Cucina

Went here for dinner and for afternoon tea.
Afternoon tea 4 stars: we booked the private room for a table of 12. The sandwiches were excellent and selection of Italian desserts very good. It was served with a glass of Prosecco and strawberries. Service was excellent. A great private afternoon tea experience.
Dinner 2 stars: Average food. The rabbit ragu was very salty. I’ve only been once and haven’t returned since — not a high priority on my list.

We had a very nice evening there. The Service was very good and the food excellent. We went to three restaurants in Edinburgh during our visit and this one was the best.

Food: We ordered three starters (the octopus, the caprese and the zucchini) along with three entrees (the lasagna, the lamb and the ribeye steak). Everything was delicious especially the lasagne. For dessert we shared ice cream.
Drinks: We ordered one bottle of red wine.
Price: 105.25 GBP for three people.
Ambiance: The restaurant is very nice and wasn’t very crowded.
Service: It was fine and our waitress was friendly.
Would I go back? Yes, it’s good food and convenient if you’re staying in the hotel.

Okay, I’m not a big fan of Missoni or Rosita Missono. I think that the dining room looks like a television test pattern ran amok. This emperor’s-new-clothes fusion of patterns is a lot of hipster lite claptrap. The food, though, is top-​drawer Italian, made and served by the paisani. They made a beautiful Risotto Milanese and a potato-​parmesan stuffed ravioli with a black truffle butter sauce that were foundational elegance della Cucina Italiana. Bring sunglasses and enjoy the food. The hipsters will just think you’re famous. Reservations are best, or the host will ask you how fast you can mangia before he fills the table again.

Having been to Cucina twice in two days (!) — I must say I loved it there both times!
I went for lunch — set menu (2 course for £15) and really enjoyed both meals — although was not fond of the dessert the first time (tiramisu) so opted for a starter the second time.
So! For lunch — both times, it was pretty quiet. We were seated quickly. Both times, service was a little slow, but not from the kitchen which was fast (the waiter at one point mentioned they aimed for both courses in 45 minutes), taking orders, getting the bill etc was slow. Not that I minded but — I suggest if you are in a hurry for lunch — tell them so that they wait on a you a little quicker!
Décor! Well — for me, it’s too busy! There are lots of stripes, zigzags and dots — which I’m sure are lovely for some — but actually at time made me dizzy! Ooops.
Heartily recommend and am now really looking forward for an occasion to go for dinner!

Rather underwhelming. The food doesn’t match the quality of the über-​chic surroundings. We summed it up: «Cucina at Missoni delivers stylish dishes, but not the quality to match the elegance. The menu has some good ideas and some dishes that sound enticing, but suffers in terms of execution. There are many better Italian restaurants in Edinburgh, so we won’t be rushing back there, any time soon.»

we stayed at the hotel and arrived late so decided to eat at the restaurant. the homemade pasta, esp the tagliatelle bolognese, is outstanding. al dente, good flavor, a very tasty basic pasta dish. the other food was solid too. whenever i see liver (not foie gras) on the menu, i order it. they served it in cubes instead of whole slab of liver-​shape. i was afraid it would be overcooked since it was smaller pieces but it was very good. lemon sole, roast chicken, all solid. we liked the tagliatelle so much, we went back the next night too. first night the bread basket was warm and fresh. 2^nd night, the bread was dry and old. oh well. both nights, our pastas came out immediately then there was a very long lull before our main dishes came out. seemed like a common theme with other diners too. staff is very friendly tho. restaurant is kinda noisy due to the oh-​so-​hip bar downstairs.

