Cucina Market Bistro

Overall, the service was adequate but not great. The din in the restaurant made it very hard to hear. I often order the octopus starts. this time it was the smallest portion I have ever received and disappointing. I will go back because I have had very good experiences in the past.

Great overall experience but the food was just amazing. Top 3 for best risotto dishes I’ve ever had.

The food is always phenomenal here, so flavorful and I love the half size pasta dishes so I can have a side caesar salad which is also delicious. The special risotto with carrot puree, kale and bison was outstanding.

Great Atmosphere, great food, but a little noisy for a business meeting

The service here is extra ordinary, attentive without being intrusive. The food quality is extraordinaire. I had the daily risotto - done to perfection, and my friend also finished every last morsel. Yum. I can see why Cucina suggests you make reservations, I would wait in line for this food, but didn't have to.

Our server, Katie provided excellent service as usual. Thanks

I tried food and drink experience menu. Unfortunately the pasta and tiramisu were not good. The pasta was a bit dry and the sauce was bland. Tiramisu wasn’t creamy smooth. Too much powder on top. It was my first visit and disappointing.

Started with beef tartare and shared pasta dishes. Great food. Great value. Will be back.

The table was crammed in a corner, the half portions were beyond extremely small, my “special” pasta was very greasy and in my view poorly prepared. Our server was a lovely French Canadian and was the only bright spot in a very overpriced lunch. I won’t be back soon.

Overall good, but my boyfriend’s Carbonara spaghetti was drowning in oil, and my beef conchiglie was good but too much salt, and I eat salty in general. You don’t want to drink all night long because your supper was too salty.
The restaurant is very beautiful, and the service is good.
Like I said, overall good but a bit pricy for what it is: 90$ for 2 pasta plates + 2 glasses of wine

Delicious fresh comfort food!

We absolutely loved the entire meal, from charcuterie plate to dessert. The staff were friendly and enthusiastic, the dining area was clean and classy, with the kitchen visible to the diners. The food was 10/10 delicious! I highly recommend the albacore tuna, it is simply delightful.

This is seriously the best restaurant in Calgary. Not only is the food amazing but the restaurant vibe is always spectacular and the servers are so friendly and knowledgable.

One of the best restaurants in downtown Calgary, great food!

The food was amazing and the service was wonderful. Because of cold weather there were many cancellations so the noise level was low. It was certainly worth braving the cold for the excellent food.

My fav breakfast spot!

The food was really good as always. However we were seated at a table right beside a door that the employees used to get their jackets. When they opened the door all you could smell was bathroom freshener. It was really terrible. We tried to get our server to our table to move us and could not track him down so we just finally got up and moved to another table by the window so we didn't have to smell that awful smell. This door should be blocked off to staff when it is the lunch hour.
Next our server did not know much about the drinks we requested so he had to send over the bartender.
In the end the overall experience was okay.

I have been here multiple times and always enjoyed my meal. This is the first time I was very disappointed. I ordered the market fish special of the day. The fish skin was slimy and undercooked. Not crispy at all like it should be. It was gross actually. My meal came with baby potatoes and cauliflower mash. I literally had 3 halves of baby potatoes on my plate. What grown adult only eats 3 halves of a baby potato. Then the $52 bill came for a glass of wine and my very very disappointing meal.

Excellent food, amazing service! Only complaint might be that for the price I expected enough food to take leftovers home, like most Italian places. Would still highly recommend!

Service was lack lustred, disinterested. Food was well prepared, hot, flavourful. Presentation uninspired.

Our server, Katie was as usual, excellent in her interface with customers and her service.

Food was very well presented and delicious! 😋

Good choices for gluten intolerance.

Food tastes great, good variety on menu. Awesome tiramisu! Well managed restaurant

Good food, good coffee, good service at 7:30 am!

Wonderful decor ambience and service. We had a very friendly waiter who shared suggestions and also offered to accommodate some dietary restrictions. The food was absolutely wonderful- very different but so flavourful. This place was a real gem!

My partner and I dined here for New Year's Eve. I was looking forward to the experience as the restaurant has quite good reviews. Unfortunately, it did not deliver to our expectations. My husband and I agreed that the Ox, Model Milk, and Mercato surpassed this place in our personal rankings.

To start, we had the ocotous, as well as the arancini. While both were quite tasty, they were nothing special. The octopus was a bit overdone and was a very small portion.

Our two entrees were the braised beef cheeks and the pork belly/scallops. We both agreed that the beef was delicious, but again, for $38 it was nothing exceptional.

