as I think the food does have...

This might be one of my favourite restaurants ever! On a Thursday evening in June we couldn’t get a table outside so found ourselves starting out as the only diners inside, but seated by the open kitchen this couldn’t have turned out better and the next three hours were superb.

The service was exceptional, being both professional and humorous with the gentleman able to make recommendations and explain every item on the menu in detail, as well as making brilliant recommendations on the wine. Being able to see the kitchen in action was a treat in itself, with the two man team being impressive in their capabilities and the subsequent dishes doing nothing but impress. The decor of the place was contemporary but traditional, with bare concrete walls and a wine wall of envy, with everywhere being clean and the table set perfectly.

The menu isn’t huge but each of the items ordered left everyone impressed. The starter of smoked lamb was a performance being served and the egg was cooked to perfection. The first main dish of carbonara was a delight being seen prepared and plated, perhaps a little disappointing on the flavour, but was a great portion size and still perfectly delicious. I went with the second main dish of monkfish which was as delightful as I hoped, accompanied perfectly. Deserts were perhaps one of the stars of the show, with the tiramisu being ‘prepare yourself’ but hugely enjoyable, and the chocolate sigar presented within a mechanical wooden hand which was exceptional.

Upon leaving everyone agreed it’d been a wonderful experience but what impressed more were the prices - for the quality of food and service it was a true bargain. Next time I’m in Rome I will certainly be trying to get a reservation and this holds a place in my most memorable...