Charisma Cucina Italiana

Wonderful true Italian food! The pappardelle with sausage is out of this world! A true gem.

This small Hillcrest restaurant offers great Italian. Small but laser beam menu. Great wine selection. The portions are huge and will flavored. We had the eggplant and pork chop, both where great.

Great food I got the shrimp fettuccine alfreado with a side salad and it was being amazing. Came in by myself sin e I was in my lunch brake but definitely bringing the hubby next time LOVE LOVE LOVED IT

I placed an online order last week and asked them to deliver to my daughter’s hospital room at UCSD Hillcrest. Food was delicious and that’s why I placed another online order today :) I ordered the spaghetti, lasagna and Salad. I was NOT disappointed. The little chocolate puff balls for desert were delish!

Eating here tonight was a mistake. My boyfriend and I have a pretty good Italian place that we usually frequent, but he hurt his back the other day so I decided to look for take-​out. Cucina Charisma looked great from all the reviews– local, LEGIT Italian, with one of the owners being «fresh of the boat», as one Unilocaler said. I guess I must have missed the memo on how they serve tartar sauce with Calamari fritti over there…
We put in our from Eat 24 at 7:25 and started watching tv. We weren’t that hungry, and expected it would probably take closer to 60 minute rather than 45. About 30 minutes later we got a call from the restaurant saying that they’d just gotten our order, but that they were out of the lasagna and asked if we’d like to replace it. The bf had been eyeing another thing on the menu, a pasta with ribs, so we substituted it and that was that. After they hung up I realized that the lasagna had cost a little bit more ($ 1.50), and that our order would probably take at least another 45 minutes to get to us, but I didn’t complain, just hoped we’d get some great food and it would be worth it.
And then 9:00 rolled around. At this point I was admittedly starting to get a little hangry, so we called the restaurant. They looked up our order and said the delivery people had just left five or ten minutes ago, though it wasn’t until 9:20 that we got our food– almost 2 hours later. I might have even been ok with that though, had our food been as good as I had hoped. Now, I know this is a bad delivery experience and has nothing to do with most of the people ordering in here but when the food ultimately came it wasn’t that great anyway, although I was happy it was still very hot when it got here.
We ordered three things:
1– Calamari Fritti: Initially I thought they’d forgotten the lemon and marinara sauce that typically accompanies this but when we called they informed us there was tartar sauce in the bag… Tartar sauce. At an Italian restaurant. I was shocked, but they told us that «most customers want it this way», and that if you wanted marinara you had to specify. I gave it the benefit of the doubt and tried it but couldn’t stomach it. It’s calamari, not fish and chips! We barely touched it because neither of us had the right sauce on our pastas and it was just too bland on its own.
2– Amatriciana: I ordered the pasta with onion, pancetta and a red sauce, with red pepper to make it a little spicy. This had no kick to it AT ALL, and I’m usually a wimp when it comes to spice. It was also very salty, and I get that pancetta is bacon like but it shouldn’t overpower the dish with salt.
3– The pasta with ribs that the Boyfriend ordered– This tasted ok, and he did finish it, but either the pasta was over cooked or it steamed itself too much in it’s container and got soggy. Still the best dish of the three though.
I wouldn’t give a restaurant a bad review just because of delivery but between that and them not offering to give us the money back on the substitution (which they ended up doing after we called again), them not having the lasagna in the first place, the weird inclusion of tartar sauce and no lemon and the rest of the food not being that great anyway it was a through and through negative experience. I definitely would not come back here again and would advise people looking for an authentic Italian meal to skip this and look elsewhere.

Decided to give this place a try after reading all of the positive reviews from the last few months. This is a family owned business — they took over the original Italian restaurant in this location about 7 months ago — the brother serves and runs the front of the house while the sister (fresh from Italy) arrived about a month ago.
The food was DELICIOUS and YUMMY. Pleasantly surprised by the quality and quantity. The sauce is divine and the Nutella tiramisu was worth loosening the belt. Highly recommend if you’re in the mood for southern Italian fare.
PS Wine list was good but not spectacular. Shouldn’t deter you but wanted to set expectations.

We are in town for just one night and our son found this place on Unilocal.The great reviews don’t even do it justice! Best ravioli I’ve ever had. The lasagna is amazing as well as the pork chop which was tender and as big as the plate. The calamari was also tender and delicious. We will make this our «must go to» from now on when we come to town!

