Cucina Venti Restaurant — Restaurant in Mountain View

This review is more for the owner/manager of this restaurant rather than the clientele. I have never written a review about a restaurant before but I received the worst service of my life yesterday and I did not get a chance to speak to the manager before leaving. I have been a server for 5 years, and this is the first time I've ever left a $0 tip. It seems we were forgotten about/ignored or the table was transferred to another server and not communicated with us. It was unacceptable.

I had been to Cucina Venti once 2 years ago and the food was delicious, so I made a reservation on open table a week prior for my boyfriend's birthday, at 5:45pm becasue we were seeing a show nearby at 8pm. On "special requests" I wrote I wanted a birthday tiramisu at the end for the gentleman's birthday. I thought since it was a 3rd party application the "special request" might not be acknowledged and that was fine, i would just tell my waiter....little did I know we would not see our waiter the ENTIRE night.

When we got there at 5:45pm there was maybe 3-4 tables filled in the restaurant and 1-2 tables filled outside, virtually EMPTY. We sat there looking over the menu, were served bread and water, and sat for 20 minutes before I finally called someone to take our order!!! We saw they were setting up for a large party, but that should never take priority over guests ALREADY PRESENT. When we finally got a server at 6:05, James took our order and that was the LAST time we talked to him. YES i looked at the clock. We didnt get our 2 bar drinks until 6:24 when we had to stop another waiter and ask to check on our drinks because James was ONLY tending to the party. Then someone else brought us our dinner, the owner/manager cleared our plates, and we didnt talk to James the rest of the night. We sat there another 10 minutes looking around for someone to acknowledge us and bring our check.

I wanted to get a birthday tiramisu for my bf but the service was awful and we did not have another 30 minutes to waste. My bf did notice James tending to the party and going out to the patio. This is for the manager/owner, if he was tending to patio tables and tables inside, you need to stop spreading your servers so thin. Also, after taking our order, telling us he was our waiter, we saw James talking to another server and looking at us. I am assuming we were outside of his table section which is why we waited 20 minutes to be greeted. If this is the case, this is an issue with the host not seating in the right section; another issue that needs to be addressed by management. After leaving i noticed the server's name said Ismael, so I am assuming James transferred the check to a server that was in a section near our table. This could explain why we never saw him again, but this was NEVER communicated to us. If Ismael was the man that took our payment, I would have tipped him something since we saw him more than James.

I have had bad service before but never like this. I did want to talk to the manager but we had a show at 8pm and we were wasting our time waiting to be acknowledged the ENTIRE time. At an upscale place like this, with dishes as expensive as they are, the experience should match. The only redeeming part of the experience was the delicious food. I was extremely disappointed that I chose this restaurant for...

Avoid this restaurant at all costs! This is a racist restaurant that discriminates against Asians. The server was talking to us in a condescending tone the whole time (e.g, rushing us to order and looking very unhappy when we only wanted to order one bottle because all of us would drive home after dinner) and, without asking us how many candles we would want, put three candles on our birthday cake, which is a taboo in my culture since it represents a ceremony for the deceased. The waiter was trying to mansplain/whitesplain to us all the time. We told him that we would be fine with the cake fee but we wanted to cut the cake ourselves (since we didn't want anything unexpected to happen). He still insisted that the restaurant should cut the cake and said that I was wasting my money in a very parental tone. And, I don't need him, this 6-2 tattooed white guy, to tell me how to spend my money because I am a shorter Asian guy. We didn't want to make a scene so we agreed to let him handle the cake cutting and then the candle incident happened. They just didn't care about our culture at all (yes, they didn't even bother to ask how many candles we would want). Given the really bad attitude and service, we decided not to give the 20% gratuity. Instead, we only wanted to give 10%. Three people came to us to confirm and eventually, their manager walked up to our table and talked down to me. He said it is legally required to give 20% and I had to follow their restaurant policy. First of all, I am a lawyer and I know what the law is. So this is literally a lie. As a customer, I have every right to decline tipping. Second, when they calculated tax, they included the gratuity. They were basically asking me to pay the tax that they are supposed to pay and this is literally scamming me my money. The manager offensively insisted that we should still give them the 20% and called me unreasonable loudly in the restaurant. I did not back down and reiterated the candle incident. The manager said it was our fault that we did not tell the server how many candle to light. But seriously? You charge me 20% gratuity and still expect me to teach you how to serve? After a 15-minute long standoff, the manager finally agreed to take off a starter which is about 30 dollars. Obviously, to him, this whole night that we suffered, was only worth 30 some dollars. And yes, the manager and the sever both have big tattoos on their arms and faces. I feel like I was talking to mafias running that restaurant and I was literally forced to pay. They talked to me in such a horrible tone that made me feel like if I did not concede, they could beat me up. I even wanted to call the police at one point. All I am saying is that, all Asians, avoid this racist restaurant at...

Came here with my team at work for a lunch social and everyone enjoyed; Very greasy food though!

It was a group of 8 and we made a reservation 2 days before. Got a good spot for seating at the booth along the back wall.

As for the food: We ordered the grilled octopus, fried calamari, burrata and zucchini cakes to share. Calamari was really crispy, and so were the zucchini cakes. The cakes were really really oily though! I used a napkin to press out the oil and it was still too much. Really fresh though and it came with a nice sauce as well. The burrata was served with a garlicy ciabatta about a but I feel there was too much of butter on it and the garlic flavor didn't come through. It would have also been great for them to give a little more of the bread because the burrata piece was quite huge in comparison to the small bread slices. Fresh Burrata though, so plus points for that.

For the entree, I asked for the Mediterranean Sea Bass. This came with spinach, pesto, pine nuts and was stopped with sweet potato shavings. I asked for extra greens instead of the tomatoes, and dressing on the side. Bonus points for making these accommodations. The fish was fresh but also very greasy! I could actually see the oil in there. Had to use that napkin to absorb it out, which majored really awkward eating in a group setting. I also took off the pesto and didn't eat the dressing because it was just too much fat with all of this oil. Dressing wasn't really needed though because the fish and greens went well together. I was really excited about the sweet potato shavings on top but those two were a bit greasy and really salty! The sweetness only subtly came through in comparison.

To get some extra veggies into the meal I asked for some on the side and they gave me an order of the pan fried or grilled or something veggies (bell peppers, onions, spinach, asparagus all cooked in a TON of oil!) SO SO GREASY! And this is in spite of me asking to put very little oil. Quite a disappointment on this one. I even asked for an extra napkin just to press out all the oil here but even that was not enough. Veggies were cook through though, and seasoned well; It would just have been better if they were actually healthy like I wanted them to be for this meal.

The big highlight and my favorite part of this meal was that soft warm bread they brought to the table! Actually so warm and fluffy and soft and perfect. I really wish the rest of the food wasn't as calorie dense with all the fat so I could have had extras of this bread.

The others on the table got the lamb chops, duck confit fettuccine and whole branzino; They all finished all the food and seem to enjoy it. Even gave me a compliment on picking a good...