Cafe Piccolo- Italian Restaurant

10/28/11

Great eating experience

by send money at Citysearch

"Absolutely everything was great !!! "EVERYTHING", go there, you won't regert it ...

01/02/11

Best Bruschetta in town

by Tino Mann at Citysearch

This is a wonderful neighborhood restaurant with a warm atmosphere and great FRESH food. I am a bread eater and love the tomato bruschetta. The eggplant parmesan and lasagne are always my favorites. Don't forget the roasted olives. You can count on great service too.

10/09/10

Neighborhood Gem!

by jennnn11 at Citysearch

We'll definitely be visiting Cafe Piccolo again! We went on a weekday evening. There were about 5 or 6 other tables of diners. I loved the atmosphere immediately - comfortable and unpretentious. It's definitely family-friendly as well - if I could, I've give a sixth star for the fact that there are toys for kids to play with! Real toys - not "happy meal" type toys. So you can let the kids play a little after dinner while mom and dad enjoy a glass of wine and conversation. What a great idea!

We started out with the tomato bruschetta, which was one of the best I've ever had. The tomatoes tasted garden-fresh - not easy to do in October! My companion had been to Cafe Piccolo before, so she recommended that we split an entree because the entrees are quite large. We chose the chicken parm, subbing in the homemade fettucine for the potatoes. The food was a bit slow (which we actually didn't even mind), so in apology the cook made up two lovely separate portions - each nearly as big as the full dish should have been! Enough for each of us to make a full meal from the leftovers. What a treat! And the food was exquisite. Some of the best I've ever tasted, and I've eaten a lot of chicken parm in my day. The homemade pasta is truly extraordinary, and their pasta sauce is definitely something to write home about. And the total bill was completely reasonable - about $35 including a drink apiece and tip.

Pros: AMAZING food, comfortable atmosphere, good service, reasonable prices

Cons: ?? Street parking is a con, I guess

Oh, and we didn't have a restaurant c o m coupon, but to those that did and complained about the 18% gratuity added: it's pretty typical that it SAYS that on the FACE of the coupon, so the server was simply following the rules. I think you are the ones who are "tacky" for complaining about a term that you agreed to by using the coupon - and then having the nerve to post online about it! I bet you're the kind of people that this term is trying to circumvent - those who think it's ok to tip 10% on the post-coupon total. Talk about tacky.

01/08/10

Definitely a place we'll visit again

by cloudles at Citysearch

Went later in the evening on a Saturday night over the holidays, and the place was not very busy so we got seated immediately. The server was very friendly, and we ordered a steak and a tuna steak. The tuna steak was excellent, as was the fettuccine my husband got with his steak. We'll definitely get homemade pasta dishes when we return.

While the entrees we ordered were on the more expensive side, the pasta dishes are quite reasonably priced, and are supposed to be excellent.

Like the last reviewer, we got an internet coupon to visit this place. UNLIKE the last reviewer, we actually read the terms of the coupon which said that an 18% gratuity would be added, so we weren't surprised by the bill. Not unreasonable considering we had a coupon that saved us $21!

• Pros: Good food, cute atmosphere
• Cons: None that I could see

10/03/09

big disappointment

by nwcatmom at Citysearch

My husband and I went to Cafe Piccolo for our anniversary dinner last night. We've been talking about trying this place since we moved to Maple Leaf, but after seeing the pricey offerings in their online menu, we decided to save it for a special occasion. What a disappointment! From the outside, the restaurant looks so cute...but the decor inside leaves much to be desired. It looks more like a cheap pizzeria than a fancy Italian restaurant. We ordered the specials: a flatbread appetizer, and for the entree a gnocchi dish with tomatoes and pesto. We also ordered a bottle of wine from the extensive wine list, which is conveniently sorted into categories by price. We ordered a bottle from the $18 list, and it was truly awful. The flatbread arrived and was completely awesome! Then came the gnocchi, which was ok. The sauce was delicious, but the texture of the gnocchi was weird...sort of soggy. Our server was really great the whole time, and overall I was thinking the experience was ok, maybe 2 or 3 stars.

Then our check came. We had brought a coupon from the internet, and we paid with the coupon and our credit card. When the waiter came back with the receipt, he had added 18% gratuity to the bill - I guess he assumed that since we had the nerve to bring in a coupon, we wouldn't tip him sufficiently. It was ridiculous. I didn't want to ruin the evening by arguing over this, so we paid and left. And won't return.

Overall, the place is just too expensive, especially given the lame decor, mediocre food, and rude service. With so many other choices of restaurants in the Seattle area, there's no reason to waste your time on this place.

• Pros: some of the food is tasty
• Cons: overpriced and rude service