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| - Tried Cuginni's for the first time the other night. At the advice of Eater Montreal who recommended it in their top spots to eat in the West Island, I was going into this pretty pumped and hungry.
The place is relatively small but has terrasse seating outside when weather permits! That night, the place was packed with a big group and the rest with a few couples, though we luckily nabbed a spot and didn't have to wait. The ambiance is pretty good with a dimly lit room, and candles at tables, but don't expect fancy tablecloths, it stays true to its café title. Although tablecloths would have added to the charm.
The waitress was cute and friendly and took our drink order right away. We took two Diet Pepsi cans and had brought our own bottle of wine for the dinner. Yes folks, it's a BYOB, which as a wine lover, already wins it some big points. On the menu are a variety of pizzas, two salad options, two panini options, calzone, and deserts. I was a little disappointed that they didn't have simple and fun appetizers like gnocchi rosé, burratta and tomato, bruschetta, calamari, arrancinni, or house/Caesar salads to munch on as we drink our wine. Nevertheless, we ordered a large 16 inch pizza, their most extravagant of course! We noticed that they didn't serve pasta on the menu yet on the back they were selling their pasta sauce, so we asked our waitress why their wasn't any on the menu and she said it's in the works.
So some time passed and we're talking amongst ourselves when the waitress seems to be passing out dishes at tables. She finally comes over to ours and drops off a decent sharing portion of penne tomato sauce, which she said was a house treat that night. Let me tell you, it not only looked delicious, it was my favourite part of the entire meal! The pasta was cooked perfectly, and the sauce being their traditional tomato was authentic and downright delicious. Let's hope they get that on the menu soon, even as a starter.
It wasn't long after finishing our pasta dish that the owner and Chef came into the room from the back to introduce himself. But it wasn't only a simple hello, he sat down with us and chatted for probably a good 5 minutes. I was pretty impressed at the friendliness and genuine interest he seemed to be taking in our experience at his restaurant. He would swing by twice more throughout the meal to check on us.
So more time went by, setting the pace for a prolonged dinner, luckily we had our wine! But our pizza did come out on a stand and boy did it look good. It was a 16" tomato sauce pizza, topped with Romano cheese, arugula, roasted red peppers, boccacini ( which I would've expected a bit more), and a balsamic drizzle to top it all off. It was perhaps the best thin crust pizza I have ever had and I used to work in a wood oven pizza place in Montreal. The crust underneath that is usually slightly burnt or soggy, was absolute perfection, a result the owner claims is a product of his dough. What I found particularly interesting was that everything they serve is bought fresh that day, placing an emphasis on absolute quality products.
After finishing the pizza, we polished off the wine, and decided to try some desserts. They had two options, both Nutella based, being the Nutella pizza or these Nutella drizzled honey donuts, we opted for the latter. I will say that I was hoping for a traditional cannoli but they don't seem to serve any. When the dessert came out it smelt prefect with that cinnamon and honey and Nutella soft doughy donut smell! It was delicious, although I would added a Nutella drizzle over them before serving.
All in all we spent two hours at this pizza byob café in the west island, and watched the day turn into night. Did it live up to the hype? I'd definitely say it's worth a trip and I plan on coming back, there were a few pizzas I wanted to try and hopefully there could be an addition or two to the menu, here keeping my fingers crossed. The menu is above average priced, but for quality ingredients and savings from byob, you can't really go wrong. 4 stars for now! Until next time.
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