Cucina Market Bistro

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

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.

I went there with my boyfriend for the first time to celebrate our two year anniversary. We looked at reviews and the menu online, and it looked amazing so we went. When we got there, we were greeted immediately and our server took our coats and sat us down. He immediately asked us if we wanted water, and allowed us to look over the menu for a while. My boyfriend and I were chatting when he came by the second time, and he allowed us to finish our thoughts before he asked us what we wanted to eat. The food was amazing, and an awesome price! You can see the kitchen from the tables, it’s so intimate. Overall, it’s an amazing little Italian restaurant that I will definitely go to again! Oh, and they use paper straws! So cool.

The food is really good but I find there is not much room between tables.

Food was delicious and the best food I've had in a long time. Waiter was very attentive. Food arrived very quickly
Highly recommend Cucina for all kinds of events

Excellent as always!
Wish there were a few more gluten friendly options or sauces

Enjoyed the pasta dishes both times I have been here and tried my friends as well which were good. I wouldn’t re-order the tiramisu. I went for lunch recently and was very late being seated but they covered our drinks which was nice. Good service both times.

A great place for a casual dinner before theatre. The service was outstanding and the food excellent. Our server, Braydon, was welcoming and assured that we were not rushed and left on time. His advice and information re the menu were spot on. We will definitely return again.

Cucina never disappoints! Whether it's for coffee, lunch or dinner it's always been outstanding.

Elegant yet traditional Italian food. Delicious and generous portions. We tried Cucina for the first time and will definitely come back to try more unique dishes on the menu. Regrettably, the tiramisu and espresso were not up to standards. The mascarpone had a yogurt flavor and the espresso was sour. Other than that, it was a delightful evening.

Come here quite often with clients for breakfast. Love the breakfast sandwich.

A delight! Randomly ended up here, everything was delicious, appiez drinks and mains. Octopus was awesome. Sable fish was perfectly done. Cheers to whoever was cheifing thy night. Waiter showed pure class. A bit pricey but worth it, and believe me I don’t say it often. My gf blogs and she couldn’t stop praising this spot

Every time I go here it's a great experience. This quality is why I keep coming back!

Cucina is a gem. It warmly evokes an authentic Italian bistro kitchen. A place you'd easily see a pair of friends enjoying charcuterie and a super Tuscan at one table; and a family of eight with kids at another. Of their many gifts to the patron, perhaps their most generous and brilliantly tactical is their Happy Hour [on Friday] that allows you to order any wine at a considerable discount, which, paired with their culinary devotion, vaults Cucina to the top of me and my friends' list for Friday post-work gatherings. Their decision to make their wine list accessible for those few hours is so appreciated—and one that shames most ever other dining room they easily compete against within the core. So, the maths are simple: Sensationally prepared food with an unmatched and compelling incentive to order a fine wine bottle… or a few.

Cucina offers consistently high quality food with seasonal specials. Nice ambience for a business breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Half sizes available on numerous dishes.

The food was amazing slow for 11:45. We didn’t get our food till 12:45pm. Really disappointed when previous visits have been great.

Stopped in here before a friends event downtown with some friends. Was a perfect spot for some good food and drinks prior. Would certainly come again!

Great wine, I loved my dish (the sablefish) wish we would have had time to stay for dessert! next time :)

Ordered the fish special - Pickerel - for lunch yesterday. However, noticed that my fish fillet was about half the size as my guest's. (I had a thin tail cut, while my guest had a nice central piece, fully double the volume). It was a shame because, for the price, I felt I only had a 'teaser' taste of what was delicious fish. Also, our server was busy and after repeated attempts to get his attention, the bartender stepped up to take our repeat drink order as well as the dessert order, for which we were grateful.

The food was great but our server practically ghosted us. It took over 10 minutes to get each drink, and he just kept disappearing for 10-15 minutes at a time, which we found odd as the restaurant is not very big.

Came here for a friendly business lunch and it was lovely. Great food - I had the Ahi Tuna and my guest had the Salmon. Great decor. Recommended for sure.

Great fun ambiance, food is very good and nice menu choices. Service is professional, hard to go wrong!

Fresh and tasty food, great service... what else do you need?!