08/02/09

OMGosh!! The food was excellent, and also had wedding

by lovebell1

Well, first off, I had my wedding and reception at Cafe Luna, and the service, food, and staff was excellent. The price is ver. reasonable to have a wedding and/or reception at Cafe Luna and the atmosphere of Cafe Luna is wonderful. The dark, rich hardwood floors are beautiful and the details of the rooms are beautiful. Ryan and the other staff there were very nice and planned my event without a hitch. A few weeks after the wedding Cafe Luna sent us a 50.00 certificate so we could come back and enjoy a dinner. The food was excellent, the server was very nice. I got the Fiochee, four cheese stuffed pasta with pear sauté, and it was the best pasta I ever ate. It was rich, creamy and very tasteful!!!

• Pros: in downtown raliegh, nice staff, good food
• Cons: a little crowded seating

07/09/09

Hosted my wedding

by anotherbride

I can't say enough good things about this place. Ryan is the events coordinator there, she was wonderful. She answered ALL of my questions via email and phone up until my big day. She was very flexible in accommodating anything I wanted.

On the day of my wedding, the staff set up everything. All I had to do what drop my decorations off a couple of days before with directions. They also served the food, and I'm still hearing about how good everything was from my guests.

The staff was so pleasant and above par. They cleared everyones' tables and offered refills. They cut our cake, and did most of the clean up (the only reason it wasn't all of the cleanup is because the rest was stuff we had to take home). I was so pleased.

Brides, if you want a smooth day to sit back and enjoy your big day, Caffe Luna is for you!

• Pros: Helpful, accommodating staff

05/26/09

Bad Experience

by JessHerr

My colleague and I went for lunch today and experienced good service, but bad food. We both ordered the lasagne, which was made with poor quality meat, was soggy, and left us feeling ill. The bread that was brought out before the meal had to be sent back because it not only tasted stale, but had mold on it. This I could excuse, because I buy that type of bread at times, and it has no preservatives, so it goes bad quickly. However, when I mentioned this discreetly to the waitress, she said "where?", and I had to show her. Not someplace I would visit again.

• Pros: Great Location
• Cons: Poor Quality Food

05/12/09

Do NOT like the owner

by mmohe

In regards to foodlover, I had a similar experience in which the owner assumed I was from a different country and was extremely condescending. He treated me as though I had just stepped fresh off a boat. I will never go back to this place nor will I ever recommend it to anyone.

Also, their chicken parm is not all that great neither were any of the other dishes the rest of my party got. Also, a nice restaurant serves their soda products in a can without even opening it for their customers? Crazy

• Cons: owner is extremely ignorant; not even 1 star

05/08/09

Disregard for what he customer wants!!!!!!!!!!

by foodlover1479

I normally don't write reviews but today’s incident has so enraged me that I think it deserves a mention. This was my 2nd trip to the restaurant; the 1st experience was pretty good. When I requested the waitress that since I don’t like tomato sauce could I get cream sauce in a particular dish she said that she will have to check. Out came the owner told me that they would make anything for me however, his judgment should be trusted and that this dish would taste very bad in cream sauce and made me order another dish (I had ordered the same combination the 1st time I went to the restaurant the waiter then was nice and got it for me. I even remember eating the leftovers the next day). He went on to presume that me and the rest of the party on our table were south Asian and insisted that his judgment in terms of food should be trusted. He went on to tell us about some south Asian dish that wouldn't go well with chicken. He went on to bad mouth an Indian restaurant that he had been to in town and how it was too expensive (completely out of place in this situation).Since the others on my table were hungry and I didn't want to spoil their mood I just ordered a small salad and left. Although everyone else on my table wanted to leave without ordering a meal due to the owner’s behavior, I told them to not cancel their orders; I tried not to make a big deal of it. However, I am surely NOT going to this restaurant ever again.

• Cons: I woudln't even give the one star

03/01/09

Beware-Disappointed

by Dudley9Warner

Went there with another couple at our suggestion because we had heard it was a special place.Service was great and owner was attentive. The rest was downhill.

Two of us ordered Shrimp fra Diavalo and both felt it was tasteless and lacked any of the hot spice this dish is supposed to have. My Veal Parmigiana was more like Breading Parmigiana with the veal totally lacking in flavor and too thin to offer any textural difference with breading. The sauce on the pasta was the same as that on the shrimp dish. The fourth person ordered Ahi and was served a dried piece of fish with a slight ribbon of rare running through it.

