Lupi

More like 4 – 4.5 stars. In a city that does Italian food poorly, it’s nice to find a little gem like Lupi.
Authentic, homemade Italian cuisine from the bread to the fresh pasta noodles. Started off sharing the thinly sliced prosciutto with burrata and arugula. I had the pappardelle with lamb ragu which was excellent – also, very large portions. Washed it down with a glass of chianti at a reasonable 8.50 per glass. Live music a couple of nights during the week. Small bar area where one can also dine. Can definitely see coming back here often. Fairly priced, considering a La Jolla zip code.

Food is absolutely terrible. Ordered the appetizer of clams, muscles and scallops in a white wine garlic sauce. Scallops overcooked, the muscles were so tiny you could barely find them (they even served one with a severely cracked shell), and the sauce was like a weak tomato broth. My entrée and my date’s entrée both sucked so bad we barely ate them. The veal I got was served with a bland and gunky textured sauce that sucked, my date got one of the pasta specials that was overcooked and mushy. Waiter and staff were friendly but overall service pretty subpar. Luckily my date was awesome but I’ll never eat at this place again! Next time I have a craving for food that tastes like it came from the Von’s frozen food section I’ll just go to Von’s and save $ 80. How do people actually call this good Italian food?

I never review, but this deserves one. Would be hard to imagine worse service. Food was not terrible, but nothing special. Felt like the host and wait staff made a game out of who could pay the least amount of attention to the customers.

I normally leave good reviews for excellent service and great experiences because I truly believe in positive reinforcement but I could not pass up the opportunity to warn others about this place. The food was actually good but the whole experience was so horrendous that the food was overshadowed. First of all it was Valentine’s Day, which I expect to be busy but a reservation was available so I thought we would be accommodated. Furthermore, holidays are your time to shine. A time to get new costumes who may not otherwise try your restaurant. They clearly had no interest in stepping up their game.
When we arrived there was a line out the door. No host or hostess. Although everyone had reservations, they were just taking people from the front of the line, first come first served. As we waited the half hour past our reservation time there were a good 4 – 5 tables open. When it was our turn the gentleman said he would set a table in 2 minutes. Again, several tables were open. 10 minutes later we were seated. My kids were starving. It took another 15 minutes just to get water and bread.
Because of the holiday they had a limited menu. They were not able to fulfill my daughter’s request for garlic bread or my son’s request for spaghetti with marinara on the side. We got our food 40 minutes later and my son hated the dish he ended up with. I asked the waiter to take it off the bill. Since it was so late I wasn’t going to order something else for him. When the bill arrived his meal was still on there. That put us over the edge as it was now 9:00 (6:45 reservation). My husband and I were both furious. That was the only time I left $ 0.00 for a tip. Needless to say we won’t be going back.

Bland food, terrible service, overpriced. Went there for valentine’s day where they had a special menu where everything was about twice the price with no increase in quality. I mean $ 28 for 5 shrimp slathered in oil and burnt mushrooms? Will not be going back, having worked in the food service industry I always try to tip at least 20% but this was one time I had a hard time putting down 10%. The only thing that I enjoyed about this place was the bread at the beginning, other than that I found no redeeming qualities in this place at all.

Delicious, authentic Italian food. Great folks over there, treat you like family. Highly recommend the homemade pastas and the specials are always amazing. Buon appetito!

First, I would give zero stars if I could.
Wow. I have been to Lupi’s so many times previously with friends and family and tonight was the most horrible experience I’ve ever had. Their food is quite good so I’m writing this to comment on their customer service.
So yes. I had a living social deal but I made sure to call ahead to give them a heads up that I’ll be using it. When we got there, I told the man that sat us I will be living social deal.
After sitting down, my friend ordered a glass of wine and I ordered a soda as I’ve already had some wine earlier at a gathering. The waiter rudely joked that I should order alcohol. (I get it. Alcohol = $$$)
Then, we ordered appetizers as we all had dinner plans with other friends later in the evening. The waiter placed our order and then came back letting us know that our living social wouldn’t apply on appetizers so we asked for the menus to order something else; said it is too late as the order was placed. I asked him why he didn’t tell us sooner as we told him we only wanted appetizers.
My friends and I proceeded to look at the menu thinking we’d might as well order entrees in place of the appetizers. The waiter came back and literally YANKED the menus out of our hands AS we were looking at the menus.
I am a pretty mellow and calm person but the way the waiter treated us was unacceptable and disrespectful. When he yanked the menus out of our hands… that was IT! I asked him why he PULLED the menu out of customers’ hands when we wanted to order food and why he was being so disrespectful. I told him I’ve been to Lupi’s many times in the past and have never been treated so disrespectfully. He «apologized» and said I was «talking so fast» I responded «no, I-​am-​not-​talking-​fast and you are being really rude to me and my friends. Just get us the check.» And he said «It’s on me.» And walked away.
We left a $ 20 for our glass of wine and soda. Never, EVER going back. Good luck with your 5 tables of customers at 6:30pm on a Friday evening!

