Venice Cucina — Restaurant in Los Angeles

I was vacationing and was looking for a place to drink a good cup of coffee after dinner and have a pastry and the place looked welcoming from a far but when I stepped in an older man was at the counter and he seemed friendly at first until he heard we were only interested in coffee & pastry and he wasn’t ok with my sister & I having a cup of coffee and pastry there because we were not spending enough money for him to be bothered with and he kept making unnecessary comments how his restaurant was not Jack in the box, very unprofessional. We asked if he could please turn on one of the heat lamps outside for us since it was a chilly night so we can sit and have our coffee and pastry and he refused to turn one on and started saying he will be closing soon and it was only 7pm and website closing time was 10pm. We asked him kindly again and he was very rude said it would be $19 a person if we wanted heat lamp on to sit on patio, mind you the rest of the restaurants had their heat lamps on in the area. Such a bad experience while trying to enjoy a vacation, would never come back to this place! The cappuccino was not even good, super strong as if he did it on purpose to serve us a cup of mud and the apple pastry was nothing special like eating a Frozen toaster Strudel! Hospitality goes a long way and no one wants to deal with bad service and rude people while they are on vacation it really...

This is a nice little Italian restaurant and gelato stand, almost a hole in the wall so it's hard to find - look for it next to a larger Sushi restaurant. Parking can be hard to find but we found a spot at the closed Post Office down the street. Menu items are made from scratch & to order so the person behind the counter told us to feel free to make changes to the menu (for example, we ordered our own pizza ingredients instead of what was listed on the menu). We also ordered a puttanesca pasta. The pasta was very flavorful and just right (not overwhelming) in size so I had room for a very good chocolate gelato. The pizza was thin crust, which had a crisp texture, not soggy, so you can easily eat it by hand - I would say it's very similar to US East coast (NY) style, so if you like that kind of pizza, you should be very happy. Prices are slightly high but good for the Venice area, about 25 dollars a person, compared to double that for many fancy Italian restaurants in the area. The service was very friendly (I learned from our server what "puttanesca" meant, it's risque so I won't repeat it here). Don't expect a fancy dining experience - you eat on a patio and it's cafe style. I found the bathrooms to be clean and decent (though you have to walk through a storage area to get to them). We left satisfied so I would say that Venice Cucina is definitely...

This is an honest review. We just left this place. It was a TERRIBLE experience, the guy that took our orders was unbelievable rude, it’s a rip off. He even made an offensive comment about my “Latina” girl friends just because they were complaining he charged them for a large salad they never agreed to. The food took a long time and he served last to the ones that ordered first. Everything was horrible from the beginning, the food was very normal. We had lasagna and ravioli. I have pictures of the food to prove we actually ate here (which we totally regret). We lost our time money and energy. Stay away from this place.

Edit: he is lying it wasn’t a party of 10, it was 6 people, and if they were taking time to order it’s because they were arguing with you as you charged them for a large salad they didn’t even order and then the extra 20% Which is a rip off there’s absolutely no “service”, you have to order from the entrance which looks like a dirty storage, there’s not even water available as ANY normal restaurant, you even get charged if you decide you want to share your plate with your partner. It’s insane. I would have prefer to eat tacos on the street. At least these “LATINOS” (as you said) actually appreciate...