The scallops were quite a let down. The menu boasts "U10" scallops, which are supposed to be one of the largest sized scallops you can get. The scallops on my plate were medium - definitely not U10. While they were delicious and cooked perfectly, they still did not meet my expectations for a $35 dish. Additionally, the flavours were all wrong. There was far too much acid on the plate. A very relishy cucumber and pesto was provided, I presume to cut the fat and richness of the pork and scallops, but it was way too much vinegar.

Overall, our experience was mediocre. The quality of the food and service did not align with the price point of the restaurant.

If you're looking for quality food and service for a reasonable price, try the Ox instead!

S&G

Went there on New Year’s Eve and it was a great experience. Service was very friendly and professional, the ambiance is great as a higher end Italian place, the food was amazing. We’d recommend it for sure for any special event or upscale dinner!

Fantastic food. Such good quality and delicious to the last bite. I have never been disappointed here.

really nice find. the food was exceptional and had several gluten free options

I liked the overall casual and cozy atmosphere. We started with the octopus which consisted of two tentacles a few potatoes, greens and some crispy bite that I didn't know the name of served with and avocado sauce. It was a bit pricey and the dish didn't really deliver on taste. The octopus was almost too soft it made it seem like it had gone bad, but that might just be a personal preference thing. There were bits of sourness and creaminess to the dish and overall the flavors just didn't compliment each other and the dish fell apart for me. For the main course I got the confit duck tagliatelle and my friend got the feature of the day which was a baked pasta with oxtail and a tomato sauce. The tagliatelle was my favorite dish of the night. It was simple but had a nice flavor. The pasta was cooked perfectly and you could taste bits of duck in every bite. Overall the flavors of the dish really came together well. The oxtail pasta was another story. The first few bites were pretty good, but it soon got to be too much with all the tomato sauce. Overall the dish felt very heavy and could have benefited from some freshness or maybe a bit of acid to help with the heaviness of the dish. The biggest let down of the night was our server who seemed to have RBF. Even when I tried to crack a joke, either she didn't hear it, or was just not in the mood. She made me scared to ask her anything so I didn't even get a refill on my water. Sad to say with all the options out there I don't think I would ever return to this restaurant based on my experience last night.

Food was excellent, our server was excellent! Only a couple of glitches. Appetizer was delivered to the table and sort of dropped noisily with one word, “Octopus!”. We were both taken aback. The octopus was tender and delicious. The market fish was deep water sea bass. I inquired if it was Mediterranean or Chilean sea bass. Our server said she would ask the chef. She is new to the restaurant and the chef sent her back to our table with a response that the fish was from Calgary!!! Rude and dismissive! We joked that it was probably from the Bow river. Neither of us ordered it. This was no reflection on our server but was just a curt and rude response from the kitchen. Over all dinner was great. Will come back. Our server and one other woman,possibly the manager, were key in our dining experience, much appreciated.”

The service was excellent. Even to the point one person was our table had a little rock to it and came over and made an adjustment. I was amazed how attentive they were. The food was fantastic. Definitely going back and recommending 👍

We used to enjoy this spot, clearly things have changed. Food quality and service are nowhere near where they once were. I'm now looking for a replacement spot for breakfast.

good for quiet business breakfast meetings, IF you can be finished by 7:30
recommend opening the food service at 6:30 am rather than 7

great service from Katie and the staff in the morning

Good downtown location with a contemporary menu. Short but decent wine list, offered at a reasonable price.
Tables are not jammed too tight, we were able to chat along with our friends comfortably. Good service.

This was a great little place for a romantic dinner. The service was amazing and friendly. The food was absolutely delicious I highly recommend the cauliflower anti-pasti.

Treat after voting on whether to host the 2026 Olympics

The cauliflower soup was very tasty and rich in flavour. Caesar salad wasn’t the best - lettuce itself wasn’t very fresh (with brown spots sometimes), anchovies were quite chewy. It took away from the whole dish.
The service though was outstanding!

Great time there.
Good food, good service.

I was really excited to try this place. It was never on my radar- despite having been open for ?6 years . The online menu was what convinced us to give it a try. I wanted to like it but the appetizers we ordered (the bread and the cauliflower) were the best part of the meal. The spaghetti carbonara (which is always my favourite thing to order)was under-seasoned with soggy pieces of ?pancetta? It was actually bordering on gross- no one wants chewy-gristley pork fat mixed in with their pasta.
I could go on- but I think you get it.