Cansano Italian — Restaurant in Colorado Springs

This place is new - so I imagine they’re just getting things figured out. Unfortunately it shows a little - I will definitely give them another try, but I hope management is listening.

First, we had reservations, but still took a while to get seated. Seeing the number of folks in the waiting area it seems it wasn’t only us with that issue, but the restaurant was NOT full.

The decor is nice, and I think the ambiance is OK, but it can get a little echo-y and loud. There was a loud group of young “celebratory” girls across the restaurant, and their laughs and yells absolutely overwhelmed the ability to have a conversation. This wasn’t really the restaurant’s fault, but I think the high ceilings did little to attenuate it and may have actually amplified things.

Service was rather slow. While our server was friendly and attentive, it took a long time between drinks and it took a very long time for our food and appetizer. I found it weird when we asked for black pepper our server just plunked it down on the table and walked away - that is not how it is done at Italian restaurants - but minor gripe.

As for the food..

As others said, the bread service is a tiny portion - but at least they have it now, which apparently they didn’t at first. A really, really odd place to penny pinch which goes into the next topic..

I will again also echo what another reviewer said, and note that the “Mama’s Meatballs” were absolutely ridiculous. Shame on management for this one. Five TINY, and I mean under one-inch, meatballs in a giant plate of sauce for $18? No, Cansano, No. that’s ridiculous. First of all, you never serve an odd amount of anything as an appetizer - and with those quarter-sized meatballs, you need at least 8-10. I get places need to cut costs, but this is NOT where to do it. It was a first impression as the first item brought to us, and it wasn’t a good one. Don’t get me wrong they tasted great, but the portion was insulting.

STOP the ridiculous penny pinching. You’re losing by customers to save a single dollar. Stop.

The steak was done excellently - but I do have a question. Cansano, why are you afraid of seasoning? You season a steak, guys. I get this is Colorado and not New York and lots of folks out here, shall I say, are on the bland side when it comes to food, but my god, put some salt on that steak, guys. Just a little. I reassure you it’s standard and you and won’t scare away the GORP-eating, IPA seeking overly health-conscious locals.

A peppercorn or Au Poivre would have been better than the steak sauce, which doesn’t feel “right” for a filet or New York Strip, but with the lack of seasoning it was unfortunately necessary. Consider adding an option - Au Poivre, while not Italian, can definitely be spun as such.

The loaded potato was great for an Italian spin on a classic, but it could have used a little more of the red sauce, which came as just a hint. (Another Colorado thing, I guess. MAN are people afraid of sauces and dressing out here. Please stop. It won’t hurt your hike tomorrow.)

Dessert was great - we had the Affogato, which is hard to mess up. Menu needs a Crème Brûlée though, just a tip.

Overall, a little overpriced for what you get, the chefs need to get over their fear of seasoning and sauces, and still needs some kinks worked out. Definite potential though, and we’ll...

Bottom line: come back in a few months when they've gotten the "new business" kinks worked out. I was excited to try out Cansano after seeing a couple of early reviews on the COS Foodies page. I've lived in a few regions in Italy; so, I'm always looking for something close to authentic. I'd heard that Cansano aspires to represent authentic food from the Abruzzo region of Italy (east of Rome). My husband and I made reservations for our regular Wednesday night date night and arrived at 6:00. It took a while to welcome us and get us seated; but, once we did, we had a drink order taken after a bit. We enjoyed a flight of spritzer drinks (with limoncello, orangecello, Aperol, and cucumber/mint) and a gin/grapefruit cocktail--all were good. It took about another 30 minutes for a server to come by to take an appetizer order (caprese salad--decent, despite the tomatoes being a bit under-ripe). We were surprised there was no complimentary bread--that's standard even in most of the pedestrian restaurants in Italy and the U.S. Then, we waited quite a while longer before another server came to take our dinner order and refresh water glasses (that was the last time they were refreshed). We ordered the gnocchi w/pesto, peas, and ham as well as the orecchiette with broccoli rabe and sausage. The gnocchi had good flavor but a very small portion. The orecchiette had great flavor and a huge serving but, disappointingly, used machine-made pasta. That's a bummer, because hand-made, dried orecchiette has a great chewy texture and is fairly easy to come by these days. Machine-made orecchiette resembles the pasta in Velveeta mac and cheese and is pretty thin; so, it doesn't hold up to the sausage and broccoli rabe very well. We had been hoping to order another entrée to split (the 10-layer lasagna) and a couple of desserts since we were still hungry; but, unfortunately, could not get a server to stop by our table for another 30 minutes+ after we'd finished our first entrees. Eventually, we physically stood up to get someone's attention and got the bill so we could head out and get dessert and a little more food elsewhere. They did apologize repeatedly for the absent service--apparently, because of the rainstorm earlier, they'd sent home a bunch of waitstaff and then were inundated with walk-in customers. No big deal. The food was fine, but not remarkable. The setting itself is likely awaiting a few more finishing touches (window curtains/blinds and some sound attenuation). And, finally, I doubt they'll make the mistake of sending waitstaff home too soon again. I look forward to giving them another try in a few months and see if the details have been ironed out, and update this review. The concept over there certainly...

Seeing as there are no great Italian spots nearby, I had high hopes for this spot! Unfortunately it seems we caught them on a bad night.

Went for dinner on a Saturday night. Place was super busy! I loved the atmosphere and the bustle. We sat at the bar and this is where things started to go downhill. I noticed the spots we chose at the bar had been empty quite a while before we claimed them, giving time for them to be cleaned, but unfortunately our space had crumbs and drips all over. After that I couldn’t help but notice how much of a mess behind the bar was. The back counter had countless random tools and items on it, clearly without a home. Boxes of supplies were haphazardly stacked underneath the counter in view of the customers, on top of which the menus were stored? I thought that was strange.

All this, paired with the confused, hectic service of the bar tenders, really told me that management has struggled to put in place good systems for their team to follow. All of the staff we interacted with were great! Everyone was kind and really wanted to please their guests. Though it was clear they were under a lot of stress from the busy night by the scattered service.

We ordered some Brussels sprouts for a starter, which were wonderful! These and the wine were the best part of the night, but when the rest of the food came, we were seriously disappointed. I ordered the Chicken Parmigiana, it arrived with undercooked pasta and cold sauce. The chicken on the other hand was extremely hot. The inconsistency of temperature plus the abundance of pooling oil in the pasta took my appetite away. My wife had ordered a house made Gnocchi which sounded delicious! Sadly the Gnocchi was undercooked and had the appearance of watery mashed potatoes that dripped off her fork. The rest of the dish was just as bad, with burnt peas, and tiny cubes of ham. I felt like I was back in kindergarten looking at those tiny cubes of ham with peas. This dish was also unfortunately swimming in a lake of oil. After this we couldn’t bring ourselves to order dessert which we had previously been excited about.

I recognize this is a newer local spot and that bad nights happen, so I am more than happy to give it another chance in 6 months or so. I’ll update my review...