Hailing from the southern part of Italy, we have a longstanding weakness for Expresso Coffee and the sight of it on a menu card brings on a Italian salivation. So we decided to indulge in this Coffe named as a "Fine dining italian restaurant" before embarking on our meal proper.
One sip was all it took for us to realize that Caffe Buon Gusto makes one of the worst Coffees in NEW YORK. A beverage so pitiful that it left us in a sputtering rage.
It takes a really pathetic kitchen staff to dish out Coffee this bad. Our Coffee lacked any flavor of the beverage let alone that of the finely aromatic Coffee - the problem was that it contained far too much milk and too little coffee decoction. The Coffee Was burned!!!! It seemed to me that they leave it there throughout the day not caring if it tastes like crap.
Our spirits flagging, we gloomily launched into our meal.
During our recent visit to this Brooklyn Heights "Italian" restaurant, we covered considerable territory. We sampled a variety of dishes including such Veal Parmigiana, Crab cakes (this is not even an italian dish, but whatever ! owner doesnt know shit! )and the usual accompaniments like fussili, PRosciourto and Portobello Mushrooms that come with these dishes.
PAsta and main courses lack of flavor. Just a mound of hot pasta cooked with some cheap tomatoe sauce and insufficient jaggery, it lacked the consistency of real pasta!
If the bozos at Buon Gusto can't even cook a good bowl of Pasta or make a decent cup of coffee, what in the heck are they capable of?
Well of course, the stupid staff are all illegal inmigrants! By the way, the are not Russians they are mostly Polish and they dont care about serving... instead they just chitchat in the bar area and flirt with the creepy manager as well as all the mal customers sitting at the bar. About the food...what can we expect if the Cheff is Dominican, clueless about how italian food is prepared, even more clueless where Italy is located in a MAP!
Veal was serverd cold and bland, it was - forget palatable - virtually inedibile.
To serve such a pitiful parody of the Veal with the side pasta the costliest dish at this restaurant, shows utter contempt for diners coming to the restaurant in hopes of a good meal.
What's wrong with these lazy servers and cheffs? Most of them serve stale, cold, bland pasta these days that's far from fresh.
Honestly, it is far expensive for what the have to offer. If you want a decent meal, for 14 bucks, you should go to another restaurant in SOHO.
But what spoiled our enjoyment at Caffe Buon Gusto the was that disgusting Veal again.
Our dessert choice Tiramisu (is one of the most popular Italian cakes. It is made of savoiardi -otherwise known as lady finger biscuits- dipped in espresso or strong coffee, layered with a whipped mixture of egg yolks, mascarpone, and sugar, and topped with cocoa.
Indian almond fudge flavored with Saffron) proved to be a disappointment too. Besides lacking the almond flavor, it had a half-cooked texture and tasted more like some gooeish mixture of shit . You might as well take $6.00 (cost of the tiramisu) and throw it in the street.
When we asked our Polish waitress Liliana, a young flirty girl, about the check, cause we where charged for a fish we didnt even ordered. While she was eager to help us out with our check, she did not seem particularly knowledgeable about this restaurant. She had to call the manager, and the manager was a total disaster. This old "half italian half Argentinian" guy who was so rude ! He tried to please us by serving us more of his hidious coffee and some free "cheese cake".
With Buon Gusto proving to be such a bad experience, it's going to be quite a while before we can muster the fortitude to visit this restaurant at all !!!!
WE recommend that you go accross the street and get yourself some pizza there! It is better looking and the staff is nicE! read more