Cucina Enoteca (Irvine, CA) - The Episodic Eater

Usually, I have a hand in picking out the restaurants that I go to with my friend and family, but this time we were visiting with my guy’s high school friends as a group. Since most of them live relatively nearby, we headed to Cucina Enoteca!

Cucina Enoteca (Irvine, CA) on The Episodic Eater

First of all, it is located in Irvine Spectrum Center (which locals call The Spectrum), a huge outdoor shopping center. Normally, you would expect to see a fast-food or chain restaurant in a mall but this is certainly not that!

I totally want to recreate these hanging plants and lighting fixtures in an outdoor space!

Okay, here’s a tiny peek at the menu. Definitely Italian, and I’m not complaining! 🙂 There were so many options, and between the two of us, we decided to share a couple of entreés. Believe me it was tough to decide between all of the delicious sounding salads, soups, antipasti, pizza, pasta, sandwiches, and more!

Okay, one quick look around our table at the decor before we get to the food. It seems as if I can’t get enough of it now that furniture is on my mind for the house. 🙂

I love the orange of the chair and the tablecloth ruffle, although I would do it less colorful in my own living space.

NOW to the food!

Pane – Grilled Three Cheese

mozzarella di bufala + asiago + parmesan butter crusted lemon bread + tomato confit

One of our friends ordered this grilled cheese. It looked so, so, so heavenly. In fact, I couldn’t get it off of my mind, so we made a pit stop at another restaurant on the way home. 🙂

Pizza – Honey Roasted Eggplant + Herb Goat Cheese

pistachio pesto + balsamic onion + pine nut

We were deciding between this pizza and another one. I am 99% positive that we picked the right one because it was perfect! Once again, my self-professed eggplant-hating guy thought he wouldn’t like this. Wrong!

Creamy mascarpone polenta

+ today’s ragu

From what I remember, the ragu was shredded chicken with caramelized onions and grapefruit. I don’t remember the particulars exactly, but it was just delicious and beautiful, served tableside on a wooden palette. Check out this close-up!

We were dining with friends who don’t know about my blogging hobby, so I decided not to pass the camera around to capture all of the delicious food. Next time, I definitely need to practice some distraction strategies to snap a quick pic. 🙂

Oh, and on the way out we checked out the huge wine collection there and I fell in love with this baker’s rack, which they were actually selling.