Pretty good food, smaller portions, staff was nice. I would probably go back there.

This is the first time I’ve gone to an Italian restaurant in San Diego and dropped dead after the first bite of my entrée. Like wow, I just took a bite of heaven. The Pappardelle con Salsiccia may be the answer to everyone’s favorite question: «what would be your last meal on Earth?»
Aside from this entrée, my group was given free appetizers on the house. It appeared to be fried dough topped with marinara sauce and herbs. It was quite tasty, and even better because it was free.
The service at this restaurant is a bit slow, even when it’s not very busy. However, I realized that I was here for amazing food and good company. Overall, I would come back in a heartbeat to eat. Oh, and good luck with parking in Hillcrest: P

This is a gem of a restaurant for authentic Italian cuisine. Their pasta is very delicious and of a high quality. In addition, the owner was very nice and caring.
Altough there were no other costumers sitting, we witnessed a lot of delivery orders. You can say that this place is valued for their food.
All in all, I can not understand why this place is not full of people, because we had an awesome time.

This is one of the better Italian restaurants in San Diego. Especially when I eaten at a handful of restaurants in NYC. But I am not judging on comparison but my taste experience.
This place is a little hole in the wall located on the the west end of the Hillcrest neighborhood so it may be a little hard to find. At least it is not smack in the middle of Hillcrest where parking is unbearable during the weekend. Here you can just park down the street in some neighborhood and walk just a block or so without the annoying parking meter.
My wife and I ordered the Lasagna Tradizionale and Tagliatelle al Ragu di Maiale.
The Lasagna was very rich and full over flavor. This is the first time I had lasagna that used fresh mozzarella and a rich Bechamel sauce as opposed to the standard mozzarella and ricotta. The Lasagna came out piping on serve on a plate that was hot as well so be careful.
The Tagliatelle was excellent especially with the pork rip. Lots of flavor and the nice wide noodles made the dish even better as it soaked up all the flavors.
Definitely worth another visit to try the other items on the menu.

I love this place. It’s so bomb. The best Italian restaurant in San Diego thus far. The bolognese is to die for. Definitely check it out. I get take out from here at least once a month.

This is a charming gem of a restaurant for authentic Southern Italian cuisine in Hillcrest. Family-​owned and operated. Casual with high quality fare. We saw a lot of pick-​up orders while there so clearly, this place is valued for their food.
Our tastebuds relished everything, from the complimentary mini pizza dough puffs in marinara sauce offered as an appetizer, to the octopus-​filled Calzone mid-​course, to the amazing seafood squid-​ink homemade pasta (main course 1), and the homemade lobster ravioli (main course 2). The dessert was a house specialty limoncello tiramisu! Buon appetito!

Small, nice, neighbourhood restaurant. We were looking for Italian food and decided on this place after doing some research on Unilocal.Check out the photos I posted from my dining experience.
We started off with soup. The minestrone was definitely freshly made. It just needed a bit more salt, which was readily on the table. They also provide scazzoupolli, I’m sure that’s spelled wrong lol. It’s very good but the parmesan cheese can be overwhelming. I had the chicken Parm, which id highly recommend. I think it could have used a bit more sauce on top though.
The waiter, I’m guessing he’s the owner of the place as well is a friendly guy. We were the first to arrive at opening for dinner. He sat us right away and took our orders.
The do have outside seating as well, but I didn’t see any heat lamps. They would definitely need it for cold nights.

I work next door to 142 beauty spot from this restaurant and everyday it’s always busy so I decided to take my family out to dinner tonight. Had the squid ink pasta tonight and my husband had a lamb ragu pasta and my daughters had ravioli and everything we ordered tonight was amazing definitely will come back. The food was exquisitely amazing and tasteful. The dishes were definitely rich in flavor. At the end we had a tiramisu and that was extraordinary!

