Cucina Rustica

This place really impressed me and my wife. Service was top notch and everyone wasvery accommodating. This wasn’t my first choice to go to because of the reviews that I read but I’m glad we ended up going here.
So after a long day touring the grand canyon, we wanted something close by and still get that fine dining experience. Saw the restaurant and we gave it a try. Made reservations for 8:30 pm couple hours before. We get there, we get help right away and we got patio seating which was perfect because of the weather. We got a great seat close to the live music which made it even better. Right away we get our server Jessica, who was awesome and attentive to us. She knew her job well and made me and my wife have a terrific dinner experience. Also, the bus boy was on point. Picked up our plates after finished with appetizers and bread and when he saw we finished the first batch of bread he quickly gave us another which i thought was pretty amazing customer service. For appetizer we ordered the artichokes and the mozarella bread special. Tomatoes and mushroom on it was perfect and the hint of sweetness was a great combination. For our entrée I got the vodka pasta and my wife ordered the veggie pasta with fettucine. My pasta was delicious and the lobster in it was so tender and delicious. Cooked to perfection. I tasted my wifes veggie pasta and i thought it was pretty good. If i was on a diet i would definitely order that one. Overall food was delicious and the service was awesome. I was kinda worried we were going to get rude service because of some of the reviews but our experience wasn’t like it. It was pretty good. Almost compared to service I got when i was in vacation in the Philippines which was 5 star service.
This place is awesome and this made our stay in Sedona even memorable. I’m glad we came here and if we ever come back i would love to try the other restaurants by Lisa.
Thank you Jessica!
⁵⁄₅ service.

As soon as I walk into the place I see a friendly face… I come here once a week to treat myself and EVERY time I come in I feel like I’m at home. Mollie was my bartender for the evening and she was there when I needed someone to talk to. even tho she was fairly busy she still made it a point to tend to me and was there for me. I love knowing that walking in there, wether you are a tourist or a local, you will always get treated like one of the family! I just want to thank all the members at cucina rustica for their FABULOUS service !

Wonderful dinners! Salmon was a generous portion. Seafood pasta was superb and the Lasagna is made with homemade lasagna noodles.
And the birthday celebration was fabulous! Free tiramisu for the birthday boy!

Italian restaurant that can go toe-​to-​toe with authentic restaurants in Italy.
The pasta is really what you want to come here for. It was cooked to perfection, not soggy but not rubber like so many other places, and the sauce brings it all together. Naturally it is on the expensive side, being a white table cloth style restaurant. I would definitely recommend to come her for the evening dinner, open a bottle of wine and let the diner take you away.

The food is always worth the trip, regardless which state you live in. It is a white table cloth restaurant with the quality of food that gives actual authentic Italian a run for its money. Expect to make a reservation. Expect to pay for your quality meal. Expect to enjoy that pasta to the point of cleaning up your plate till there’s nothing left. This place is amazing!

Awesome!!! We ate at the bar, great service. Delicious food and good wine selection. Very nice ambience through the restaurant including a romantic looking patio.

The food is Better than most but way too expensive for what it is. Sedona is lacking in really good food in general. Don’t have high expectations especially if you come from the city.

The food here is tasty and the prices are on par with what you’d expect from a tourist destination. We ordered (I forget the italian names of the dishes:
carpaccio — delicious, no complaints
mussels appetizer — we were skeptical about ordering seafood from a state with no coastline and we should have gone with our gut. The mussels were not super fresh — would not recommend
lobster pasta w vodka sauce — again the lobster was not the freshest I’ve had but better than the mussels, and the vodka sauce and homemade pasta was yummy
fettuccine w prosciutto and mushrooms in a cream sauce — again, homemade pasta and sauce was yummy
crème brûlée — how can you mess up crème brûlée?!
TL;DR — good, standard italian fare; not just a tourist trap

The restaurant was adorable, great ambiance large menu. The guitar players playing lightly through out restaurant was most enjoyable. I think it was one of my favorite pasta dishes ever, langostino arribiata — amazing I will dream of!
The waiter was young and inattentive, if the food was not so delicious we would have been very upset. We had the pleasure of meeting Lisa Dahl at Mariposa 5÷14÷16 and certainly did not want to bother her with the information about our meal 5÷13÷16 at above. The owner should know we would have drank more and had desert had he been present at all.