I am a fan, but only for a particular time and a particular occasion. Cucina is housed within Hotel Missoni. Its sleek, trendy, very central and very much a ladies-​who-​lunch, business meeting type place. Nice to clink a few glasses of bubbly in the evening too I imagine.
As I do before all pre-​arranged lunch or dinners, I went onto their website prior to scout out what I could have. I know this isn’t actually part of the restaurant but lordy the website is frustrating! It’s all moving images, flashing colours, music, and it took me about 10 clicks to find the menu (I did eventually find it).
This level of trendy, sophisticated show-​offy-​ness does continue into the restaurant. The staff were all very friendly, and it had a quiet, nice buzz but it did feel very… showy. In particular when a very small waitress came out carrying a HUGE tray with our two small starter plates on it, with a much larger male waiter beside her took them off the tray and onto the table. Quite a lot of pomp and ceremony for soup and salad. But, as I said, they were friendly and seemed genuinely warm so whilst it was pompy it was pretentious.
The décor is also a bit… well it’s not me. But hey, each to their own.
The reason for my four stars is the food was really damned good. I ordered the duck and orange salad to start, and chicken for main. But when the duck salad arrived and I realised how big it was I cancelled my main — and there was no fuss. The duck was so tender, although it MAY have been confit de canard which would explain why. But there was a lot of it. The orange sauce was lightly sweet but not overpowering. The little orange flesh dotted throughout the most delicious orange I’ve tasted out of season. And, like I said, it was a very generous portion.
I also tasted my dining companions baked hake with lentils. I didn’t order this as I don’t do lentils, but the hake was dreamy. So soft it, for want of a better and not overly-​used description, melted like butter in my mouth. Had we been more intimate acquaintances I would have picked away at the plate more but felt it rude to eat half his main.
The coffee was VERY strong and small, so quite authenticly Italian then. It came with two sugar-​covered gelatine sweets, I can’t remember the name, but like very posh fruit pastilles. They were gooey-​ish, turkish-​delightish and a very nice touch.
This was definitely a ‘foodie’ experience. The rest of the place isn’t my scene, but if I were to do a business lunch or office night out, or a celebration of sorts for a group of people I’d definitely consider it. I could happily eat all of that duck and orange salad again.

When it comes to décor and ambience, Cucina would get 5 stars.
Designed by Rosita Missono, it’s a beautiful space that occupies a huge corner of the Hotel Missoni’s first floor. Sunshine streams in through the windows and there’s a mix of round booths and intimate tables centred around the never ending black and white sofa. The furniture and tableware are as delightful as the hotel rooms and everything from the linen to the wine glasses seems high spec.
The problem is, the food and customer service are only 3 star. I went on a Wednesday lunchtime and couldn’t believe how slow and unresponsive the waitresses were. It took twenty minutes to get our starters — of goats cheese and salad! — and when two of us were given under-​cooked salmon as a main, nobody came and checked if we were happy with the food. Instead they simply waited til our last diner had finished and then cleared the plates away.
Admittedly, we were only eating Cucina’s Missoni a Mezzegoioni — two courses for £10, 3 courses for £13 lunch — but if the food had been great, we would have been tempted to go back in the evening and order from the full menu. As it is, we left feeling hungry and bemused. The bread and puddings were top notch but where were the fresh, seasonal ingredients we were promised on the menu? And where was the Missoni’s usually excellent customer service? Having a vacation in Italy?

Everything about Hotel Missoni is newly stylish, immaculately finished, and trimmed with an edge of slightly eccentric fun, including Cucina, the Italian restaurant that makes up part of the hotel.
This is definitely a classy Italian dining experience, where you’re served by smooth Missoni clad waiters, who are the kind of waiters that seem to glide along quietly doing their thing, not interfering too much with your meal, but making sure that everything is attended to nonetheless.
I had freshly made penne pasta with a pork ragu sauce, which was fantastic and full of flavour, followed by a good old glass vessel of Tiramisu, very much on the coffee tasting side of things, rather than the sweeter edge served up in some restaurants, and really, really good. This restaurant gets a no hesitation recommendation from me, although strangely for a Thursday night, normally a fairly busy evening in town, the restaurant seemed pretty quiet. Probably just a one off, because town didn’t really seem that busy anyway on that particular evening, and sometimes it’s better to have a bit of peace and quiet while you have some quality pasta and parmesan time.

This place just takes itself a little too seriously.
I like nice décor and surroundings just as much as anyone else when I go to a restaurant, but I really don’t need to read about who designed it/​what fabric they used for it/​where this particular cushion was imported from in the menu. By definition, when I open the menu it’s because I’m hungry and I want to eat.
After all their obsessive descriptions about every aspect of every single item that was within a mile radius of the restaurant, I couldn’t help but suspect that they were doing it to dazzle you so much that you wouldn’t notice if the food was mediocre. And it turned out I was right. I have no doubt that the ingredients were all grown especially for them and probably flown in on a private jet or something equally ridiculous, but there are so many other great food places along George IV bridge that I did feel a bit ripped off.
Being part of the Hotel Missoni, people will always eat here. Mainly because of it’s reputation and because it’s the kind of place that you can name-​drop. But unfortunately the quality and style of Missoni clothes doesn’t transfer to their hotel restaurants.