Ugo

Pretty disappointed with this place. Not sure what all the hype is about. The food was overpriced (4 extremely tiny shrimps for $ 7… Really??) and not that great. On top of that, my waitress had an attitude and took forever to get my stuff. Definitely not coming back :/

As anyone who reads my stuff knows, I love great service and at Ugo tonight I got some of the most outstanding service ever.
Between Alex, Susan and Anthony I felt I was at a party and I was the only guest! So fun!!!
I met my daughter but started with an Aperol spritz was was so fresh and good. Chianti on happy hour was the next perfect step. With bruschetta (fantastic!) and the fig pizza (could have been cooked more) and finished with the Unilocal check in gelato. Which you choose from about 50 types.
But it was all orchestrated by the service. Never over the shoulder but just right.
Great night, bravo to all!!!

Abbie was dope! Loved the food and service was great… Coming back no doubt. Abbie see u soon

Gave it a second shot. went from negative stars to 3. The staff was courteous and on it. Food arrived in good time and food tasted good. Will try it again. I just wished the first time didn’t go the way it did because it was Mother’s Day last year but oh well! It’s in the past and my mother loves Arclight and Ugo is an option!

We just happened to come here because the wait was too long at our regular place. Great food and good service. I recommend trying the lunch menu!

I lived in Culver City years ago and Ugo used to be one of my favorite places. My husband and I came back for a Pre-​Valentines dinner on Feb 13^th and we had an amazing night. I’ve read the bad reviews and I’m sorry others did not have the experience that we did. We ordered the Arancini and an arugala salad for appetizers. The arancini was delicious! The dressing on the salad was relatively bland, but veggies and fruits on it were so fresh we ate the whole thing anyway. For dinner we both had pasta dishes — they had a special heart shaped shrimp ravioli which was to die for!!! When it came it out it was a little cold — I told the server and she had a new dish to our table in less than 5 minutes — and it was perfect! The highlight of our dinner. My husband loved his dish too… but honestly I forgot what he ordered — I was too focused on my shrimp ravioli. We finished off with my favorite dessert, the Affogato — gelato with an espresso shot. The Italian Love Potion gelato is ridiculously delicious. We even picked up a dark chocolate salted caramel tort for our babysitter who raved about it.
All in all we had a really wonderful evening. The ambiance was lovely — I love sitting outside even in February! Our server was very attentive and nice. The service was fast. The manager came to check in on us. The wine was delicious. And considering we ordered two appetizers, two entrees, four glasses of wine and dessert — I felt the total check was pretty reasonable. Thank you Ugo for a wonderful Valentines Dinner!

The original plan was to have a glass of wine here, but my new foodie friend mentioned that Ugo’s gelatos are handmade daily. So we did some gelato sampling (there is quite the variety of gelato) and shared a medium sized serving of gelato ($ 5.99) instead. With a medium sized purchase one can choose three flavors, so we chose: tiramisu, coffee and gianduja. If you’re wondering what in the world is gianduja it is a combination of sweet chocolate and hazelnut.
Ambiance is nice. Ugo has a fabulous outdoor patio with heat lamps, so we shared the gelato on the patio and talked out there –gotta love and appreciate California for it’s perfect winter weather!
If you check into Unilocal –you get a free regular sized serving, which is worth $ 4.99 and you can choose up to two flavors. I’ll definitely be back for my free gelato and try other things on the menu.

I must lower the stars after a couple of semi-​decent to bad experience I had at Ugo. Last time I went there I had the Fettuccine Pescatore and they were really low quality, the fish wasn’t fresh at all, and the sauce way too spicy. For $ 25.50 I was expecting a great dish with good fish but I figured that it’s just a meal for those who have no idea on what fresh fish is. I was so disappointed because one year before I had a similar dish and it was great. I guess they have changed the chef or just cut the quality of the ingredients. Also my husband’s pizza was so so, and very Americanized. We had also a bottle of wine advised by the waitress that surely didn’t have any idea on what she was selling, because was a very cheap quality wine. We spent a total of $ 90 for a very very terrible meal. We have a new rule for Ugo, go only during happy hour during the week, when food is worth the price.

