Pizzeria La Rusticana — Restaurant in Calp

The waiters were attentive and very nice, the place is clean and one does not have to worry about the safety of the food. The food is palatable. This earns them two stars.

I and a few others each had pizza and some people at my table had pasta.

There was nothing wrong with the food, but I found the pizzas to be very far from what I expect at an Italian restaurant.

I don't know if they bake the bottoms themselves or if they are bought, but this is not a place where they prepare a dough on top of which they put what you order. The texture of the pizza bottom was a bit weird, and I was very curious how it was made so I had a look into the kitchen (didn't enter, just stood by the bar which has a view of the kitchen). The pizza bottoms are all in pans, which explains the texture, but I didn't see them putting dough into pans, just pans being brought to a table where ingredients were put on, and then into an oven they went.

There are contexts where the pizza I had would be totally acceptable, like at a school function or a big caffiteria where they are making pizzas for a few hundred people, where effeciency and cost are the main concerns. At an Italian restaurant, which has ,,rustic" in its name, I expect a sourdough pizza made in a furnace. For 6.50 Euros, I expect more than a very high standard Dr. Oetker pizza.

The pasta dishes that were served were ok, portions were generous, but they did not live up to the rustic, genuine Italian, expectations we had.

If you're just looking for a place to feed a family, where the food is safe and palatable, this restaurant is fine. Sometimes when you are travelling, this is all you ask, I definitely wouldn't advise people against coming to this restaurant, but I was underwhelmed.

If you are looking for a place that serves Italian food, look elsewhere.

The food did not taste bad, we all walked away full and we finished our plates, it just was not what...

We had a bad experience from the start. We have been to Rusticana on previous trips to Calpe and it appears it has changed hands since our last visit. We had to wait quite a long time for our order to be taken and when it eventually arrived my wife had salmon and it was completely raw on the inside, they took it back and brought another one, which was cooked but obvious it wasn't fresh but frozen. No apology or acceptance that the food was a health risk for partly cooked fish. I had a steak myself but was poorly presented and was just ok. Our visit was Feb 22 when the pandemic was still ongoing and mask mandates along with other requirements for public health safety. When we arrived we were asked for covid certs but hand sanitizer was empty. Staff wore masks but below the nose or some staff visible in the kitchen below the chin. We will be in Calpe again soon but will not be returning...

Average Italian. Let’s start with the positive, pizzas are nice here. However this visit, service was shocking. Waiters show little interest in job or customers. Need to reask for orders and didn’t clear plates away when served main dish. Tuna salad was basic. The salad was basically just the raw pizza ingredients with a mango dressing on top. Vegetable pizza nice. We ordered rigatoni savioa pasta but penne pasta tubes were served instead. Told waiter and did get it for free however he asked to take in dish to kitchen to check that it was penne when we were mid eating - a bit strange. This pasta was nice however if they said penne it would have been fine from the beginning. Sadly, wouldn’t return. This restaurant used to be owned by a couple (15+ years ago and was my childhood favourite) who ran it but now has fallen into the hands of a chain and little care remains for the food or...