Cucinino Pasta Bar — Restaurant in Zona Metropolitană Brașov

For the TL/DR: this is a cozy restaurant with incredibly long serving times and servers that are inconsiderate, borderline rude, while the food is inconsistent: it has some sensational highlights (like the Green Delight Linguine sauce which was to die for), but the tiger prawns were not very fresh and the Marinara Pizza was good, but not great, there was no flavoured sauce, but it had lots of mozzarella and seafood pieces.

We left our accommodation to look for a place for dinner and this was the closest. The kids (7yo & 8yo) were very hungry, they love seafood and were actually begging me to find a place which has pizza with shrimps, so I couldn’t believe the luck when seeing on the menu outside that they had a pizza with seafood.

We were lucky to find a free table, although it took them almost 10min to clean it and seat us, but we enjoyed watching the open kitchen, so it didn’t bother us.

Another 10min to bring us the menu, then 15min for our order. I know all these times because as my kids were becoming more famished, I kept looking at the watch.

We ordered Pizza Marinara (the one with seafood) and Green Shrimp Delight (linguine with Tiger Prawns). Food came after 40min.

All this time the restaurant was busy, but not completely full.

We were famished by that time, so we started devouring the pizza and I the pastas without truly tasting them. The pasta sauce was absolutely delicious and I actually used the pizza crust to soak in it and leave nothing on the plate. The pizza was OK, but after the first slice we ate we realised it’s not very flavoured, you could only feel the taste of cooked seafood, which came in copious amounts, meaning that it gets heavy and a bit icky without added flavours and ingredients. The worst part of the food were the tiger prawns which weren’t fresh and we only realised the taste was funny after eating some in the initial hunger phase.

What truly upset me was that we had to wait for 30min after asking for the check, while our waitress took 3 orders from other tables (of course those people should have had their orders taken, but it’s all about a queue in order of asking and we asked for the check before they even entered the restaurant) and worst of all: she spent at least 10minutes laughing and conversing with 2 Italian guests who had paid and were preparing to leave. There was another older lady from the restaurant talking to them, so it’s not like they didn’t have anyone to give feedback or say some things. Their table was close to ours and the waitress was positioned right in front of us while doing this, she saw me signalling and eyeing her to reminder her about our check, but she just ignored me and went on with the laughing.

Also, by the time we requested the check, the restaurant was only half full and there was nobody outside anymore

3 orders taken and 10 min of chatting still don’t add up to 30min of waiting, so your guess about the rest of the time is as good as mine.

We ended up staying more than 2hrs at this restaurant, out of which ~105minutes were spent waiting for various things. By the time we left, both the kids were extremely tired.

All in all, it was definitely not worth it for us to spend all the money for this experience and I wouldn’t recommend this place or go...

Review for mid of May 2023, from a local perspective:

Street front restaurant seems small, there are also outside tables, however capricios Spring does not permit always a confortabile stay. HIDDEN GEM: there is a larger restaurant (still from Cucinino) with plenty of seating just around the corner. Restaurant is situated in an old cellar, underground. This is not disabled people friendly as there are stairs to walk down. I really liked the atmosphere. In the past I've never managed to get a table inside the street front restaurant so I've always walked past by it.

Also, main kitchen of Cucinino is here, at underground level, ahh the good smell.

Service was fast, staff was extremely friendly, payment accepted also by card, including contactless or tap to pay. Since early 2023 tips in #Romania may be paid with the credit card. Menu clearly included allergens.

Was able to get a "custom" pasta dish ordered, which was not on the menu "penne pomodoro". Kid enjoyed it really much, my sampling indicating properly "Al dente" cooking and the sauce was delicious!

Pizza Napoli (anchovies, capers and green olives) reminded me of truly Italian pizza.

Dessert was also good, a bit small on the size. Would definitely return here in the future. Would consider a reservation during the weekend and around standard eating times.

Obviously there is a minor downside, prices are a bit high, but at least for the food was worth it. 3EUR/15 lei for a cup of tea, on part with a Cappuccino is...

We always ate at this place when we were traveling through or visiting Brasov. Unfortunately, this last time after which I write this review, was not pleasant at all. We went during the day, around, 12PM in a stroll and spoke with one of the waiters that we want to come and sit for dinner, 6PM, and this waiter confirmed that when we will come we can sit anywhere. When we arrived at 6PM, and wanted to sit inside near the window we were told by a waitress that we can't sit there because it's a table for 4 and insisted that if we do sit at the chosen table we need to finish eating and get up and leave in 1h. Extremely unpleasant experience. If you do end up eating here and you're not a walkin, then when you make a reservation, ask twice for a confirmation. We always thought of this place as a classy exquisite place to have a good time. Unfortunately that's not the case anymore. Some employees end up ruining businesses and I hope this is not the case. The waiter who ended up handling us,...