We had the special Buratta appetizer, fettuccine papalina, the special seafood dish and the siciliana desert.
The reason to go here is that the pasta is homemade and very fresh. The bread is good but the olive oil dip they bring seems mexican and not italian. It doesn’t work. The buratta app was awesome. The papalina dish was awesome. The special seafood entrée is supposed to be a signature dish but it was just so so. The siciliana desert was alright but nothing to write home about.
Not sure this restaurant is worth the cost just for the homemade pasta.

This restaurant has earned it’s high rating. Excellent service, great atmosphere and exquisite meal. We had a fettuccine (hand made) with seafood and pasta primavera. Outstanding overall — type of restaurant you would expect in a big city. Highly recommend spending the evening here.

I had the privilege of dining here while on a one night trip away with friends.
Prior to our arrival at the restaurant I emailed a special dessert request to honor the belated birthdays of my friends. I received almost immediate reply through Unilocal and an additional email address directly to the restaurant. More to come about this…
The restaurant is charming and old world. The service is warm and sincere. The food was great with nice menu and special options.
Back to my special request. At the end of the meal a very beautiful (and large) desert plate was brought to our table. The waiter had paid attention to who was who and delivered a very lovely personalized note with the dessert detailed. My humble belated birthday gesture became the highlight of our meal.
While in Sedona check out this lovely spot. You will not be disappointed.

We were needing a late night dinner after hiking the Grand Canyon. Most restaurants in the area close at 9pm; everything we read about CR said they close at 10. We arrived at 9:30. The host greeted us with a snarl.
Two please.
Uh, I just closed the kitchen.
Oh. We read that you are open until 10.
No, we just closed the kitchen.
Everything we read says you close at 10.
We don’t have a closing time.
He began to argue the point, stopped, huffed, grabbed two menus and said he could seat us. No thanks.
Loudly and exasperated… I said I can seat you… roll of the eyes.
No, thank you. We will do something else.
So…we gave this second Dahl and Di Luca location a chance even after our experience 2 nights before. There is such a condescending, unwelcoming attitude at the locations. Honestly, we would like to feel like a welcome guest rather than an intruder. We understand it was late but he could have apologized profusely and invited us back another time. I bet we would have been there tonight. Instead he made such a point to «let» us dine there that we decided to spend our time and money where it was appreciated.
We went to our hotel and had a great experience. If you want to read about it go to Hilton review.

We just stay at Sedona for one night and Don’t know where should have dinner. Finally, I picked up Cucina because I saw there are many good reviews on Unilocal.
We had fabulous dining experience here. The ambience and decoration were warm and welcoming. The food here is very delicious no matter what you order. It was so happen, yesterday. Was my friend Birthday and I told our server about this. It was surprised by the ending my friend received a their house Tiramisu cake with lighting candle.
We had a good time here. I will definitely recommend this restaurant to my friends.

Okay… so I read «many» of the reviews before we ventured out… THREE words… incredible-​incredible-​incredible! The food… and service. Ironically the bus-​staff stole the show… along with the food of course… THANK YOU «SHANNON» — i know you will be looking for this & KELLY — safe travels to Italy this summer… have no idea what our waiters name was… we tipped extra well… hope he shares ;)…the homemade fetticinni (sp)and veal scallopini… TO DIE FOR! .
dont forget dessert… atmosphere +…ask to sit on the «outside» patio. Miss U already from LA and NYC foodies

My husband and I look forward to coming here and celebrating our anniversary. Everything is always perfect, from the food to the live music

The cucina rustica a beautiful restaurant, I wish I could say the same for the service. My wife and I went here for Valentine’s day and were treated as if we were not welcomed. We were rushed to order as soon as we sat down due to an annoying waitress whom we observed only treated us this way. Upon receiving our meals my wife and I were not impressed with the quality of the food especially for the price we were paying. My wife was not happy with her side dish, which was rice pilaf and we asked to have a salad instead. They told us no, they were not able to substitute a side with a salad. For a dish of that price you should be able to have a salad instead of something you are not happy with. The rice was old and cold. Cucina Rustica needs to learn customer service before you can call your establishment fine dining.

