Caffe Luna

The owner was rude and embarassed me in front of my family and half the restaurant for entering his fine dining establishment wearing a ""chapeau"" (hat). I had to refrain from addressing the issue for the sake of my brother-in-law, who hosted the outing and recommended the restaurant. Having a dress code is fine, but there are ways to implement one without mortifying your patrons. Not to mention the fact that it comes across as pedantic when the small sign hidden behind the hostess podium reads, ""Please gentlemen, no hats or sleevelss shirts."" No sleevelss shirts! We're upscale now!\r \r On top of that, the ribeye was thin and mediocre at best. Everyone else's pasta was great, but my appetite was ruined by the embarassment. I learned later at the hotel that my wife and mother-in-law both had their dinner ruined by the experience as well, though like me they put on a brave face for the sake of our host. \r \r I wouldn't put money in the owner's pocket if he had the best food on the planet. It's pathetic when you try for class and you come up with pretension. more

Had a wedding to go to at Cafe Luna on Saturday afternoon. I was looking to get some directions to the place and ran into the reviews here on CitySearch. Oh boy! I was hoping the reviews were bogus because Brian and Wendy didn't deserve having their nuptuals in a place with horrible service and food. The reviews I read cited horrible service and worse food but things couldn't have been more different. The service was awesome, servers were very nice, and they payed attention to all our needs. The food was absolutely incredible! The Italian was well above average, the sea food delicious, and everything else was cooked to perfection. I highly recommend this place and know we'll be going back. more

We had a terrible experience at Café Luna. The place is located in an ""OK"" space with decent lighting and layout but the ambiance suffers as most of the patrons are NOT smiling (I wonder why) the staff are grumpy and management idiotic. In any business endeavor the way the employees behave always comes from the head. We and the couple next to us felt like we were not wanted there, we were a burden, and they were (from the su-chef, to the manager, to the hostess, to the server) too important and too busy to see us. My wife and I have been to many excellent high end establishments, from the Capital City and Cardinal club to Ruth Chris, Sullivans, and second Empire where you expect outstanding service but you will have a much better time at Napper Tandys pub then wasting your time at Café Luna. The food was simply poor the service terrible. The server when asked about their Caesar salad had this to say, ""It's a mediocre Caesar, you know..., like we don't make our own dressing."" The BEST Tuscany Italian restaurant in Raleigh is Brio, hands down. Excellent tasty food, attentive service, and great ambiance (happy smiling patrons too). After our event (IMAX 3D Movie) we stopped at Sitti for a night cap around the corner from Café Luna and were greeted with a smile from everyone. The hostess was cordial, the bartendress attentive and very pleasant. We'll be back for dinner. There are many choices in Raleigh for a good to great dining experience. Café Luna is NOT one of them. You can discount reviews by delirious brides and anonymous overly bubbling individuals. If they really had a meal there and are not the owners or employees they couldn't be that happy. The truth is in the other reviews which are predominantly 1's (Poor) if the biased data are eliminated. Usually a restaurant will not have that many 1's ratings unless people are extremely dissatisfied. Hope this saves someone from a poor dining experience. more

Poopy mussles, lightly chilled bread, something that resembled frozen ravioli, and thin flat tasteless steak on a bed of little hashbrowns. \r Every mussle was full of a big glob of poop! No wonder why they were on ""special""! \r Atmosphere was good, great location but we will not be going there again. more