This Italian restaurant stood out to me for several reasons.
1. Plenty of open seating when I came in with a friend on a Friday night.
2. Family owned. There were only 2 guys serving us & everyone else in the restaurant.
3. Unique Italian food. It might’ve been because of what we ordered. Haha! I ordered the Ravioli di Aragosta. It was lobster ravioli, with a ton of tomatoes on top, & mint? I was a little hesitant to order it, but it was unusually good. As a tomato lover, I loved how they piled the tomatoes on top rather than the measly few pieces you’d usually get. My friend ordered the Tagliolini Neri Mediterranei, which was squid ink pasta buried under A TON of seafood. Squid ink pasta sounds weird, but I tried it & I was pretty jealous of her entrée.
The main downside was we waited awhile to get our food while we saw other tables who ordered after us get served. Table envy… just one of the worst feelings when you go out to eat.
It wasn’t the best Italian food… I may have to come back to order the squid ink pasta for myself though.

My boyfriend and I came here for dinner on a whim and hunt for Carbs and boy were we beyond happy this is the restaurant that we chose.
First of, the décor of the restaurant is very open and inviting. The patio seating was perfect for the warm San Diego evening. The inside of the restaurant was bright and cheerful with the entire front wall opened up so those on the inside could enjoy the fresh air as well.
The menu left us with difficult decisions. We could not figure out what to eat because so many of the different items on the menu looked ABSOLUTELY delicious. In the end we decided to go with the Cozze e Vongole (muscles and clams) for an appetizer, I ordered a pasta dish that had thin spaghetti like noodles and an assortment of seafood (clams, oysters and crab I believe), my boyfriend also had a pasta dish with a red sauce and lamb.
Everything we received left us scraping the plates. Literally. We were started off with a small appetizer while we waited for our food, puff pastry with a tomato sauce and parmesan cheese. I couldn’t believe this was free. Despite being covered in the heavenly tomato sauce, the pastries managed to maintain their texture and their own flavor still was a active player. The sauce’s flavor tasted like a grandmother had been cooking the sauce for days allowing all of the flavors to develop. Put both together = a party in your mouth. Our appetizer the Cozze e Vongole was BEAUTIFULLY done. All of our shellfish opened up and were served in a sauce that forced us to order bread so we were able to soak it up and eat it ALL. The portion size was quite large and by the time we finished it there was nothing edible left, NOTHING.
On to our entrees. I am sorry but I can’t remember the names but they both were described above. Both lived up to the newly set standard that were set by the appetizers. My dish, the thin spaghetti pasta with seafood, was extremely hearty. The sauce served with the pasta and seafood was very light but added a depth of flavor to the dish. They did not shy away from serving ample amounts of each of the types of seafood included. My boyfriend first felt like his pasta was a bit to al dente but as he progressed through the dish he decided that they cooked more and turned out to be perfect. From the few bites that he was willing to share with me, his dish was also hearty and served with plenty of lamb meat. Being given just a taster of his left me wanting MORE!
Besides the food being absolutely delightful and beyond all expectations. We received great service. Granted we were one of the only tables in the restaurant. We were told about the kitchen staff and how they came along as well as where the inspiration from the food came from. The waiter was attentive and engaged us in conversation but in such a manner it did not disrupt our date. My boyfriend and I, a week later, are still thinking about the meal we had here!
TLDR; GO HERE, EAT, DRINK and THANK ME LATER.

A great Mom n Pop Italian Bistro. Amazing home cooked food and some of the best seafood I’ve had in a while! Definitely recommend the mussel and clams appetizer as well as the Pork Chop. Friendly and delicious, will be back :)

I was with my two girlfriend in hillcrest when we decided to have Italian for dinner. May I just say how IMPRESSED we were with this restaurant?! The servers were so professional and happy by the time the food arrived we were more in awe with this place. The food is fantastic, the people were great at conversations. Overall, we will definitely BE COMING BACK.
Thank you Charisma.

I like to support local establishments but my experience here would not bring me back.
This place is right next to Fred’s and it gets ridiculously loud, especially when a game or fight is on TV. I couldn’t even enjoy dinner with the bf.
I would not recommend the lasagna ($ 15). Although it is crafted fresh, the skimpy amount of meat makes this dish very sad. The beef was grounded so softly that I could not even taste it. Meat sauce and cheese is key to making a delicious lasagna and this place was missing both ingredients. My taste buds left disappointed and unsatisfied.
My bf had the pasta with sausage in a white mushroom sauce. The pasta was not «al dente,» and on the stale/​hard side. He was not fond of the dish at all.
Service was friendly and while the food looked delicious, it did not taste delicious.