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| - 4.5/5 stars for Buca. My husband and I ate here last night and had an amazing meal.
Contrary to some reviews, Buca isn't hard to find - it is just across the courtyard of the Four Seasons on Yorkville. The hostess took our coats and brought us to our seats right away. The restaurant is quite loud, but not in an annoying way. It made the restaurant feel energetic, and like somewhere you want to be on a Friday night! The service the entire evening was excellent - attentive, but not overbearing. Unless you're familiar with Italian wines, the list will basically look like gibberish to you, but our server made an excellent wine recommendation based on what we were going to eat.
We started with the trio of cured fish, which was served with squid ink dumplings. This was nice, and quite different, but I didn't love it. I wouldn't say there was anything wrong with the dish, but it just wasn't up our alley. One was a dry cured cod (I believe), and it was meh. It was quite bland. We probably wouldn't order this again, but it was nice to try something unique.
Next, we had the burrata pizza and the bigoli pasta, which blew us away. My husband doesn't even like pizza, and he won't stop talking about it. The crust is thin and crispy, with a generous amount of burrata cheese on top. The bigoli pasta was extremely flavourful and delicious. The pasta serving is small, I will admit, but the big flavour and richness of the dish makes up for it. We followed with the octopus (which I generally don't like), which was beautifully prepared.
For dessert, we had the flourless chocolate cake which is enveloped in marshmallow cream. The server who brings it to your table pours some kind of citrus liqueur on it, and lights it on fire! It was very rich, but so so good. The citrus flavour was a really nice spin on a heavy chocolate cake.
My one complaint is that no bread is brought to the table to start. It would just be a nice touch that could help offset some of the pricey dishes. Other than that, the food was so delicious, flavourful and well-prepared. We will definitely be back!
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