La Locanda - San Luis Obispo (CA)

5 /5 Vahan Markari: Came up to SLO from San Diego for the long holiday weekend and even though the restaurant was packed(luckily we made a reservation the day before), we had excellent service and food! Our server Melissa had several recommendations for wine and food for our family of five. We had burrata, escargot, and the warm buttery involtini to start. We tried several pasta dishes and an osso bucco for the table to share. Everyone loved their food, we had to taste the tiramisu and gelato! Don’t skip this place! We will definitely be back next time we are in the area visiting in a few months!

4 /5 Marlene Pontel: Small but beautiful restaurant, the service was excellent, the food all was fresh and homemade! I had the burrata salad and it was so refreshing with cucumber noodles, tomatoes, and of course burrata cheese on a bed of arugula with a very light and refreshing vinaigrette dressing. For the main dish I tried their lasagna bolognese and it was creamy and savory and just plain delicious! For dessert we tried their chocolate mousse and their tiramisu both were incredibly soft and delicious and definitely not over sweetened. Definitely worth the money you pay to eat there.

1 /5 Timothy Law Snyder: Alas, among the pricier restaurants in SLO, this is the one that does not rate. The food is superb, but they do not have their business squared away. We waited *almost two hours* for our entrees tonight, and I had to speak to the person in charge to finally get them. Our server gave is the old, “we were a person short and have a lot of business” line, but that is not an excuse for not being able to serve food at a place designed to do exactly that, especially at a place that purports to provide—and charges for—a fine dining experience. If you do not have staff to serve your customers, you should not seat those customers. This is our third and last time at this restaurant. The first was fabulous. The second was near their closing time, and our service and care were secondary to cleaning the restaurant and setting up the next day’s tables. This visit, wow, they were barely functional. It is a shame because the chef and food prep—once the food arrives (we almost left to go get dinner at a taqueria!—that should never happen)—are quite good. Better by far: Buona Tavola, Mistura, even Eureka. This is a no-go.

3 /5 Gaius Gracchus: Starting with the good: Service was very good and friendly. The atmosphere was nice, especially after the music volume was lowered to a level that was tolerable. The wine list was really good - it is nice to have some Italian/French offerings in an area that tends to only have local wines. The wines compliment the food very well. The not so good: The food is mediocre at best. If you are a foodie like we are, and actually know either how to cook yourself or have traveled extensively enough to know what really fine cuisine is, you will *not* be impressed by this restaurant. If, on the other hand, you think Olive Garden constitutes haute cuisine, you might think this is really good food. The arugula salad was fresh enough but the dressing was unbalanced in the extreme. It was like tasting nothing but raw lemon juice. Very sour. The lasagna bolognese was not even as good as the frozen lasagna we buy at the grocery. The butternut squash ravoli was not bad, but a bit too sweet. It was not a bad experience but the food is not compelling enough for us to return.

1 /5 Jonathan Ayala: We would have loved to try this place. My partner and I went last night around 7:30, for a reservation we made to celebrate my birthday. We arrived, and were seated promptly... then we were completely ignored for about 10-15 minutes while the place was nearly empty, apart from two other parties, both which had already been served. Ill be charitable and refrain from trying to divine the motives or reasons for why we were ignored. The place is cute, and the menu looked delicious, but unfortunately we felt so unwelcomed that we just left. Hopefully, your mileage will vary! (We went to a restaurant up the street and then played pinball afterward, so it was a lovely birthday regardless).