Luciana

We ate at Luciana in July of 2020. The outside seating area was very loud, and there were lots of mall pedestrians so close that their cigarette smoke came up to our table, as did their yelling. We had to ask for water (again) after we requested some at the outset. Our salad courses were quite good, accompanied by bread and olives, and my salad was huge. I guess we should have realized from the prices that these would have nearly made a meal in themselves. But we also ordered pasta - big mistake. The two pastas we ordered had nearly the same components added. Mine, the 'gnocchi with cherry tomatoes' was so salty (from the olives) that I had to move those aside. No one offered parmesan cheese or fresh cracked pepper. Something about these dishes demonstrated that they were just thrown together - they were not distinct or special. While the wait staff came by for a perfunctory "how is everything?" - in the end they were not particularly attentive, it took way too long to get our dessert, and even longer to get our check - by which time I was already hot under the collar. Making people who spend $100 on a table - in Jerusalem - wait like this is not good restaurant management. The wine list was meant to only make an impression, the prices were so high that it was ridiculous, as $13 a glass is about twice the price they should charge if they want to encourage people to drink wine, and the bottle prices were just so far into outer space that I couldn't understand what they were thinking when they did their pricing, unless they are aiming at the tourist market - but these days in Jerusalem, we are all locals, and we know better. In the end, we could have have two appetizers and split one main dish.