When we arrived in San Diego on our short trip to southern California we immediately went to our old “living room” - Cucina Basilico. Classic Italian food made completely in-house with care. It was also great to see Francesca and Danilo again (and we are glad the restaurant survived the pandemic)
It was great as always - hopefully we will now have the chance to come down more often
Thanks for the entry! So nice to see some discussion of San Diego spots. This is a new one form us, so I added it to the list. We really enjoy fresh pasta. Our go to has been Piacero Mio in South Park, but that lunch menu intrigues me. So many places have stopped lunch service. I find it a great way to check out new spots on a budget.
Piacere Mio was also always nice but tended to have quite underwhelming service (very rushed and forgetting dishes). We never tried Cucina Basilico for lunch - would be interesting to hear if the paninis are also good
They have a 2nd location in an out-of-the-way and hard to access strip mall on the border between San Diego and La Mesa. It’s pretty good and always hits the spot.
Cucina Basilico https://www.cucinabasilico.com in San Diego is one of hidden gems (in a nondescript mall in Kearny Mesa - like so many hidden gems of restaurants in California) we have visited and supported since they opened more than ten years ago. And so every time we visit San Diego we have to have at least one meal Basilico - this time we had lunch on our last day.
Everything at Basilico is made in-house and especially the pasta (always a few different versions available each day) is outstanding. And their tiramisu and panna cotta are still our good standards.
