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| - This place has a beautiful setting in the Arizona Center! A wonderful patio overlooking beautiful , palm trees that light up when the sunsets. Cucina Cucina definitely has the stake on location! My husband and I decided to try Cucina Cucina this week before heading to a Jazz concert in the area. He's just had surgery so he wasn't really wanting anything like a huge meal and I wanted something Italian and light, as well! We arrived about 1730 on this perfect spring evening with a slight breeze and a nice 76* temp outside.. Arizona perfection! We were set at a beautiful table on the patio. There was a fire pit next to our table, which has to be awesome when its lit up too. Our server was at our table within a few minutes and I wanted to know about happy hour. She seemed a bit clueless to that and had to go ask someone. When she returned she told us about the happy hour specials a few appetizers, beer and cocktails. Sadly, she said there are no wines on the happy hour menu. I found a few things amiss with this: a server should always sit you and start with what the specials, (if any are available that night), and what is going on with happy hour. She spent a good 4-5 minutes figuring that out. When we ordered, happy hour was going to be over. Oh well. She was sweet enough and I didn't feel like pushing the issue on such a nice night out. Next, an Italian restaurant leaving wine off of happy hour? I wonder what that is about? And why is there no printed happy hour menu, anyway for the table...I for one am more of a visual person and when someone is rattling off a menu, with , "Ummm we have bruschetta, and yeah, ummm calamari for ummm I think ..." , I get lost! I know Cucina Cucina has just opened and being a foodie tends to make you 'compare notes' to other places. I just found myself immediately wishing we had opted for our favorite Italian place down the way .. other than for the view and the great patio, which I loved about this choice! With that, I ordered a Prosecco and we decided to order three appetizers to share. The Brodetta di Mare Black Mussels, which were bathed in a delicious garlic Brodetta chardonnay sauce with chunks of tomatoes. This comes with a couple slices of wonderful bread to soak the sauce up with. They were very good! The Gamberetti, a little pricey for the amount of shrimp you get. They are sautéed shrimp and the sauce seemed the same as the Brodetta di Mare, despite that it not described that way on the menu. We loved this appetizer. It was also served with two slices of toasted bread. We also ordered the Antipasto Misto, a charcuterie plate of salami, proscuitto, two Italian cheeses, (we had a fresh mozzarella and parmesan), roasted Italian vegetables, and walnuts. The kalamata olives were pitted and that was a nice touch that many places don't offer. There was no bread offered with this appetizer. We have had charcuterie plates a lot of places and this was the first time we had seen no bread. The parma cheese was sliced so thin though, it was almost shaved and in Arizona, it dries pretty fast! Again, I have not seen that before on charcuterie/frommagio plates. Mind you, its $16 and there could have been a little bread , or flat bread wafers AND not shaved cheese.. BUT, we liked it a lot. WE did ask our waitress for bread and she brought us some house bread, but this appetizer does not apparently come with bread. I am reading this review and thinking .. 'hmm, i worked out hard today... I must have needed BREAD!!!'.. haha.. The dinner menu here looks amazing, as does the dessert menu, which we were not offered. Our plates were cleared and our waitress arrived with our bill, we needed to go off to our concert, but that was a bit odd to not be offered coffee or dessert and just given the check! In her defense, she told us she was new and I remember the days of being a college student and young and waitressing.. No thank you! I do want to come back to Cucina Cucina and try a good dinner entree and more wine! This patio is amazing and in June they are to start having live music and this will be the perfect place for it! I have no doubt that Cucina Cucina is working out minor kinks in the new opening.. greatness awaits!
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