Cafe Rustica

Our last several meals were a big disappointment. Volume seems to be the priority over quality ingredients.
The beets in the beet salad tasted canned, inexcusable. The pizza crust was tasteless, the tomatoes — canned?
Rustica seems to have lost its way.

We stopped by after a day of wine tasting and a recommendation from one of them to stop by. We ordered a spinach salad and the thin crust Jose’s Pizza Verde. It was a light meal, not too filling but perfect for the two of us. So good we only had two pieces of pizza left over. Hubby loves salsa verde so we had to give it a try. It was a very different pizza, not typical which is good, topped with tomatillo sauce, chicken, corn, feta, jack, parmesan, cherry tomatoes and cilantro. The verde sold us, the corn and feta intrigued us and it all melded perfectly. The atmosphere was cozy, rustic woods and stone, dimly lit, just my style but not stuffy or formal. It was a wonderful ending to a great day in a different area of Carmel. Carmel Valley along with Café Rustica will be on our list every time we return to Carmel going forward.

Café Rustica is a real find! We have been here many times and the food is consistently fabulous /​and service friendly and comfy. It is by far the best food in Carmel Valley, and we have tried most places. Slow cooked flavors, hearty portions, amazing desserts — and reasonable wines. Plus friendly neighborhood feeling service. You can’t go wrong here!

Cute little place recommended to us by some locals. Very good friendly service. I liked my butternut squash ravioli. The sauce was really tasty.

Great, great little Italian restaurant with the BEST cozy & romantic atmosphere, delicious, innovative, yet classic cuisine, wonderful service, and reasonable prices. My beautiful partner and I discovered Café Rustica on a recent getaway to Carmel Valley, and we liked it so much we went back there the second night of our stay. I highly recommend it!

Exceptional. Came here during a day trip around the central coast. Beautiful boutique eatery with flatbreads, salads, and sandos. I had the egg salad sandwich (added smoked salmon) served with a warm potato salad, and my husband had the Lorriane flatbread. Both excellent. I had a glass of the Heller Chardonnay and my husband a glass of the Garnet Pinot. Came here with our son. Decent for kids (they are very welcoming and even have a kids menu) but I would recommend it for kids who are good with their indoor voices. The meal in whole — Delicious. Fun to enjoy local wines with our meal. I would also recommend checking out this little community and wine taste. Adorable.

The owner/​manager may not be the friendliest guy, but boy the food certainly makes up for it. THE best pizza (flammekueche) I had ever had. The tastiest escargot outside France. The exquisite butter lettuce salad. And hold your breath: this unassuming bistro has a rigatoni bolognese dish that is the envy of most Italian restaurants. I am so in love with this place, and I wanna try every single pizza dish on the menu. This restaurant is very popular, so make a reservation.

Yum yum, this place is great. We came here for dinner. The service was fantastic and the food was tasty. Variety of entrees and appetizers as well as desserts. Dim lights make for a romantic ambiance, but it is a bit loud and very close quarters. Definitely worth visiting.

My wife and I witnessed a very upsetting scene at tonight, and the waitstaff and manager were entirely to blame. A pair of young women were hounded out of the restaurant for, believe it or not, not eating their dinner quickly enough. One woman left in tears. Their treatment by the hostess, the waiter, and the manager, was atrocious. I was left with the impression that this restaurant is run by spoiled children. The food here is not good enough to suffer such immaturity.

My wife wanted to eat at Café Rustica again because we had a nice meal last time. Unfortunately nothing was as good.
The service was slow, the food wasn’t hot enough, and by the end of the meal we were cold in the covered side patio even with the heat lamps.

This is one of those amazing hidden gems that only a few would know about. Thanks to Unilocal,my brother found this place and so we decided to give it a try. Located in a quiet little neighborhood of Carmel Valley, Café Rustica… and aptly named… is a charming little rustic European country style house turned into an European café… and is set on a little street of other quaint little country shops, nurseries, wine tasting establishments, etc.
We came here for a Sunday lunch without a reservation, but thank goodness there were still tables available in a semi covered heated outdoor patio as the inside was completely full. We were shown to our table by a very nice and friendly gentleman whom we later learned was actually the owner. The other reason we were seated on the patio was because the tables inside tended to be for smaller groups, and their were six of us.
Our server soon came over to hand us the menus and to take our drink orders. Wow… the menu items all looked so good! We had a difficult time choosing what to order as we all wanted to try as many items as possible. As for me, I really wanted to try the thin crusted wood fired gourmet mushroom pizza, but also had a craving for the Farm Fresh Egg Salad sandwich on a toasted French baguette… which came with a side of what seemed like saucy version of sautéed potatoes with onions. …not sure what to call it, but it was yummy. Anyway, since I’m on vacation I went ahead and ordered both the sandwich and pizza… to share.
My father and brother wanted to try other pizzas too, so in addition we ordered the Napolitano and Vegetarian pizzas. Excellent thin crust pizzas! …very rustic style with the freshest ingredients that you can actually see and taste… served hot and fresh out of the oven… delicious! Oh, I thought the olives on the Napolitano was perhaps a bit strong in taste and so this pizza wasn’t my favorite.
Other items we ordered were the Fire Roasted Artichoke, Fresh Steamed Clams, the Hungarian Paprika Beef Goulash, the Wood Oven Baked Rigatoni, and the Butternut Squash Raviolis. I only got to taste the clams and artichoke… the steamed clam’s broth had a strong tomato acid taste to it, and although it was good and everyone enjoyed dipping bread in it, I felt it was too acidic for my liking. The artichoke was good… I especially liked the sliced red and yellow roasted bellpeppers and olive garnish on top… yum.
Needless to say we were really stuffed by the end of all this food, but an excellent meal wouldn’t be complete without at least sampling some of their dessert offerings. Plus, they had my favorite bread pudding (absolutely can’t pass on) either with chocolate sauce as an off menu special or the regular bread pudding with raspberry and apricot sauce. We ordered the regular. My father loves Crème Brulee so we ordered one of those too. They both tasted really good. .not too sweet. However, the bread pudding was different from what I’m used to… less bread and more like custard pudding… not too bad.
Overall I really enjoyed this place very much… a wonderfully warm, cozy, casual setting to enjoy all these amazingly fresh ingredients… expertly cooked, and beautifully presented. Service was very good too.

Spectacular food. I got the sand dabs special served with delicious warm potato salad and a butter lettuce salad. Sand dabs were pan sautéed and served with a lovely lemony sauce.
The only reason I didn’t give it five stars is that they didn’t bring us bread and butter like all the other guests.
We were not able to sit outside because we didn’t have a reservation so I highly recommend calling first so you can sit outside. That would have made it perfect.

After chugging, err, I mean tasting wine at Talbott and Boekenoogen, we were in need of adding some food in our stomachs before passing out. On some recommendations from people in our party, we headed here and got a table outside. It was a beautiful day so we were more than happy to sit outside. For cold days, they have heaters outside.
They had many specials that day that sounded delicious, but I opted for the thin crust wood fired pizza. I got the Dynamite pizza with sausage, basil, pepperoni, and tomato sauce. Delicious! The crust was thin and crisps and the basil added a freshness that was perfect.
Our server was friendly and the staff kept refilling our glasses with water without being asked. Everyone was nice and attentive.
I’m curious to try other items on the menu so I’ll be back to see what else they have to offer.