Great place for a casual, homey date night. Neapolitan style pizza and great Italian desserts. Tiramisu was fantastic, lots of variety in gelato flavours as well. Great location too, with 2 hr free parking in the lot next door (Bank of America).

This was an amazing Italian restaurant. Will come back. Ordered the salmon with grape and wine sauce. Haven’t tasted food this good in a long time. Every fork full caused my mouth to water as I savored this delicassi. Waiter was friendly, helpful. It was a true Italian dish.

For our Valentine’s Day dinner, my bf thought it’d be nice to try a new Italian place. We decided to order takeout from Ugo.
When we got home and opened our large bag of food, we were dismayed to discover that our expectations were met with a lack of both quality and quantity! We ordered the following:
— Calamari for $ 13.99: overcooked, too dry, and the already small portion wasn’t even all calamari (deep fried zucchini and carrots? c’mon, we ordered squid, not tempura veggies.)
— Spaghetti Aglio E Oligio for $ 12.50: by far, the BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT out of the entire meal!!! The standard sized container was filled ¹⁄₃ of the way with noodles… and that was it. I honestly did a double take when I realized that that was what I ordered. So many thoughts ran through my mind! Did we accidentally pick a «bougie» restaurant where their portions are purposely undersized? How was this going to make me full? Did the kitchen make a mistake and gave the other ²⁄₃ of my spaghetti to someone else? How expensive are these noodles that they can only afford to give me five bites’ worth?!
— Fettuccine Pescatore for $ 25.50: this container was actually filled all the way to the top. Then again, it better have been given the price of it! The shrimps were really large and delicious. Noodles were well made. However, the clams were closed a little too tightly and, once opened, presented with clam juice that wasn’t too appetizing.
— Tiramisu for $ 8.25: really delicious, but really small portion
Overall, based on our first impression of the restaurant, Ugo carries a theme of below average food quality and sadly undersized portions. Given its location in downtown Culver City and the general competition of the restaurant industry in Los Angeles, it was truly surprising to encounter a subpar food experience such as Ugo.

Great place to carbo load before #LAMarathon. Tagliatelle was great and the gelato is a must. Sergio will take care of you.

Ugo if you want lousy food, earnest and clueless service, and a doleful experience.
Spinach salad. Ugo, please, you wash the grit off the leaves. You taste the green apple to make sure that it’s crisp and delicious. And please please don’t cut red onions the way my three-​year-​old daughter would – inedible chunks.
That was the best part of the meal. Lasagna? My God, it was a square of slop in a cast-​iron skillet. We called it vegetable ragout, but that was just to get through it. The menu should have said «Tasteless Goop.»
So you may ask, «Why didn’t you send everything back and get the hell out of there?» We had a movie to get to. And the food was so embarrassingly bad I didn’t want to denigrate the server by pulling a Gordon Ramsay on him. He was just clueless behind his mustache.
Now I know why there was this one line added at the bottom of Ugo’s menu: «The chef does not allow substitutions for any of the food items on the menu.»
English translation: «Since these entrees are guaranteed not to have been made fresh, and are also guaranteed to have languished in our walk-​in or freezer for at least a few days, we have to use up what we’ve got before we can make new crap.»
Don’t waste your time. Don’t waste your money. And please, Culver City, don’t allow this atrocity of a restaurant to continue.
Earnest staff at a hopelessly bad joint are like tuxedos and gowns at a picnic. So embarrassingly off that you hold your tongue, gulp down some grub, and get the hell out of there.
Ugo and see for yourself. I did. And am sorry for it.

You know I went here before and I had such a great experience, the staff was friendly, portions felt huge, I left there wanting to bring other family and friends. So I went again today on a Tuesday and asked the waitress are they still serving brunch at noon. She tells me yes and I say great. I start picking items off the menu and then she tells me they only serve those on the weekend. I say okay how about this one, again only on the weekend. So I asked her why she gave me this menu if I could only order these dishes on the weekend. She just nods her head and smiles. Lolwut
I then order a spaghetti and meatball to go and was shocked what I found when I opened the bag at home.
It was the tiniest little portion I ever seen, it looked like one of those frozen TV dinners for kids. And here’s the kicker, this cost me $ 20 haha.

