Divina Cucina — Restaurant in Glendale

I would have added a star or two except for the rude reception we received from the woman, who I am assuming was the manager or owner, when we entered. She looked at the four of us as though we were interrupting her to start off with no warm greeting, "welcome", or anything close. The place was empty at 5:30pm on a Tuesday, but when my aunt - who is 91, disabled, suffers from dementia and is a regular customer - asked for a specific (round) table because of her disabilities and need to sit in her walker, the woman first insisted on sitting us at a rectangular four-top. I interupted and asked her to please accommodate my aunt's request and disabilities which, by the way, is required by law. She hastily snapped at the two Hispanic servers to remove three of the place settings, which they did with an apologetic look, and we were finally seated at the round table 3-4 minutes later.

My wife had the Four Cheese Gnocchi ($19), the highlight of the evening, with eight large, handmade potato dumplings stuffed with a blend of ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan and pecorino cheeses topped with a delicious sage and butter sauce. The gnocchi were perfectly prepared, not stiff and not mushy, and the sauce was devine, one of the best butter and sage sauces I have tasted. My wife, who is a native Italian and lover of sage and butter sauce, raved about the dish, a huge compliment as she is not easily impressed by most stateside Italian restaurants for obvious reasons.

My aunt and I had the Vitello alla Marsala ($24), thinly sliced veal sauteed with mushrooms and garlic in a Marsala wine sauce. The veal was not plentiful, two thinly pounded medallions atop a small portion of spaghetti, covered with a Marsala and mushroom reduction and accompanied by steamed mixed vegetables. The veal was tender, but the sauce had a "charred" taste, a result of the mushrooms which appeared slightly burnt, overwhelming any other flavors that may have been present. The vegetables were bland and completely unnecessary.

My uncle had the Linguine Gamberetti alla Diavola ($20) with shrimp, red pepper, garlic and parsley tossed in a spicy tomato sauce. I did not taste it, so I cannot comment on it other than to say the portion was massive and my uncle seemed to be enjoying it very much.

We shared a bottle of cabernet sauvignon, a California variety that was inexpensive ($24) yet decent. During the hour+ we spent in the restaurant, only 2-3 other parties entered, leaving plenty of tables empty and making the fuss that was made over my aunt's initial request not only completely unnecessary, but totally inappropriate and unprofessional.

CombatCritic Gives Divina Cucina 5 Bombs Out Of 10 ... More...

The owner of this restaurant is an arrogant, Rude, hateful, self-concentrated person with no customer respect skills. He has the audacity to insult a customer, scream at a customer just because his kitchen was didn’t feel like properly cooking a dish that was being served to a customer and the entitled owner thought it was the customers fault.

This place used to be one of my favorite places to go for dining. Today like every week we went out to this restaurant for dinner and this visit will be the last one for us. So many things went wrong that I don’t even want to list it all, but the worst of all was the treatment the owner gave us at the end We order Pollo Milanese a dish we had ordered in the past and loved. The waitress brought the food….. undercooked chicken covered with a lot of arugula and cheese to hide the terrible chicken that was under. I had a picture of the same dish that I had ordered last week which looked nothing like the one that was being served to us today. I showed the picture to the waitress and explained to her that due to the fact that the dish she brought out is undercooked and looks nothing like I had before I was not accepting the food and would like to send it back. She said no problem and took it back. Few seconds later the owner of the restaurant came to our table and with terrible attitude and arrogance stated insulting me for daring to send the dish back. I feel sorry for any customer who has to go through what I went through because the ignorant owner doesn’t agree with the...

Update: The response is all lies. I expect at minimum integrity. We were not late. We packed our own food, except one guests salad before entrees arrived. Server was great, manager not so much. There's more to address, but obviously you aren't in truth so hopefully potential guests see this and don't waste their time or money. We will never go here again. We had appetizers, meals, dessert and several glasses of wine. We were asked to leave by the poor host who awkwardly told us they have a time limit. We had 3 guests, spent over $200 in an hour and a half - and they didn't even have the accurate time for our reservation and were perplexed upon our arrival. The seemingly manager in her dress and sneakers (who never once checked in on us and our experience) had nothing to say when I asked about why we were asked to leave. Not welcoming, most food and bread is fried so not authentic Italian in the least sense. Why would we ever eat here again? Cannot recommend if you would like a nice evening out. Turn and burn without anything meaningful to offer a guest. If you're so small you're asking guests to leave then reconfigure your model. I cannot recommend or spend my money here again. We were there about an hour and a half. Having worked in a restaurant myself several years I'm appalled at this experience and their approach. It's absolutely sub par. Horrible evening out with mediocre food. Zero...