La Carbonara Restaurant — Restaurant in Santa Cruz

It was mediocre. I’m suprised that this restaurant has a 4+ rating. Looking at the reviews I realise that most people are fawning over the bare minimum. As we sat down we got a peppermint poncha and some nuts. Nothing special for me. I want to know how the food here is. As we order it doesn’t take long till the food arrives which is good. We get the food and we’re rather.. disappointed at the authenticity of the restaurant. As you see in the pictures: My friend took a pizza with supposedly seafood on it, other friend took spaghetti bolognese and I took macaronis with 3 types of cheese. Eventually, on the pizza was literal surimi?! We didn’t expect that, this is no real seafood!! My other friends bolognese was bland and the noodles were overcooked. As for my macaroni, I was also disappointed and felt disgusted after eating. It tasted more like creme than any cheese. It also looked and tasted like they added creme. I didn’t ask for creme i asked for cheese and I’m sure that italians don’t add creme in a dish like that. The worst thing that happened is my mother who ordered CARBONARA. The restaurant’s name, okay? This was utterly ridiculous!! Who adds freaking cream and bacon to carbonara?!! We are all agreeing that carbonara is with egg yolks, cheese and guancale. This is humiliating as a restaurant cooking ITALIAN FOOD! On top of that this dish as their restaurant name??

Won’t be coming back and I hope that other people...

Have been there twice, and both times wasn't impressed. The service is quite transactional, and the food is mediocre to say the least. Bruschetta had something sour in it (vinegar or some similar souce), so I couldn't eat it, as I felt sick. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't mentioned in the ingredients, otherwise I wouldn't order it. On the second day I had fettuccini with shellfish and prawns. I must tell ya, crab sticks and a piece of calamar I found in it is NOT shellfish. Apparently they just used the frosen seafood mix, as mussels were simply falling apart. This is especially not the quality of sea products I expect to get in the food right next to the ocean... Last, but not least, the price. 17 EUR for the fettuccini meal I have just described. The price implies it's a premium restaurant, but it's far from it. This model probably worked in the past, as there are not so many places around, but they start to pop up. The competition is there, and I have no idea how this place is going to keep up with it. P.S. pizza might be OK, I just didn't order it, as a few seafood options also contained some weird ingredients (mushrooms...

I really wanted to like this place. The staff is great, service is solid, atmosphere is nice but the pizza was literally flavorless. I broke my pizza fast of 4 months because I was told this place had amazing pizza and I was terribly disappointed. I'm not sure how you take ingredients that on their own have good flavor and turn them into something so void of that same flavor. I had to use a lot of hot sauce, Parmesan cheese and some salt to even get a smidge of flavor but it took more than I have ever used before because somehow the flavor void consumed most of the flavors from those three add ons. Actually it is kind of impressive if you think about it, kind of like a flavor black hole. I'm sure they do other things well since the place was busy, but pizza isn't it. I wish them luck but I...