On March 3rd my wife and I went to Cafe Luna for our anniversary. We choose Cafe Luna based on reviews we read on City Search. I learned a valuable lesson. Don't beleive everything you read.\r \r From the very beginning the experience was a disappointment. Upon making the reservation we were told that we would be given a nice table. The first table they tried to sit us at was in a corner behind another couple and the only way in was to squeeze past the other dinners. We settled for another table that was next to a large party and nothing special about this table either.\r \r Next our server came to the table and handed us the menu's, and I use handed loosely, mor e like thrusted them at us. She was not friendly or helpful in the least and acted like she was doing us a big favor by waiting on us. \r \r We placed out entree order and before I could say I wanted a salad she was gone. I did get to order an appetizer of calamari which tasted a little under done. When out entree's arrived they were set before us and the individual delivering the food was a little more cordial. During our meal our server never came to the table to ask us how our meal was or to ask if we needed anything.\r \r Had our server showed an interest in how our food was we woul have told her that the salmon my wife ordered was dry and tasteless and that my linguini pescatore was over done. The lingini was was way over cooked and tasteless. The seafood was adequate but nothing to praise. My wife actually took the some of the sauce from my dish and put it on her salmon so she could eat it.\r \r When my wife finshed her meal and I was done picking at mine the server came back and took our plates and never asked us if we wanted coffee or dessert. Trying to salvage the night I asked for a dessert menu, however, after a discussion with my wife we decided not to chance anymore poor service or poor food and took the check.\r \r I attempted to tell the young lady at the hostess stand about my experience and it became instantly obvious that she did not care either.\r \r My wife and I went to Babymoon Cafe and had a night cap, coffee and dessert and it saved the night that Cafe Luna tried to wreck.\r \r I have seen some very reviews of this restaurant so I am hoping that the staff was new and the chef was having an off night.\r \r I was so dissapointed that I will not go back and give it a second try. I would have if I thought anyone cared because I believe in giving second chances when they are merrited. more

I had a great meal here, rigatoni with chicken and spinach in a cream sauce. A big portion, enough to take home for another meal! Service was excellent, very attentive and friendly, even a perfect wine suggestion. I would definitely return. more

Pros: Taste - The food is wonderful. Great taste and menu variety. What was supposed to be hot was hot, cold was cold. Great tasting Italian dishes. Value - The value on events and dinner is pretty good. I say value is good because the food is much nicer than an ""Olive Garden"" but does not charge a premium. Event service - The events manager and service is great and easy to work with. Wait staff - Very attentive, informed, and experienced. Atmosphere - Trendy and classic styling. A tiny bit loud due to the wood floors, but very nice. Cons: Book keeping - They made a minor mistake on a final event bill. We were on our honeymoon and had to go back/forth on the error. I thought it was tacky to push so hard for the difference to their positive. It's not my responsibility to do your book keeping. Owner - Owner went into detail on the book keeping error about how I as a customer was hurting his business over the book keeping error and how the small error meant a lot. I was asked very matter of factly ""why do you think you feel wronged"". Simply tell me, ""I'm sorry sir, but I simply can't honor your request."" Don't lecture me as a customer. Judging by other comments on Citysearch, this appears to be a common theme. Pros: Taste, value, service for events, wait staff, atmosphere Cons: Owner, book-keeping more

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 more

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.\r \r 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.\r \r 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.\r \r Brides, if you want a smooth day to sit back and enjoy your big day, Caffe Luna is for you! Pros: Helpful, accommodating staff more

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 more

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.\r \r 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 more

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 more

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.\r 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.\r The menu is totally boring and the execution seems to be more in line with Wedding food.\r There are too many good Italian restaurants in Raleigh for us to ever go back to Luna. more

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 more

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 more

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. more

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 more

Pay not attention to people on here who obviously have a negative view on most anything in life and want to take it out on someone. Try Caffe Luna for yourself - between the delicious food and great service (the owner personally goes through the restaurant to make sure you have a great experience), you too will love it! I've been there enough times to know this is really delicious Italian and there must be something really wrong with the people who have nothing but negative comments! more

My husband, I and our three children have had some wonderful dinners at Caffe Luna over the years, and Parker is a super host. We always go there for my birthday as I love the great food plus the attentiveness to every detail. \r \r My office goes to Caffe Luna for lunch at least twice a month and I can say unequivocally that this is the BEST restaurant in Raleigh!\r \r There are definitely many reasons it has been voted Best Italian Restaurant for several years in a row! more

Be sooo glad you checked with Citysearch and did your research-I wish I did. My husband took me here for my birthday. We are always glad to try new places, but kicked ourselves for not doing any research on this place. First, we ordered a bottle of champagne. They had no champagne flutes! They bill themselves as a wedding venue and have no champagne flutes. It was hard enough to drink champagne out of a wine glass for my birthday, I think I would have left my own reception if I had to drink out of one on my wedding day. \r Second, we ordered a starter to share and then two entre salads for our main course. All of the food arrived at the same time. Since it was a very hot evening, by the time we turned to our salads, they were wilted and warm. \r Third, we split a dessert. There was no asking if we wanted coffee, the bill arrived with the dessert as if they wanted us to take our dessert to go and get out right then so they could fill the table yet again. I am completely puzzled by the level of business such a mediocre restaurant does. I will never be back. more