Amazing service! Amazing Food. This place is perfect and I would highly reccomend it to anyone looking for a really authentic Italian place.

I have to say the food was good. My wife liked her risotto and my fettuccine was also delicious. The food here deserves 3+ stars. The service was a real negativity. Our water glasses had never been refilled. The server gave me a weird look after I told him I didn’t want any alcohol. Once we brought up the Living Social voucher after the meal, he started to whining about losing money on this. It made us feel really uncomfortable. But after reading several posts here on Unilocal relating to using Living Social voucher, I felt lucky that it was honored.

Was very disappointed tonight. Ordered a large pizza to go and it looked like it fell on the floor before they put it in the box. It was very doughy and the cheese was falling off. The restaurant was empty besides one 4 top. No excuse for food to go out like this.

Very disappointing evening! We had a Living Social and enjoyed the food and service but were shocked when told at the end of the meal that they simply were not honoring the Living Social – something about change of ownership and on going conflict with Living Social. Yet restaurant made no attempt to notify customers in any written notice or mention it when ordering but waited until the end and simply said they would not honor their agreement to provide the discount. Terrible customer relations that spoiled the evening and any thoughts of returning!

We went with a group of 7 for my mom’s 50^th birthday, including two kids under 4. The meal was absolutely delicous, and the service and host really made the evening. They went out of their way to take care of the kids and to give my mom a special night. Definitely recommend!

When you choose to go to a nice restaurant you go for a nice overall experience. Unfortunately, our overall experience was not good here.
DOWNs:
1. The food menu is very limited
2. The service is extremely bad. The moment we arrived I had to ask more than once to give me some water to drink. While eating the food also we were not served water. We had to ask for it. And in the end also we had to ask for water. Many of us were taking water from each other !! Is this a fine dine restaurant in La Jolla ?
3. We were given a dessert that no one had ordered which the server eventually took back BUT added it to our final bill.
4. Lastly, the menu says 18% tip is a must which is fine but then why not include it in the bill given. Many of us paid different tips because we missed reading the 18% rule in the menu. And there was a great amount of confusion after we had paid. All of the confusion would have been avoided if our bills had the 18% tip written on it somewhere or simply mentioned to us BEFORE paying !!!
UPs:
1. The desserts are good which is why I am giving 1 star.
There are many other better Italian restaurants out there in San Diego in terms of a bigger food menu and better service. Try to skip this one if you can.

I got takeout from Lupi’s and was incredibly impressed. We shared the Insalata Lupi and I had the Bucatini all’ Amtriciana, both were extremely delicious! Great textures and flavors. The serving sizes were perfect for leftovers. If in the area again, j would definitely return.

I really really wanted to love Lupi but unfortunately my experience tonight left me very sad and disappointed.
Let me preface by saying I had an extremely strong craving for pasta with a mushroom cream sauce tonight. I searched all over town and found what I was looking for on the Lupi menu and I even called ahead to confirm they had gluten free pasta, which they did.
When we arrived we received a very warm welcome from everyone. Extremely wonderful polite staff and we even met the owner who is Venetian which for me was fantastic as my family is also Venetian. Even the chef who is Chilean came out (my boyfriend is Chilean) so really we had high hopes for our evening.
Unfortunately the evening turned for me when it came time to order. I asked for the torteloni with the mushroom cream sauce but instead of the torteloni I asked to replace it with the gluten free pasta. Apparently this was impossible and could not be accommodated under any circumstances. When I asked what pasta sauce I could have with gluten free pasta I was told marinara… Is this a joke? Am I five years old? Why in the world would an Italian woman go out to eat something so basic when she can easily cook it better in her own kitchen. The suggestion was borderline offensive. I spent many years of my childhood living in Roma so to be treated like some clueless girl who would actually order marinara at a restaurant really upset me.
I ended up ordering the Vitelo Saltimboca which was extremely sub par. The veal just wasn’t right and tasted like it was leftovers.
To end on a good note my boyfriends squid ink pasta with mussels and clams was apparently amazing. I was jealous lol.
I don’t think I will be back.

