Cucina Giovanni - St. Augustine

This is our good-to place for pizza. Very typical of New York style pizza that I grew up with and live. The dinner are good, but it's really the pizza that makes it a star. They deliver after 5pm. They have a dining room and a full bar as well. Friday and Saturday you'll need a 1 or 2 hour lead time for delivery.

New to the area and love Italian food. I decided to give it a try. First of all it is clean and neat. I was greeted right away and noticed a total of three other tables seated, so not crowded at all. Waited to have my order taken and more waiting for my ice tea to arrive. Ordered a simple spaghetti with meat sauce and a side salad, not complicated for an Italian restaurant. Fifteen minutes and no side salad. Finally the salad arrived and 10 minutes after that the bowl of spaghetti. An Italian restaurant MUST get their marinara sauce right, it's on an equal level as getting the pasta cooked right. The sauce had that high acidicness that you get with store bought. The meat was simple crumbled hamburger meat. It was eatable but certainly did not impress. To sum up: Appearance-great Service- friendly but slow. Food- eatable My quest for food, traditional Italian food in St Augustine continues.

As we are Italian and love Italian food this is the place to go. The atmosphere is very nice, warm and welcoming. The service was quick and efficient. The food came it accurate and hot just the way we like it. Enjoyed our visit.

We were on our way to another well known chain restaurant when we spotted this place as it was closer than our original choice and we initially wanted pizza, we decided to try it. When we walked in, the place barely had five full tables so the restaurant was mostly empty, this made us happy because we figured dinner would be served fairly quickly. It was clean and looked nice so we stayed. The waitress seated us, took our drink order immediately and brought it out. We waited over 10 minutes for her to return to take our order and that was because we asked another waitress to find her. She claimed they were short staffed but this place was so slow it shouldn 't have made a difference. Anyway, the waitress arrived trumpets play in triumph). My kids each ordered a kids pizza, one with cheese, and one with pepperoni. My husband and I ordered their chicken parmesan pizza and added green peppers and onions. For our appetizer, we ordered mozzarella sticks and fried ravioli. Before the waitress left we mentioned that the restaurant was very cold. I mean it 's Florida, we 're used to AC but this place was so cold you could feel it in your bones. She acknowledged that they were aware as everyone complains but if they adjust it, then it will be too hot. I wasn 't impressed because, from being in the service industry for many years, you accommodate your patrons. If there 's a malfunction in the system fix it because a happy, comfortable customer is a repeat customer. She said that they cannot adjust it. So they rather have customers uncomfortable while eating. If I didn 't place my order and my kids weren 't starving I would have left. Our appetizers were served, the mozzarella sticks had a nice golden color to them, they look great. They looked like they were made in house. The fried ravioli was overcooked, like the deep Black ish brown color, definitely over fried. Both appetizers were bland, literally no flavor. I think they used the cheapest Italian breadcrumbs they could find and they clearly made no attempt to season it up and try to make it tastier. I 'm thinking like a COVID symptom, no taste but we 're so hungry we ate it. Let me back track, kids liked it, but kids that age, like more plain food than flavorful food. Their pallets are still developing so that doesn 't say much. Finally the pizza 's come out. I wish I thought about taking pictures earlier but I didn 't, lesson learned). What you are seeing below is after we ate our main course sorry). They looked great when they came out. Our chicken was over cooked on our pizza but the peppers and onions didn 't look over cooked, they still looked like they had a crunch to them, so like the Meatloaf song goes Two outta three ain 't bad . We manga eat), I never in a million years thought a pizza could be so plain in flavor. I mean the sauce must have went directly into the pizza straight from the can without seasoning, except maybe sugar it was too sweet. The crust wasn 't very good either, thin in some areas, thicker in others. Epic fail in the food department. One out of four people at our table liked their pizza and kids like plain so draw your conclusion there. We took our leftovers to go we were hoping to find a homeless person to give them what was left. There is no way we 're eating it again and I didn 't want to waste the food. We figured it may have no taste but they would be hungry enough to eat it and it would have provided a meal for them. We couldn 't find anyone, which is a good thing. We even stopped in a city like area and couldn 't find anyone. They ended up in the trash because there is no way we would sit through eating that again willingly. In closing our waitress was horrible, she had no personality and honestly looked like she did want to be there. When she 'd check on our table, she was practically walking off before we could answer the question of how everything was. She should have listened because maybe she could have been the silver lining in this epic fail of a meal. We are in this area often and we have officially added this to our Never again list, which isn 't long but definitely needed and heeded. So if you 're going to give this place a try, bring a jacket maybe gloves if you have an elderly person with you. Don 't expect much except to get what you ordered at the bare minimum but remember taste isn 't one of them. Bon appetite! PS Any of the good reviews must be friends of the owners or people that go there due to lack of choice and experience, maybe even taste buds. Read the reviews as to why they 're not getting five stars. You 'll read about how horrible everything is from service to the low quality food. If you still go there, don 't say you haven 't been warned.

Pretty good food. My fries were really delicious! I ordered the shrimp scampi, and it was very lemony, which I loved!