Appalling pizza. One of the worst my wife and I have ever had. Imagine you’re at Target and your kid is hungry so you go for those bread sticks to dip in tomato sauce; those are better than the soggy-​crusted «figo» pizza we were served. The calamari was tough as shoe leather. The spinach salad drenched in an overpowering dressing. Not a single food item we ordered was decent. We would have sent everything back but we were rushed for time, and besides — if they’re sending stuff out of the kitchen like this, why would a second attempt be any better?
I say «You Go» but I’ll stay away forever.

LOVE this place. Great ambiance, great menu, and awesome customer service.
The staff is great. We called ahead and was able to get a reservation within the next hour on a Friday night. Our server’s name was Sergio and he was incredibly helpful.
I ordered Gnocchi with Grilled Chicken in Basil Pesto (free Pasta Fresca meal with coupon!) and it was delicious. Big portion too.
For dessert, I got the Caffe Nutella and Crème Brûlée (free gelato with check in!) and both tasted amazing.
The drinks are a bit pricey but they are good. My favorite is the Bellini (Italian Prosecco champagne with peach juice).
My only regret is forgetting to take pictures until after I was done. Definitely will be coming back.

My bf and I came here for dinner after going to the movies. It was late but the restaurant was still open.
We ordered a pizza but our waitress told us she couldn’t customize our pizza. We were ordering a specialty pizza with no cheese. I don’t really see how that was a complicated task. Our waitress here was horrible. She wasn’t helpful and didn’t even check on us during our meal. The food was good but nothing great. I don’t think I’ll be back because the service alone put me off.

Ugo esta localizado em Culver City, uma das novas trendy áreas de Los Angeles.
A happy hour é imperdível, com um dos melhores custo-​benefícios da região. As pizzas e os copos de vinham custam $ 5 dólares, alem de outras bebidas e comidinhas entre 4 e 6 dólares. Vale a pena provar a jarra de sangria (15 dólares)
Provamos as pizzas de figo (deliciosa) e a picante (nao gostei do peperoni), o portobelo frito (muito bom) e o calamari frito. Entre os vinhos, provei o Cab e o Chianti e gostei mais do segundo.
Em tempos de dólar alto, o Ugo alia boa gastronomia a preços bem justos.
Happy hour with $ 4 dollars appetizers, $ 5 pizzas and $ 5 red wine among other great thinks. We order the fry portobello, the calamari, the picante pizza and the figo pizza, all excellent except the picante pizza (pepperoni didn’t taste right). I preferred the chianti over the cabernet sauvignon

There must have been something going on, because this place took forever to get the order to the table. I dont want to bash Ugo, mainly because there isnt an amusing story to go with the bashing… so…
The Good:
— The deep fried squash blossoms were tasty, and was the best dish of the meal.
— The gelato in the case was really good
The Un-​Good:
— The Pasquale Panizzi thing was like a marinara meatball pita. Pretty weird.
— Sorry… calimari wasn’t anything special.
— Cold bread took forever to get to the table.
**pays tab and slinks out the back**

This raving review is for the happy hour. Nothing better than sitting outside, dranking some delicious st germain sangria, munching on some fig pizza with truffle oil, all while chatting al fresco with my pup chilling on my feet. $ 5 pizzas, $ 15 sangrias to share, $ 4 beer pints, all really good. In the chillier months, $ 5 Chianti glasses are where it’s at. (Chianti over cab sauv here, imho).

The company Christmas party was held here and they did a really great job with all the food and beverages. I liked the atmosphere and it was the perfect size for a gathering of around 25 or 30 people. Favorites were the shrimp scampi and salads. The service was also exceptional. Would definitely return if in the area. I think parking might be a problem here but we didn’t have to worry as we were staying across the street.