I was craving italian food and all my friends were raving about this place. So… after some careful Unilocaling we decided to go for it. The venue is cool and there is an outside seating area! Super neat.
We ordered several different dishes that were recommended by our awesome server, Romina! She is from Italy and was so helpful, sweet, and attentive. I wish service could always be this super.
Prices are what you’d expect from a place like this in la jolla but worth every penny!!!
I will be back for sure and will ask specifically to be seated in Romina’s section.
Check this place out if you’re craving italian. It doesn’t get better than this :)

Yum! Very happy that we finally had the chance to try Lupi, after many times of walking by this cute little place we decided to check it out last week.
We were here on a Friday evening. I had read a few of the negative reviews on Unilocal and was prepared for bad service. Instead we encountered the complete opposite. We were immediately seated and helped by a nice server. We mentioned to our server that we had a living social deal and she nicely replied «great not a problem!».
We ordered a bottle of wine and she brought us out some bread and olive oil while we waited. We sat outside which was nice and enjoyed a quiet a perfect romantic evening in Bird Rock.
She gave us a number of recommedations based on her favorites. I decided to order the Pappardelle del Colosseo which came braised lamb and goat cheese. It was delicous, the lamb was cooked perfectly and I could tasted the quality of the in house made pappardelle. My bf had the lasagna, he loved it.
We definitely plan to come back to Lupi!

Love this quaint Italian restaurant in Bird Rock. If you’re looking for great ambiance and authentic pasta, look no further!
Tortellini, Tortellini, Tortellini! Homemade pasta! This is my favorite dish!

I purchased a living social deal for Lupi and was excited to give it a try after seeing the Unilocal reviews and their menu with a list of home made pasta. My friend and I came here for dinner on a weekday and it was not crowded. We ordered an appetizer (mozzarella with tomato and basil) to share that was really good. My friend ordered the duck ravioli and I ordered fettuccine al pesto. I have to say my dish was better, but I did ask for more cheese and crushed pepper to make the dish more flavorful. I could tell the nice texture of the fresh home made pasta. The service was very nice, and the waitress was very funny and proud of all the dishes as she kept asking us to finish everything off the plates. Overall, it was a great experience. I am very glad that I found this cute spot for authentic italian home made pasta. :).

My husband and I recently dined at Lupi for my birthday and I loved it! I’m surprised we haven’t been here sooner, being that it is so close to home and it is dog friendly!
We enjoyed dinner on their patio (with our dog) and were there just in time to order a couple of their happy hour appetizers. We ordered meatballs and the meat & cheese plate. At $ 5 each, I thought the quality and portion size were spot on. There were 2 large meatballs with a lot of sauce; very hearty. The meat and cheese plate was also really good; although they didn’t tell us what the meats and cheeses were, I didn’t care, it was so tasty! I had the basil martini to drink and that was nice and strong! Just the way I like it. For my entrée, I had the gnocchetti di spinaci and my husband had the pappardelle del colosseo. I love gnocchi and this gnocchetti was outstanding. The gorgonzola made it smooth and creamy and I couldn’t get enough of it; it was really delicious. My husband really enjoyed his pappardelle and the unique inclusion of goat cheese really makes the dish. I was surprised with some tiramisu for my birthday and even though I don’t typically like coffee, I actually liked this tiramisu.
The food was wonderful and it wasn’t too pricey. Service was also great and it wasn’t too busy on a Thursday evening.
Note: if you do bring your dog, the patio isn’t really enclosed, so people are walking by on the sidewalk (with other dogs) right next to you.