Toscana Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Solvang

Worst service I've ever had. The waitress and owner (Sue and Cindy) were both rude, condescending, and extremely unprofessional. I have attached their pictures because they deserved to be exposed for their inexcusable behavior and lack of common Sense - especially in customer service and hospitality. The waitress was impatient when we were asking questions about the menu and made disgusting comments towards my family throughout our AND we didn't even get our food until nearly 1 hour after ordering. They were too stingy and inconsiderate to even offer some bread to snack on during this ridiculous wait. When I asked for some bread the waitress (who at one point ignored us for over 30 min) gimply responded "we are out of bread". What kind of Italian restaurant runs out of bread with 4 hours to go before closing?!? After paying (which was a mistake) we asked the waitress to speak to the owner, which clearly upset her. She pretended to go talk to somebody, then rushed back over and said "the owner is busy and doesn't want to talk to you. The owner wants you to leave right now, GET OUT AND DON'T COME BACK! BYE, JUST GO AWAY AND LEAVE THE OWNER AND I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN. Go leave, shooo." At this point I lost it. Plus it was obvious that she never spoke to an owner or anyone. She knew we were going to complain about her service and didn't want her owner to hear our complaints of her horrible treatment of us. I told the waitress "I will not go anywhere until I speak to the owner. Don't put your hand on us and do not try to push us out the door again. I will wait right here in the restaurant until I have spoken to an owner." I pulled out my camera to record her because I was honestly shocked by this woman's brazen and disgusting treatment of us. She quickly ran away behind the bar at this point, trying to hide her face. She was clearly intimidated by my strong response, embarrassed, and immediately realized the implications of the video I would post online showing her racist, rude, and unprofessional treatment of us. (We were a group of four and we were the only non-whites in the restaurant. We were the only ones who were mistreated and it was clear that this waitress had deep prejudices and insecurity issues. At this point the owner heard the commotion and saw how disgustingly we were being treated and asked that we step outside to discuss it (I'm sure she was embarrassed to talk about the situation in front of the few remaining guests). The owner heard our story and her immediate reaction was to defend the waitress instead of apologizing for the inexcusable behavior and clearly blatant prejudice/racism that occurred. She did not even try to offer any remedy at all for the situation or even attempt to console us. Her initial reaction was to defend the waitress by sheepishly saying "I know the waitress well, and today she was just a bit FRAZZLED and frustrated because we are understaffed today." I told the owner Cindy "please ma'am do not try to justify her behavior. You keep telling us that you know your waitress on a personal level and that she is not a racist, bigotted, rude, and aggressive woman. I don't care what you think about her or how long you have known her, I care about my treatment NOW! I CARE ABOUT THIS CURRENT SITUATION AT HAND. Clearly you are a failure of a manager/owner if you cannot even properly apologize to your guest and offer some kind of remedy to this clearly despicable sitation your server put us in, and now you are exacerbating it by defending her and enabling her. This experience was absolutely disgusting. Nobody deserves to be treated the way that were treated by the waitress, and then dismissed and brushed off as we were by the owner. Any owner with common sense would at the very least offer some encouraging words such as "I'm sorry for the horrible and racist service. I will definitely be talking with my employee to make sure no one is ever again treated that way." This clueless owner Cindy was just concerned with defending her server's egregious behavior and it is...

Toscana Pizzeria Tapas Enoteca is inside Alisal Road in Solvang. The restaurant offers dining indoors and outdoors in a spacious patio with a fountain.

The menu features tapas, or appetizers...little plates of regional specialties including carpaccio, bruschetta, insalata and antipasto among others. There is a nice variety of pizzas featuring the classic margherita style, with additional ingredients like: calabrian salame, porcinini mushrooms, red onions, mild Italian sausage and fresh basil among other toppings. There is also a fairly extensive selection of Italian and local (Santa Ynez) wines and some mixed drinks and Italian beer. Dessert is offered as well.

The salad we had was a mixed green, it was simple in that it only came with the mixed greens and some parmesan shavings and oil and vinegar. It was very good, but kind of pricey in a way.

The Cannelloni di Langoste (tube pasta stuffed with lobster and crab) was plated on an absurdly large plate for the three cannelloni we were served. The rest of the plate was taken up by a sauce which was a little too salty and appeared to almost dry up towards the outside. The cannelloni were ok, but the filling was somehow unsatisfying and maybe would have tasted better had there been chunks of crab or lobster inside, rather than what tasted more like paste because of the texture.

The pizza (Calabrese - hot Calabrian salami) smelled delicious and was served with a slightly burned crust along the edge in places. The crust was crisp and tasty. There was an ample amount of sauce on the pizza and the cheese was genuine. However, between that and the Calabrian salami, it made for an overly salty meal.

Service while a little dotty at times, is friendly - from both the front staff to the waitstaff. Our server was cheerful and tried hard to make sure we were happy with our meal. Pricing is honestly fair, despite my not being completely thrilled with the taste of the dishes. I might be willing to come here again and hope the experience is improved. The atmosphere is excellent and pleasant (as are the staff), so there is...

I don’t get the bad reviews here. The owner is Fiorento and the food is real Italian, not tourist Italian, and I have to assume people don’t get that. The dough on his pizza is light and just crisp, perfectly lightly browned and not dumped with heavy ingredients - it’s like something you’d order in Fiesole. His tomato sauce is bright and tangy, imported sausage and prosciutto nothing like what we get at Trader Joe’s. The bread he makes, focaccia, drizzled with real recent harvest olive oil is perfect. Everything is cooked in his pizza oven which takes the skill of a master, so if you’re looking for speedy, understand what the team is up against with a super busy restaurant popular with locals who love the place. We’ve never had to wait so I’m assuming the complaints about wait time are on very busy nights. If you’re looking for an unforgettable experience, make a reservation, request the bistecca fiorento (pictured) in advance. The best bistecca in Florence doesn’t come close. It could easily feed four and includes his famous lightly dressed fresh arugula with Parmesan and either potatoes or vegetables. Eat it at the bar and watch Michele work his magic and talk about Italian food, Italian wine, Italian soccer, and Italian Ferraris. If you’re lucky, you might get Jessica if she’s not frantically busy - she’ll make you laugh and knows what you want before you want it so trust her. She’s good at what she does and doesn’t suffer fools like any great Italian bistro won’t. After dinner, order Vin Santo, the holy wine of Italy made from dried Malvasia Bianca aged six years, with Michele’s homemade cantucci (biscotti) and be happy because Toscana will take you to all the charm and vibe and joy Europe for dinner if...