B’Zu Cafe fka Zucca Ristorante

Wow that was fast. I liked this place better when it was still Zucca, but I guess both are now gone. I had eaten here last summer after getting back from Europe and remembering a new place had cropped up. Lamb kofte and peppercorn steak were ok. I remember the service being somewhat timid yet checking on us too much. I hope whatever shows up next is better as this block seems to be continually rotating.

Drove past this place last night. Looks like it is no longer there. Windows are covered by paper, lights off, doors locked. Zucca was great! B’Zu Café was garbage. Can’t wait to see what will come out of all this next.

As of November, B’Zu has a sign posted in the windows saying it’s «Closed Indefinitely.»

Went there on Nov 4 to use a Groupon. Sign on the door said «closed indefinitely»

CLOSED. Boarded up. NO LONGER IN BUSINESS.
Drove by after several unacknowledged reservation messages were left.
The place was dark with windows covered. Still had the Zucca sign on the storefront.
Guess we missed this one. GROUPON will issue a refund for dinner coupons.

Ordered a gnocchi for $ 13, there was barely anything on the dish. I couldn’t even consider it an appetizer. Friends got a $ 2 charge for splitting their food, which I’ve never heard of. Service was super slow. For a place that just opened, it doesn’t seem to want win over the customers.

Fine to eat there, but why would you choose to?
Service: ok, not great
Food: ok, not great. We got the moussaka and the lamb shank. The moussaka… I’m not greek, but I’ll venture to say it’s not moussaka at all. It’s a pile of eggplant in tasty sauce with a nice salad by it. No bechamel, no structural integrity. The lamb was fine, but the orzo it came on was completely bland.
What really turned me off this place was the chocolate cake. First they tell me it will take extra time. Sure. But what comes out tastes so much like freezer I couldn’t eat it. I thought I’d eat at least a piece of the garnishing strawberry, but that also tasted like fridge. Not sure it was even washed.
The place was pretty deserted when we went on a Saturday night. Not sure it’s long for this world.

Used my Groupon for two cocktails, an appetizer, two entrees and one dessert. Paid $ 40 for the Groupon, got way more than double that in value, and the meal was SCRUMPTIOUS. Spicy shrimp & garlic, side pita, 2 lamb shank dinners, 2 Cakebread Sauv Blanc & ice cream. STUPENDOUS. Leftovers+free parking

Decent food but a bit overpriced for the amount offered. It was served not very hot though. The waiter (I think he is the owner too) had a bit of a snobby attitude. The ambience is fine. Banana baklava was excellent. May come back for the dessert only.

I had a groupon that was waiting to be used for this place. I gathered up some friends for a delicious meal here. They were able to take reservations the day of and accomodate 6 people. This was my first time dining at this restaurant, and it did not disappoint. The food was really good. My favorite was the lam shank. Yummy!
I want to come here again to try their brie burger. I love brie so this sounds perfect for me.
Their Aegean platter was a great appetizer to share with so many people. The hummus was good. It was funny how the waiter kept trying to get us to order drinks. We eventually obliged and got a few drinks. Wow, they sure make them strong here!
Great place to hang out with your buddies after work or come in for a delicious lunch.