I came here in the early afternoon and was surprised that they were still serving brunch. The restaurant wasn’t really that crowded even though some of the other restaurants along the street had a decent amount of diners. The service is friendly and our food came out pretty quickly. It did take a while for us to get our house bread though…
Stoked to be able to order off the brunch menu, I got myself an ugo egg whites sandwich which comes with a side of fruit. For $ 6.99, I feel like you can’t beat the price. The sandwich came packed with ham and eggs, just as advertised. One thing about the sandwich was that it was incredibly oily. When you pick it up to take a bite, there is oil all over your hands… I had to pack on some tabasco sauce to add a little kick to the sandwich. Other than that, the sandwich was alright. Nothing too special.
There’s a parking lot adjacent to the restaurant. 2 hours free.

Came here for a late week night dinner with a colleague. The service is great and the food is decent. There’s only one homemade pasta and it’s the tagliatelle alla Bolognese. It’s good. I checked in to take advantage of the gelato which was delicious. Parking is decent as this is a corner restaurant.

I’ll be honest — I’m an Ugo gelato lover. Most of my Culver City meals end here for a sweet treat with friends! I absolutely love their crème brûlée and salted caramel combo!
I hadn’t eaten anything savory there due to my fellow Unilocalers’ reviews. However, my friend brought me to-​go from here (and I didn’t ask what it was until after we finished) and I will say that the Ugo margherita pizza and the chopped salad was yum! I haven’t tried anything else but I would definitely get both of these again.

Ugo? Yes! Go, go, go!
It doesn’t get better than this Downtown Culver gem. There are 3 solid reasons to go to Ugo and add it to your list of must-​go-​to places:
1) Pour your own wine tastings with unique and rare Italian pours. Affordable, delicious, and fun
2) Free gelato every time you check in on Unilocal.Plus, it’s the most authentic I’ve ever had outside of LA with dozens of choices on a colorful menu so you can really think through your choices before ordering. A medium comes with two flavors packed in a steel goblet to keep it chilled.
3) Hudson: the sommelier named after Paul Newman’s Hud long before the name became baby-​book hip, who knows his stuff and rises above with some of the friendliest, warmest service I’ve ever had at a bar or restaurant. Unpretentious guy, so don’t call him a sommelier even though he waxes on with tasting notes that make you feel like you’re in a top notch winery tasting room.
It looks like a fancy restaurant from the outside but Ugo is half Italian bakery/​gelateria and half winery tasting room.
More later!!!

Walked out. Didn’t even try the food.
So I came in on a Sunday night craving Italian food. We looked at the menu and thought it was kind of pricey but decided to give it a try anyways. We were seated outside on the patio and there was about 4 or 5 other parties around us. It was not busy at all, and in fact, it was completely empty inside.
At first the waiter was very nice. He took our orders; I got pasta and my friend ordered a pizza. I looked around and another couple gets seated next to our table. They were immediately brought out a basket of bread. Okay… I want bread, so I asked one of the busboys. He looked confused, went inside, and came back out empty handed and went about his business. 10 minutes have passed before I managed to flag down another waiter and asked him for bread. Another 10 minutes have passed. The table next to us have gotten their entrees by now. A waiter finally shows up with bread for us. It was cold and bland, even with the olive oil and vinegar.
We finished the bread and was just sitting there for however much longer waiting for our food. Finally a waiter comes out with a plate of food. He comes to our table and asked if we ordered the bruschetta. Uhhh… no we did not order the bruschetta. So he turns around confused and tries to find the correct table.
We were really frustrated at this point and just wanted to leave through the patio. But we thought we should at least inform the host that we waited too long and they can tell the kitchen to cancel our order. We got to the front, no one was there. We look around inside the restaurant, no waiters around at all. There was no one to even complain to. We walked out and had dinner across the street at Chipotle. Never coming back to Ugo.

