Cucina Vitale — Restaurant in Pittsburgh

We were so excited to enjoy a nice meal for Valentines day, after seeing such good reviews. However, our time at Cucina Vitale was a disaster. The first course was bread. Second was meatballs, mozzarella, and beans with sauce. We expected a little nicer of a plate and quality of food, but the meatballs were just 2 plain hoagie meatballs mixed into some sauce with 2 pieces of cheese that looked melted and dropped into a fryer. The third was a salad, we both ordered Caesar. It was pretty good, then a few bites into it my boyfriend found a long hair in his. Needless to say we did not eat the salad after that. Finally we got the main course. When we placed our order, the waitress was not happy about my request to only have the noodles and no chicken. The original option was chicken parm with a bed of noodles. I didn't see why that was such an issue, but apparently it was since the waitress rolled her eyes as I ordered, then proceeded to complain to the cook and other waitress that i asked for just the noodles. Keep in mind the kitchen and waitress desk are in the room, open and our table was about 5 ft away from them. My noodles were good, but my boyfriend ordered the fillet mignon. That came with carrots and potatoes. The meat was undercooked, the carrots were raw, and he had three small slices of a potato. At this point we were not too happy, but trying to still enjoy our night and we are not ones to complain or even mention minor mistakes if it isn't a huge deal. Finally, dessert was given to us. It was a strawberry sauce, strawberries, shortcake, and ice cream. The ice cream was literally melted making the cake soggy and the strawberries were freezer burnt, still frozen on the cake. It was all in all just not a great dinner, especially at $50 a person just for the dinner. It was then time to pay, so we put our credit card in the folder and waited for the waitress to come over to get it. She then walks by and says "oh yeah, we're cash only." We were not informed about this when booking or even walking into the restaurant. So I only had $40 in cash on me, my boyfriend had to leave and go get cash. There was no atm in the restaurant. Of course the atm was out of service at the pnc, so he came back and they then directed him to a tattoo shop with an atm in it. He gets back and we are able to pay the bill which was $107. I needed change because we only had 20's, of course the change we got back was just 10's. At this point we were both just fairly upset and wanted to leave. Before leaving we tried seeing a manager, but there was only two other waitresses and a cook. So we decided we will write a review so no one else has to have this encounter and later today we will be calling the restaurant to informing them of the mess our dinner was and charging people $50 a person for a dinner that is definitely...

I would preface this review with the fact that I was a semi-frequent diner at their place on the South Side. I loved that place as it was walkable from my house and I would always take people there who were visiting from out of town. So my view of the new place in Green Tree is framed from that perspective.

Overall, the food was terrific. It looks like they expanded their menu a bit from the prior location. The zucchini appetizer was terrific, as expected. My fiance had the eggplant parmesan, which she really enjoyed, while I had the chicken romano for my entree. The chicken was tender and delicious, complimented nicely by mashed potatoes and chopped zucchini. We brought our own wine, for a corkage fee of $20. (Previous location was BYOB, so they got their liquor license at this location).

The service was adequate but not great. We were seated promptly and checked our coats. It was maybe a bit over 5 minutes before our waitress came to our table to fill our water glasses. The restaurant had a moderate amount of traffic for a Wednesday - so not a big deal.

Our waitress had some difficulty opening our wine bottle (bought same day from a wine store), breaking the cork and had to have someone else go open the bottle without dropping the cork in the wine. We also didn't receive the table bread until after the appetizer came (having worked in a similar type of restaurant before, I usually see the bread go out before the appetizer). When the bread did come out, it was cold and hard as a rock - presumably it had been toasted before and left to sit before being served to customers. We otherwise had a very good meal and enjoyed everything else we ate that evening.

In regards to atmosphere - it is perhaps unfair to compare it to the South Side location since they just opened up this location recently. However, as the South Side location felt warm, bright, and cozy - this place feels exactly the opposite; dark, cold, and empty. The location of the restaurant is in the middle of an office park in Green Tree and takes up a huge space. In contrast to the old location, there is a lot of space between tables (which is fine), but the place has an entirely different aesthetic vibe in terms of lighting, spacing, layout, and just overall feel. There is even a slot machine sitting towards the back of the restaurant, which is jarring because you don't expect to see that in a fine-dining restaurant.

So the overall first trip to this new location was simply okay. I loved the food, which is what matters most. It's just missing that special charm that the Carson Street location had. I will probably go back (or maybe just order takeout?) - just hope they update the floor space to feel more like the...

One of my favorite restaurants was Cucina Vitale on the South Side. The small restaurant there had good food and a nice staff. Within the past year, I relocated to SC, and hadn’t been back to Pittsburgh in about a year. This past weekend I came back to visit and was excited to hear that Cucina Vitale opened in a new and larger location in Greentree. I made reservations for Saturday night. To say I was extremely disappointed in the food and the way I was treated is an understatement. The dish I always ordered at the South Side location was completely different at the Greentree location. That’s understandable as I’m sure many things have changed with their relocation to Greentree. Since I wasn’t happy with what I ordered, I asked the waiter to box it up for me so my husband could eat it at some point. I told the waiter that I would pay for that order, but would like to order and pay for something different. I ordered a pasta dish with crab. When it came out, I didn’t see any crab in it with the exception of two small shredded pieces. I asked my husband if he saw any crab in it. I pushed the pasta around on my plate and neither of us could see any crab meat. I brought the waiter over and he said he would take it back to the chef to add more to it. He came back rather embarrassed and said the chef got a spoon and put it in my pasta and spread out the noodles. He pointed out to our waiter the places where he saw crab meat. He basically sent it back as it was after he had spooned through my food. I’ve never had that happen at any restaurant anywhere. The waiter, who was excellent, said he would see what he could do to get us one piece of cake since we weren’t having a very good experience. He came back and said he was told by the owner that they don’t give away anything for free. Sadly, a place that was one of our favorites, and one that we recommended to countless numbers of people, has changed considerably with the relocation to Greentree. The food value was far below expectations, but the arrogance of the chef and owner was something we haven’t...