Our visit here last night started out on the precipice of being a terrible experience. I made a reservation for eight people about two weeks ago, confirmed that we’d be able to have their $ 20 prix fixe dinner if we made our reservation at 7, even though the dinner is only technically available until 7 pm, and the woman I spoke to said she’d be there the night of our dinner.
We get there. The place is cricket-​echoingly empty. The woman I spoke to is not there. They have no tables set for eight people. And the waiter tells me that we can only have a different prix fixe menu, one that costs about $ 40. And at this point, it’s 5 minutes to 7.
He then tells me that the system won’t let him put in the prix fixe dinner after 7 pm, and that if someone doesn’t show up for our reservation or doesn’t want the Sunset dinner, he can’t void it from our receipt. None of this makes sense.
Eventually, though, he did figure it out and we had a beautiful meal. It ended up being about $ 30 per person with drinks, tax, and tip. The lentil soup was great– even received rave reviews from a member of our party who’s particularly particular about his lentil soup. The gnocchi tasted rich and good, but wasn’t a very big portion. I’d recommend their trout (which they offered as a replacement for the salmon, which they were out of) if they have it. It’s served on your choice of orzo or falafel… (Come on, is that even a real choice??) And the falafel is so crisp and complements the fish perfectly. Especially if you’re sipping on some Sauvignon Blanc to go with.
We’d definitely come here again, but maybe with a smaller group or less confusing expectations… At least until the restaurant matures a little bit. Although by then it might not be such a private hole-​in-​the-​wall, if people start realizing how good their food is!

So normally when I see that a restaurant is mostly empty and there is a staff member out front recruiting customers with samples, I assume the worst. I’m very glad I had lunch here anyway — because the food was really delicious!
In particular, the Aegean meze appetizer for two was just out of this world. I’ve had similar dishes at four good restaurants in Palo Alto and Mountain View, and this one was easily the best.
The eggplant was extremely tasty, the marinated and thinly sliced red pepper with lemony little olives was addictive, and the oregano pita was RIDICULOUS. When I drove away after lunch, in the car I was wishing that I had ordered some of that pita to go. Seriously, it is so good. Someone in that kitchen really cares about food.
Service was capable, although I think it could be even warmer and friendlier.
If you’ve read my other reviews, you might have noticed how important it is to me for my guests to enjoy meals as well. Not only did my dining companion enjoy our lunch very much, but I thought of a few people I want to come back with who are very picky and love extremely fresh Mediterranean food as much as I do.

The cuisine is predominantly Greek with a couple of leftovers from the Zucca’s menu. As another reviewer mentioned, the moussaka was tasty; the accompanying arrugula and beat salad was okay, but the dish was a bit light. The grilled salmon was also okay. What was totally disappointing was the chicken kabob dish, with very plain white rice and equally plain steamed vegetables. This dish should be taken off the menu; let’s hope that a creative chef can come up with something a whole lot more appealing to serve.

Its close to a 5 star experience. With time B’zu will attain that. The staff was great, service was awesome and the food was simply delectable. The Mousaka was probably one of the best I’ve ever eaten. The décor has been updated and I bet this place will soon become a place to be seen at.

My wife and I walked down Castro street looking for a restaurant to dine in. All the surrounding restaurants were packed, but B’Zu, just newly opened, had plenty of seating so we decided to give it a try.
The food was cooked well so not complaints there. However, my salmon was a bit fishy so this was a turn-​off. My wife had the moussaka that came with a beet salad. The portion was a bit skimpy for the price so I can’t recommend ordering this item.
Service was on par, but I felt our waiter was a bit too casual.
Our check came out to be $ 42.02 including tax and tip.

Me and my hubby came here for a special occasion recently. We had a Groupon to use, so it came with a full meal (appetizer, entrée, drinks and also dessert). The food was solid, we ordered the warm French brie with pears, nuts which was delicious. I ordered the Seafood pasta and my hubby got the lamb shank. Both were good dishes, and capped it off with a banana «baklava» which was banana wrapped in phyllo dough and fried. We liked the food, but the service was really slow. In fact, many times we were just waiting to see if we could catch the waitress’ attention. Other than that, it’s a good location, allowing us to people watch and has a nice bar and ambience inside.