From an Italian :
First of all– make sure the elegantly painted bathroom doors guide the Italian/​American patron to relief — as «Sinor» /​«Sinora» respectively. Not Señor/​Señora.
. But i was hungry driving all day from San Diego and all else was closing.
Food… you figure it out.
Enough said.

I have had this restaurant bookmarked almost 4 years. I can’t remember who originally recommended it, but it was recommended again last night by a woman who was sitting next to me waiting for a table at Elote. We finally made it here for dinner tonight. It’s quite a trek from where we’re staying in West Sedona and the roads are dark, so it was a tense trip over. Interestingly, it was a much easier drive back. Perhaps the dinner lightened us up so we could see better. We found the restaurant relatively effortlessly once we got to Oak Creek Village and found a parking space right in front.
We walked in, were greeted and conducted to a table in one of the 4 dining rooms. Each is decorated differently. Ours had faux grape clusters, lit from w/​in, twined over a trellis wall next to our table. Doorways and doors look rustic and well aged. An adjacent room had beamed ceilings. A guitarist w/​an extensive repertoire played in that room, classical guitar pieces to the Beatles to Jimi Hendrix. He was very good. We were given menus, water and a basket of bread w/​a slightly spicy olive oil dipping sauce.
We decided to start w/​calamari for the table. I ordered a glass of 2012 Boneshaker Zinfandel from Lodi. It was delicious, just what I wanted, big, bold and smooth. Alan and Jim drank water. The calamari was a generous portion of rings and tentacles w/​a couple of thin slices of lemon also fried, accompanied by small bowls of marinara and a lemon caper aioli for dipping. Both were flavorful. Alan and I decided to have a small salad each, his the mista, dressed w/​shallot and Dijon vinaigrette rather than the sweet and sour vinaigrette listed on the menu. I ordered the Caesar. Alan ordered a pappardelle w/​steak tips. I don’t have a more detailed description because it wasn’t on my menu and it’s not on the online menu. Jim ordered Fettuccine Papalina, fresh made fettuccine w/​prosciutto, scallions and mushrooms in a delicate cream sauce. I ordered Eggplant Parmesan, which had been well reviewed.
Both of us liked our salads, which, though called small, were generous. and very tasty. Alan adored his pasta and the bite I had of it was superb. Jim finished his dish and mopped up the remains of the sauce w/​a piece of bread. My eggplant Parmesan was accompanied by capellini pomodoro. Eggplant Parmesan is a great favorite of mine and this was one of the best I’ve had, the eggplant tender, the sauce flavorful and w/​o the sharpness that some have. The capellini was also very tasty, although it was just a shade over al dente. Service was very attentive and helpful throughout. We were brought a dessert menu after we finished, but though the desserts looked really good, none of us had any room left. Another time. We will definitely be back, if not this trip, the next one.

This restaurant is good but not great.
First visit the front desk guy was an ass and acted like we offended him when we showed up without a reservation. Really turned us off and we almost did not comeback.
Second visit we made a reservation. This time the person who helped us was super friendly. Our waiter was very friendly and the atmosphere was nice. Manager came over and he was nice. Food was good. We had a group of 5 and everyone enjoyed their meals. We all took bites from the others plates and can honestly say I would have ordered any of it. Good wine selection etc.
This might have been a 5 star review if it were not for «Dick» We ran into on our first visit and the price. We have eaten at many Italian restaurants with equal or better food that did not cost as much. I understand it’s the village and locals do not really have many options but if this place was in phoenix it would not be able to charge what they charge in my opinion.