Barista - Cucina

May 22 - Since my last post and review, it is only fair I give an update. After my last review, I was kindly approached by the Manager who assured me that the service we had received was not the norm, and would I like to visit again. I decided to take my wife for her birthday on the 28/05. I have to say that on this occasion the welcoming and service were outstanding. We arrived just after 7, and as I had requested, we had been seated next to the window. This is a lovely spot within the restaurant. Our drinks order was taken within 5 mins or so. What then followed was what we had expected on my last visit, a number of Tapas dishes were served over the next 90 mins or so – perfect. It allowed my wife and I to have a bite to eat and absorb the atmosphere. As we did last time we had chosen the bottomless Tapas, but after seven dishes, we were done! The food was fabulous, ranging from cold meats, salads, breads, meatballs, fish, chicken etc. We genuinely could not fault the food at all. As we were leaving, there was a lovely gesture from the Manageress who had taken the trouble to pop a small candle in the top of a brownie cake for my wife! I do hope any future visits will be as good as this one. Definitely 5 stars on this occasion! Feb 22 - I have to say at the outset that the service we had at Cucina (Penistone) was dreadful, and we will not be going back to Cucina in a hurry. I booked the table over four weeks ago for a Valentines treat for my wife, and when I received my call from Cucina to secure my booking, I politely asked if we could have a window seat. Food wise there were a couple of options available, so we chose the “eat as much as you can” tapas for two hours – with the expectation that we would be able to enjoy the ambience, music, have a few drinks, and then have tapas brought out to us over the two hour period – as you would expect with any tapas restaurant. On arrival just before 8, we had been seated totally opposite to where we wanted – in fact, it was bar one table, the furthest away from the window. Not a great start. Our drinks order was taken promptly, and this was a positive. We were then left waiting for nearly 30 minutes before our first food arrived - bread. In our opinion, this was far too long. We then had in very quick succession a further seven, possibly eight meals delivered – far too many all at once. It happened in such a way that we were blindsided and unable to stop them. It took a little over 20 minutes for the dishes to arrive – so many that they hardly fitted on to the table. As these were mostly hot dishes, my wife and I found ourselves racing to eat the food before it went cold. When I made enquiries with the couples to the left and right of the table we were sat at (who were both still having dishes delivered at 8.30), both couples told me that they had been in since 7, and that the tapas was 7 till 9! That made perfect sense to us – Cucina were wanting to finish the tapas at 9. Why weren’t we told? – we would have been more than happy to arrive earlier at 7 and eaten our food over a more leisurely pace. My wife then ordered another drink – it never arrived. Just after 9 (more or less 30 minutes after our first dish arrived!) we decided to leave and we asked for the bill – it never arrived! (15 minutes we waited). So, we went to pay at the till. I told the young lad we had not experienced the service we had been expecting, and his words were something similar to “oh well”. The good news is that Penistone and the surrounding areas do have some excellent bars and restaurants! Cucina is not one I can recommend.