I purchased a groupon recently and had high hopes for this place. I called and made a reservation for 8pm on a Friday evening. The hostess was friendly, but the rest of the service was mediocre. First of all, the server was unnecessarily rude — I told him I had a groupon and he said, «ok where is it» and I showed him on my phone and he said, «what am i supposed to do with this. you need to print it out» — and I explained to him that it clearly says on the groupon that I can pull it up on my mobile app. I’m a regular user of groupon and know that if it’s required to print it out, it would not even say to «pull it up on your mobile app.» My problem with the server is that he was just very rude about it and continued to say, «well I don’t know, I don’t think so»… so after I stood my ground and insisted that it should be fine, we made our order, only to find out most of the dishes could not be made because they were out of everything. 3 out of 4 items we wanted to order was no longer an option! The server was not apologetic at all, he just stated it matter-​of-​factly. Then after we were done with our meal, we were waiting for the dessert menu but were left sitting for a long time before the busser came and asked, «are you waiting for something?» I’m thinking in my head… um yeah, we’re waiting for service!
So in the end the groupon thing was fine. The manager came and scanned my groupon on my phone. It seemed simple and like she knew what she was doing, so the attitude from the waiter was completely unnecessary. I was so excited because the menu looked good, but unfortunately we were not pleased and will not be coming back. I understand they were super busy, but that doesn’t justify bad service (I still tipped the guy a decent amount though, just because the busser and hostess were fine). Next time we will try one of the other mediterranean/​greek places on the block.

My friend and I came here on a Friday night, right when a storm of people flooded into the restaurant, so we waited at the bar while the hostess tried to weather the crowd. The bartender seemed out of touch with his craft, but will probably bounce back with time. Our server’s name was Adelia. She was a good server because she gave us lots of recommendations. What was unfortunate was the lack of lamb and shrimp. (we wanted Spanish Shrimp and Lamb Shank, but alas it was not meant to be) For a Friday night, I think the kitchen should be better prepped because it’s difficult to serve Mediterranean food without those two ingredients.
We got Warm Brie for the appetizer. The brie was good, in combination with the toasted bread and walnut. The fruit chutney in the description is basically six slices of apple. A good dish, but you can seriously just make it at home. My friend’s seafood linguine was OK, but the clams didn’t draw out the flavor of the overall dish, kind of an ingredient that stood alone in the dish. The pasta sauce didn’t seem homemade. There was no visible tomato in the sauce, and it had the same color as Campbell’s Tomato Soup. I’m not necessarily insinuating that it was canned pasta sauce, but perhaps it’s not worth $ 19, and according to my friend, could be reduced to $ 13. My Greek Salmon was good. The salmon was cooked perfectly. My vegetables were OK. They didn’t seem roasted like the menu description, so I wondered if they were steamed. (You can check my pictures if you want to scrutinize) The Orzo on the side was good too. They’re kind of like inflated grains of rice. (I didn’t know what Orzo was before xd)
Finally, for dessert we got the Banana Baklava. Oddly, I don’t remember seeing Italian gelato in it like the menu indicates, I just remember there was a lot of whipped cream. The banana was good, but it wasn’t a memorable dessert.
We used a Groupon, but the staff seemed confused about how to apply it to the bill. Again, I think they will get used to it with time. Getting an appetizer, 2 entrees, a dessert, and 2 cocktails for $ 39 is definitely a good value. I think B’zu Café should do Groupon more often.
As for advice on improvement, I think keeping stock of all the ingredients is important, especially for weekend dinner services. Otherwise the servers and the hostess did a good job. Whoever’s in charge of stocking the kitchen though, Gordon Ramsay would throw the book at you.

Great staff! Very courteous — just here for an appetizer but we’ll be repeat customers.

Love, love the Grilled Brie Burger. It was my immediate choice when I scanned the menu.
Ample amount of brie. Thick, juicy burger cooked to perfection per my request– medium. With it came a good amount of crunchy fries.
We also shared a fat Falafel Wrap. I say fat because it was a huge wrap cut in half. With it came a side of mixed greens salad.
We sat outside surrounded by plants and people walking around. A perfect day for al fresco dining. We also tried a couple of their beers.
The service was outstanding. Our waiter was very professional. The younger one was eye candy for you single ladies:)
Btw– the big red sign on the building says Zucca. It no longer exists. It is now B’Zu!