Biest Italian Kitchen — Restaurant in Rancho Cucamonga

This review pertains to the Valentine's Day menu on 2/14/22.

In short, I left this restaurant with my wife embarrassed after trying to plan a special evening for our first Valentine's Day as a married couple.

My main complaint is the price: $100 per person for a fixed 4-course menu. The menu was advertised on social media and looked appetizing, but the price was not posted anywhere and from my research of their normal menu, I assumed it would be $50-70 per person. Had my meal been $50, I still would have been bummed, but not totally embarrassed. (For reference, my wife is an elementary teacher and I'm a grad student, so we are price-conscious. But we also look forward to a good meal once every few months.)

My other big complaint is--to be blunt--the food was not good. Below is my play-by-play:

The salad was too small and so simple I could make it myself. And the bisque was fine. The (two!) prawns were over-charred and served with head and shells still on. Which is fine! I just think the waiter should have warned us because that's kind of unexpected. (My wife was really overwhelmed because she felt like she had to enjoy them because they cost so much. But she really doesn't like the shells, so I painstakingly peeled everything off, which took a while and was super messy and that made her more embarrassed. Plus it was literally only one bite of prawn.) The liver pate was good, but they gave us TWO tiny baguette slices for the whole thing. We needed at least six. We ate most of it with a spoon. Why are crackers the thing you're skimping on? The gnocchi was delicious (albeit cold), but the portion was so small that my wife ate a third of my steak because she was still quite hungry. (And she left hungry.) To be fair, the filet mignon was FIRE. So good. Everything on that plate was bomb-diggity delicious. And the size of the filet was larger than I expected. But how in the world do you get off charging the same amount for a filet mignon $$$ as for 10 pieces of gnocchi $!!?!?! We felt like such chumps. The lava cake was face-meltingly delicious. The apple tart was cold and definitely purchased at a Safeway minutes before it was served to me.

There were obviously positives. The service was great and friendly. The atmosphere was lovely. Our waters were refilled instantaneously. The chefs cook on this awesome open bonfire thing. And dear Jesus, that filet mignon and lava cake were so good.

I went here because a friend had a wonderful experience and I trust that he did. I think the restaurant's intention for V-Day was to simplify things for guests and curate a special menu. They just did it so poorly. The menu was not special, they charged a premium price, and they were obviously overwhelmed. I really would like to go back and try their regular menu, but I don't think that I can in good conscience because I feel like they swindled me...

This place provided the worst service. We had reservations at 7:15 on a Saturday. Upon arrival there were people ahead of us. They were seated and we stood at the door while waiting to be acknowledged by the ladies who walked up to the podium. Who then walked away for the second time. Standing there until it became awkward.. Finally we were greeting by one girl. We requested to be seated at a certain table and was told we couldn't sit at the table. And she walked away. Another girl approached us and greeted us and asked about our reservation. We asked about the table. She said let me clean it up and I'll seat you there. I noticed the manager with the small hand hurriedly tried to get her attention to not seat us there as it was a fairly large table for two people. Again we sat there for about another 10min. before getting menus with no water. A server stopped by because I flagged her down to place drink order. I gave her my order and she walked away as if she didn't see the other person at the table. To take their drink order. Another girl approached us and asked for drink order..Then she came back to take our order because there was a larger party to the right of us. She wanted to get our food order in before them so it wouldn't take long to get our food. Let's just say our food came out before we received our drinks. I asked for two cocktails then a strawberry lemonade. Let's just say I only received the one drink. At this point I'm highly irritated with the service. Because when the food was brought out. I said how does the food come out before the drinks. The one girl said oh there is larger party here and there's one bartender. At this point I'm ready to go. Because I'm not liking the service. Had both ladies been transparent or provided that information at the beginning I would have been understanding. One person who was the bus boy asked how everything was. And I made it known he was the first person to ask how everything was after being there for an hour and twenty minutes.. The third drink was finally brought to after I asked for the check. Which was only a strawberry lemonade. I don't recommend...

This is a summary of the below review:

Great food, almost worth the larger price tag

Service could be better, not enough staff and tableside water refills and such

Long wait times, kind of loud.

Owner/manager guy is pretty nice dude and wants you to enjoy yourself.

We had a family dinner for my mom for her birthday today. Walked in around 5:30 to 5:45, the place was almost empty. It's nice when there aren't too many people, it seemed like a low key, classy place, but it soon got packed, which isn't a bad thing for business. Obviously with more people it gets loud, which it did, eventually being more than a dull roar.

The staff consisted of only 2 servers, the guy who seemed to be the manager/owner, and the cooks. Also, the owners son or some kin of his was also there waiting on tables in a t-shirt, which wasn't the most professional look but at least he helped with water or whatnot.

It took a while for us to get our orders taken and the food to come out. I don't know if it was because we had arrived close to opening for the evening or what but it was definitely a bit of a wait. The owner guy comped some cheesecake and a bottle for us as a "sorry for the wait" gesture which was nice.

It was definitely a rocky start, the servers rotated very slowly and we spent most of the night with low to no water. Multiple times we had to re-ask for extra bread or whatever to be brought to the table.

The food, though kinda pricey for a place like this, was almost worth the wait and lackluster service. I got the halibut which I highly reccomend.

Altogether, nice place but would not return. Giving 4 stars because I saw genuine effort from the owner trying to make it a better experience. My novice advice would be to train the kid to not just stand at the table waiting for someone to tell him to pour water, and give him a black shirt as well if he's gonna be waiting tables at all. Also, water water water. You never know how much you want water until you're picking up...