We thought about sending it back but with the need to get home before the boys’ bedtime got pushed back too late, we did not do so. We asked for the steak to be cooked to a medium rare but what came out ranged from medium well in the center to well done at the edges. The second main had even less to recommend it: Manzo or aged and grilled New York strip served with spinach and ricotta gnocchi. The vegetables on the plate were much better as was the marsala reduction. The Maiale al Marsala, seared duroc pork prime rib, was not seared but completely overcooked. Things did not get much better with the mains. The spaghetti was not al dente and the sauce which featured fire-roasted tomatoes and peppers blended together was blah and, again, not emulsified properly with the pasta starch. The third pasta was the Spaghetti ai Frutti di Mare del Giorno. The chicken breast was overcooked (yet another repeated theme), the tomatoes were hard/not ripe and flavourless, and the broth sat in a pool at the bottom of the bowl, with no effort seemingly having been made to emulsify it with the pasta starch. The pasta and broccolini were cooked well but that’s about all that went right here. We also got the Penne alla Luci, which featured penne with diced chicken breast, broccolini, chicken broth and fresh tomatoes. The chanterelles were limp, the pasta was overcooked and the sauce barely coated any of it (this was also a theme that was to be repeated). It looked good but, alas, had little character. First up was the pasta special: housemade tajarin (aka tagliolini) with chanterelles, triple cream cheese, leeks and figs. Actually, we’d ordered two but after seeing the portion size we ordered a third. The polenta, served with braised pork on top, was better but nothing so very special either. This mostly because the cantaloupe was hard and flavourless (this theme was to be repeated later). (Well, to be accurate we started with the bread and butter they put down on the table.) These were the Prosciutto e Melone and the Polenta Fritta. We started with two selections from their antipasti section.
We opted, however, for the carte and for our usual sharing of plates. In addition to the regular menu there were a specials and it transpired that it was also possible to put together a four course tasting menu for $47.
A few starters, a few pastas and a few mains and desserts. The menu is quite edited, which generally is a good sign.
And they stayed busy through all the time we were there. The restaurant was quite busy, with only a few tables empty indoors and even fewer outside. We booked a table on their patio (adjoining their parking lot) and arrived at 6 pm on a Saturday. Luci Ancora therefore seemed like a very good choice. We were a party of four: the missus and I and our two boys, who now deeply enjoy eating adult dinner out with us once a month, especially if the food on offer is Italian or Italian-adjacent. No, we really did not care for our meal, especially at the price we paid for it. As such, I am fairly sure this review will not be very popular. It’s now been open almost as long as Ristorante Luci had been and, from what I can tell, is a beloved restaurant among many diners in the Cities. Luci Ancora was an expansion that happened about a decade later. The original restaurant opened in 1988 (and closed in 2016). The restaurant’s origin is as essentially a second location of the since-closed Ristorante Luci (the site now of Myriel, just a couple of hundred feet from Luci Ancora) in the Highland Park neighbourhood of St. Well, in an attempt to begin to redress that gap we had dinner recently at Luci Ancora, a venerable St. I’m not really sure why that is-I suppose I am guilty as much as anyone else of following the pr-driven newer places that get more attention online. With very few exceptions, most of the high-end restaurants I’ve reviewed either opened after we got to Minnesota in 2007 or not so very much before. I suppose this is true, especially at the high end. I have been told on occasion that for someone who reviews a lot of restaurants in the Twin Cities I have a major blind spot when it comes to older restaurants.
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