Italian restaurants in Downtown Cleveland

This was our first visit, and the menu was so enticing we can't wait to go back to try everything. I was thrilled that the food at Luca was extremely flavorful but not too salty, unlike many places we dine. Hallelujah for a measured hand on the sodium.

We started with a truffle cream pasta appetizer (it was definitely a game changer, as our waiter suggested it would be) and I would recommend the available entree size portion if you're hungry. Incredible! We also shared an artichoke appetizer, which was much less impressive than the menu description. In fact, I would actively avoid the artichoke appetizer, especially for its $15 price tag. Not bad, just bland and not worthy of its description, which was disappointing.

We shared a beet salad with pistachios - excellent. Not the best I've had, but certainly top-notch and reflective of the overall superior meal we had.

My wife had the rapini and sausage pasta, which was among my initial choices. Also very well balanced and not too salty, and just the right dynamic between the bitter rapini, the savory sausage, and the just-a-hint-of-sweetness pasta. Absolutely marvelous.

I had one of the nightly specials, the lobster risotto. While the chef was generous with a capital G with the portion of lobster (an 16 oz tail in addition to more lobster claw meat in the risotto itself - so much I couldn't finish it in one sitting), the risotto itself was just fair given the $60 price. Nonetheless, I still have to give it an "A, " because I've never been gifted so much lobster anywhere at any price. Truly amazing.