Cucina Basilico — Restaurant in San Diego

MOST HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE! Called to ask about pricing online. Got a phone call back from Francesca. I asked her why the prices were different online. She told me google shows their lunch menu, not their dinner, which is raised in priced by about a dollar or so. Ok no biggie. But… they also forgot to include utensils on a to-go order. In my opinion, for an expensive place as this… they can afford to throw in utensils without customers having to ask. If I’m paying for the meal as if I were to eat and I’m still tipping then yes include my utensils PLEASE! Francesca, whom I asked if she personally handed my husband the order in which she replied no… said that she was certain that who ever served the order for to go asked him….. ummmmm ok since you were there, right? It not like the person could have forgotten since it’s so busy ….

For the food…. Worst “Italian” food ever! Got the fettuccine with mushrooms … they put a slice or slices of processed cheese on top and either put it in the microwave or the heat lamp to melt and it turned into just grossness. Pushed that to the side and tried another bite and I almost CHOKED ON THE SKIN OF THE GARLIC CLOVE!!! Are you kidding me?!?!!!

The beans in my husbands soup were undercooked… the bread rolls were cold and raw like. Not even a warm dinner roll?!!!!! What kind of malarkey is this?!!!

this place seems like they can’t kee up with their “authentic “ food making and the volume of customers. Extremely disappointing! Extremely expensive and extremely disgusting. Very skimpy in portion.

As you can see in the, poor excuse of an owners response. I’m just having a bad day and ruining it for everyone else?! Ummm did you see the pictures? Didn’t we speak over the phone and you couldn’t guarantee that my husband was in fact asked if he needed utensils?! You were in my hotel room when I ate the pasta AND CHOKED ON THE GARLIC SKIN THATS IN THE PICTURE?? Please bring one person from Italy who believes your food to be authentic? Because I can call my family from Lompoc, Sicily, New York, Chicago and they would laugh in your face serving them over priced Olive Garden food. Obviously you and your local customers don’t know what real Italian cuisine is. So you’re the only one lying here for gain of greed. Karma is real and so is god and we all know your restaurant is anything but authentic. No wonder you lied for your servers that’s what you promote and teach as human and work ethics. Great...

If you have a large order....go elsewhere!! Food is amazing, service stinks!!!

We have visited this restaurant twice. The first time in October 2020, the second May 2021.

The first visit they were quite annoyed with us and our $150 order at 8pm(they close at 8:30), if they did not want the order, they should have stated that....not accepted the order and then treat us horribly upon pickup while yelling at us that we couldn't have bread or parmesan because what did we expect when placing a large order at 8pm....ummmm, I don't run your business, most places appreciate my large family, even if it IS after seaworld.

I wrote it off as pandemic related stresses, we all had them, and it could not have been easy dealing with ever changing rules

Well, my autistic 9yr old had a meltdown after being splashed by dolphins(she wanted it, until it happened, then she didnt). She wanted pasta we got the first time...against my better judgment, we decided to try again.

I called in our order at 7:30pm(an hour before closing), our 10entrees, 2 appetizers, & 6 desserts was almost 350 with tip(tip was written in PRIOR to the bad service-dont you hate when that happens???)

Again, we were treated so horribly at pickup. The woman seemed frazzled, when we asked for bread, oil, parmesan, & garlic(same things we would get for the dine in experience), we were told we were not getting any more garlic, & what she put in our bags was all we were getting because she already did enough for us.

So much was done for us that we were missing items, were given no service wear, no napkins. My kids had to split bread the size of a golfball, the adults got none, & luckily we brought our motorhome & had our own garlic, olive oil, & parmesan!!

We have decided that as much as we enjoyed the food, we will not be back. I owned a bakery and catering company and cannot EVER imagine treating a customer as we were treated-TWICE!!

2 stars for the food, which is quite good and quite authentic....just not good enough to deal with...

The service was good in the start but then the food came and my father's dish was very dry. Practically almost no sauce. My gnocchi wasn't excellent but was OK. We eat a lot of Italian food often and my father also makes pasta from scratch. We came here because they make their pasta. Upon requesting our waiter for more sauce he denied with and excuse I couldn't understand and that's where the experience for is turned south. He had an Italian accent and is from Argentina. Attentive in general but not customer service oriented. The place is small and could be a little gem with a unique ambiance and decoration. Looking at other dishes around the room I noticed that the amount of sauce served was inconsistent with some having a minimum amount to others being completely dry. The bruschetta was very far from authentic or traditional, served on a flour 1/4 triangle looking pita like bread with something that kind of resembled a tomato but looked like a pepper with a weird color. Wasn't good at all I must say that one entirely missed the mark. If you know what a buschetta is, then you know this one is not at all what you would expect. We're always visiting new Italian places and this one will not be on our repeat list. If we had gotten more sauce to the dry dish could have made the experience better and maybe leave a 4 star review. But the experience of being denied sauce to a dry served dish, coupled with the terrible buschetta definitely calls for a 2 star max. Prices in general are very accessible but for the $9 buschetta that was 4 small pieces of 1/4 pita like bread with a flimsy long weird looking tomato. The desserts were definitely a high point. The cannoli was not overly sweet with the crust tasting very authentic but tasted a bit old. Probably imported and kept frozen for a long time. Still it was definitely better than 90% of other restaurants in terms of authentic taste. I forget what was the name of the other dessert we got, and that was...