Lucia Ristorante

I have a very thoughtful partner who put a lot of time into looking for a nice Italian restaurant in the North End for date night with the understanding that I will be looking for gluten-free options. I don't get very many one-star reviews. I'm not entirely sure who is at fault for my experience it could be someone who works in the kitchen it could be the server... I told them that I couldn't eat gluten due to an allergy. I was served a huge pile of wheat pasta. Do better, I guess. Mistakes happen. I do have a larger problem with the way it was handled after it was discovered to be a problem. I identified the error before putting food in my mouth and sent it back to the kitchen. When the food returned, it was literally the same dish and cut of meat but the pasta had been swapped out. It was evident that Lucia Ristorante did not value my safety. Aside from that, the gluten-free pile of pasta that I received had been cooked hours before and was lukewarm and gummy. Reader, I understand that gluten-free pasta is not the main focus of North End dining but this was the most vile gluten-free pasta I have ever experienced. As you can imagine that's kind of saying a lot. If that was all that happened I might actually give them another chance and just be really clear next time and provide boundaries up front about what is acceptable for a replacement.... except that the actual dish that I got was such salty dry Bland chicken. I have to say that the fried artichoke was really good. But a few fried artichokes on a dish full of vile pasta kind of eroded my trust to the point where I don't think it's worth trying again.

I have ordered online. It was the worst qua quattro formaggi pasta that I have ever had. It tasted only cream! Where were the 4 cheeses? Not even Parmesan on the top… Besides, I have ordered gluten-free and have no idea if what I received was a gluten-free, nothing indicating it. Just a pasta glued by cream sauce. Even if it were very good, as I was expecting, very expensive. If you are in Boston, planning to eat pasta or need gluten-free choices, look for another place.