Il Sole La Nuova Cucina — Restaurant in Rancho Santa Margarita

This Italian place is hit or miss. It was my birthday dinner. Loved the dip w the bread. Used to work at Pomodoro back in the day. Same recipe and lovely bread. Caprese was ok. My husband ordered the penne with mushrooms as a main. For some reason they added arugula and cooked it into the pasta. Then my Carbonara was odd as well. They took a classic dish and added quite a bit of half cooked bits of onion and a bunch of cooked sage. It really was overly flavored of sage. Neither of these ingredients were listed on the menu. The eggs were a bit overcooked but that part doesn’t bother me much. Why they over complicated it and ruined that dish? I sent it back. I ordered the appetizer ravioli with fig and goat cheese - that was delicious and perfectly done.

The young male server was overall pretty mediocre and inattentive. We have a baby and he took ages to get to us for most things. My husband asked for a spoon and he forgot. He also asked for salt and pepper and also forgot. We requested a kids menu w crayons when we first arrived but they don’t provide such a thing. One thing that was quick was the check.

Been here a handful of times and sometimes it ok and other times kinda sucks for a “fancy” dinner place. A shame because it’s conveniently close by. I much prefer Tutto Fresco’s for their consistency and better service. Hopefully they step it up to...

Finally made it to Il Sole this past Friday. Made a reservation for 6 on the outside patio. Upon arrival, the table wasn't ready. The host moved a couple of tables together while we waited for a couple more people in our party. Another employee moved the tables apart again. When he stated our table was ready, he started walking us in. I emphasized I called in the reservation to ensure outside seating, he claimed they were unable to accommodate 6 outside. That in itself is not the end of the world, but not even 10 minutes later, the patio was pretty much empty. I could tell as we were walking up, one of the wine glasses was hazy and dirty; the glass was replaced with a clean one. They were out of the beer we ordered so wine it was... We all ordered woodfired (as stated on the menu) pizza. Unfortunately it was just okay. We were looking forward to the woodfired aspect of the pizza, but did not experience it. The pies were missing the charred flavor on the edges, the crust had the dryness of a crusty oven cooked pizza. I had the same pizza I ate at the San Juan Capistrano location (where they do not use a woodfired oven) and it tasted pretty much the same. Makes me wonder how the pizza was actually cooked. Since none of us had pasta, I am unable to give feedback on other dishes. All in all, the experience was subpar and we will not...

My wife and I had dinner recently at Il Sole La Nuova Cucina in Rancho Santa Margarita. The food we ordered was delicious. We shared the house salad, which was plenty for two people. I had the chicken marsala and my wife had rigatoni giuliana (rigatoni with chicken and porcini mushrooms in a delicate cream sauce). Both entrees were outstanding! Unfortunately, the inconsistent service marred what would have been a lovely dining experience. Our server started off well; she asked if we wanted drinks, etc. It wasn't until after we had ordered that we realized that were specials that she hadn't mentioned. We only found out about the specials by overhearing another server describe them to other diners. There was also an option for bottled water that we would have liked to have known about. After our plates were cleared, we ended up waiting for an inordinate amount of time where we were, essentially, ignored, We weren't asked if we wanted coffee or dessert, or if we wanted our check. After no less than 10 minutes, we had to ask a hostess to bring us our check. We realize that the restaurant was very busy the night we were there, and it's difficult nowadays to find servers. Our impression was that our server was either relatively new or had not received a lot of training. We feel that Il Sole should make sure that all their servers are...