The menu is totally boring and the execution seems to be more in line with Wedding food.

There are too many good Italian restaurants in Raleigh for us to ever go back to Luna.

01/24/09

excellent experience

by emmie

I don't typically write reviews, but we just had an excellent experience at this restaurant and I thought I should share. We stopped in without a reservation after viewing a movie at the IMAX. It was around 7:00pm and we were told they could put a table in the entry way, but that no other table would be available until about 8:45pm. It was too crowded with people coming and going and there was a cold draft in the entry way, so we declined and walked out to decide on another location. In about 30 seconds, the owner came out to tell us that the diners at one of their walk-in tables had gotten their check if we'd like to come back in and wait for that. We decided we would. While we were waiting, he offered us each a glass of wine. After a short wait, we were seated. The selections and prices were very good, the wait staff was prompt and pleasant, and everyone's food was quite good. When we received our bills, we were pleasantly surprised to see that the wine had been complimentary. The owner himself checked on us several times during the meal, and stopped by as we were getting up to leave to check a final time, thank us, and shake our hands. We were impressed with that attentiveness and the food and prices. We will return.

• Pros: attentive owner and servers, very good prices for very good food
• Cons: none

11/23/08

Dull & Boring: Unsophisticated Downtown Relic

by Ral1873

What a mistake we made in going: all six members of our party walked away disappointed. The only thing great about this place is the ambiance and location. I was here years ago, and clearly time has forced the owner to reconsider his business plan: reduced quality, less food, higher prices. The menu is completely boring. The choices appear exotic, but all come out looking relatively the same. The food portions were OK only for pasta dishes; grilled meats, fish and vegetable sides were tiny. Fish was very overcooked. My "grilled vegetables" consisted of three slices of very thin zucchini with grill marks on it. The grill marks were misleading; it wasn't cooked and was actually cold. The "house" salad dressing is largely olive oil with no flavor. When we asked for alternative dressings, we were told: "Why don't you order a Caesar?" And don't consider bringing a child; the menu has no child-friendly options. The clientele has shifted considerably in recent years and the portion sizes and limited menu reflect this. The average age of the customers when we were there (7PM) was about 60. No judgement here - I look forward to 60! - but not exactly the kind of place you hope to go for hip, chic or trendy downtown dining. All said, Caffe' Luna was in its prime 10 years ago, but is clearly in decline. I'm sad to say I won't go back. None of us will. Perhaps the expanding Raleigh restaurant scene with upscale and innovative menus (and clientele to match) have relegated Caffe Luna as an outdated relic of Raleigh's less-sophisticated recent past. What a shame.

• Pros: location, abiance
• Cons: menu options, price, service, elderly clientele

11/18/08

Stay Away

by hughmolly

Had heard good things about the place when moving to town. Since we love Italian we were looking for a regular (weekly basis) Italian place. Food was average at best. The thing that turned me off completely was that I ordered a bottle of Chianti that turned out to be the color of old brick and tasted like dirt. When I tried to send it back the owner came over to inform me that there was nothing wrong with the wine and that I just must not know much about wine since Chianti was supposed to look and taste like that. I informed him that I did infact know a good bit about wine and that the bottle had obviously gone bad, I would pay for it and he could do what he liked with it but I wasn't drinking it. So for the cost of a $30-$35 bottle of wine he lost 2 regular customers and I tell everyone I see to avoid this plac.

01/13/08

Great food but disappointed

by ncstatetextiles

We visited this restaurant one night without a reservation which wasn't a problem. We were seated within 10-20 minutes. We had heard/read about this restaurant a lot and were very excited to finally dine here. The atmosphere of this place is excellent with Nicole Kennedy's art work on the wall (which are beautiful by the way). I think the menu is affordable and there are quite a few to choose from. The portion size was big and everything tasted fantastic. Although I was very disappointed with the service. We were seated at a table right by the door because the hostess informed us that that was the only table available without a reservation until about 9pm (We were there around 7). But then when people came in after us without reservations they were seated inside the restaurant (and we were freezing because we were right by the door). Then our waitress seemed to be very inexperienced as she hardly ever came to our table and when it was time to bring us the check, she brought a several over to figure out which one it was. She had no idea what we even ordered!! So overall, great food but bad service. But maybe it just wasn't our night.

• Pros: good food, great atmosphere
• Cons: bad service