**PAID $ 6.02 FOR A CAPPUCINO**
I know, it’s my fault for craving for an Italian-​style cappuccino.
I know, it’s my fault for being a coffee snob and not going to the Starbucks across the street.
PARKING
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Street (metered) or nearby garage (free for first 2 hours).
COFFEE
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CAPPUCCINO — $ 6.02
2 espresso shots.
Good foam and good after-​buzz.
SERVICE
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Good service and quick (I was the only one in line).
They do carry a good selection of gelato and some appealing desserts.
OVERALL
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Next time, I am going to get a cup of gelato ice cream and calling it a day.
RECOMMEND their gelato and if you’re a baller, order a cappuccino.

The pineapple basil sorbet straight killed the game. This place is doing everything right. I had tagliottelle pasta — it’s like a spaghetti and meat sauce, but the pasta is wide noodles and they are made in-​house. They make all the gelatos fresh daily too! And Sergio was such a darling! He was fast and efficient and didn’t mind that we sat down at his table a mere 20 minutes before closing. (Sorry Sergio!) The manager came by our table and checked in with us twice, once right after we got our food and once when the check came. The venue is amazing, there is a wrap around patio on a busy section of Culver City that just begs wine sipping & people watching. Wonderful experience, affordable, and local to my new house, I foresee myself becoming the duchess faster than a knife fight in a phone booth.

After enjoying Happy Hour nearby, a couple of friends and I ventured over to Ugo for dinner. It was a Friday night and the patio was packed, so much so that the frazzled hostess discouraged us from even waiting for a table out there. She cautioned that service would be very slow. So, we ended up on the back side of he restaurant with a waitress who arrived quickly to take our order.
Having had snacks earlier, we decided to just get a couple of pizzas and dessert. Ugo looks like a place that I would swing by for dessert after a meal in the area, not like a fine dining Italian restaurant. So, I was somewhat surprised by the entrée prices there. The pizzas were less than $ 15, which was reasonable, but perhaps even still slightly overpriced. I guess their VPN recognition by the Association in Naples, Italy for their Neapolitan pizzas comes at a high cost.
The pizzas were a good size — a hearty meal for one, or enough to share for the mild to moderately hungry. There were some major pluses with the margherita pizza — the mozzarella was fresh, the sauce was chunky enough to add texture and well seasoned, and the chewy crust had that beautiful light char. Unfortunately, the crust in the middle of the pizza was too soggy for my liking and the basil was very sparse (meaning three leaves). In fact, there was no basil on the quarter of the pizza that I ate.
With the Unilocal check-​in, we got free gelato. They had a case filled with both sorbet and gelato and they encouraged multiple samples. The were definitely unusual flavored — ricotta with fruit, egg custard, donuts and Bacardi rum, cinnamon mascarpone with sour cherries, bounty, and many others. Everything I tasted was actually quite good — creamy, soft, full of flavor and ingredients — and they didn’t skimp on the portion.
Culver City is saturated with restaurants so I’m not sure if I would return when I’m back in the area, but I might stop by for gelato or during Happy Hour when the pizzas are discounted.

It’s a large restaurant, with plenty of indoor seating, including a back semi-​private area, and two outdoor seating areas with heat lamps. The service was just OK, but they have yummy gelato and a decent dessert menu. I tried the tiramisu, which is interesting. They have the tiramisu in a chocolate shell cup. The Americano and espresso are really well flavored here.
Park in the garage next door — 2 hours free parking.

«It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.»
Confucius
Ugo is where I like to go, many times, over a few years. I would more likely hurry back.
It’s good, like in gelato good! Save room for it — Unilocalers get a two scoops serving.
The simple ingredients of tomatoes, garlic, olives, semolina and cheese combine, maybe slowly, but so flavorfully. The proof is in the freshly made pasta, in the Neapolitan pizza, and in the matchless, better than my Momma’s meatballs.
Konstantinos, our group’s bartender /​server was attentive & amiable and the aroma from a wood-​fired pizza oven, alluring.
Ugo is also good value. And the vacuuming of multiple bottles of vino — extracting the air from opened «bottiglie» — is priceless. It affords tasters or connoisseurs a wide variety or selected appellations, in the wine bar, by use of prepaid cards.
The casualness of the space, coupled with the charms of Konstant, make Ugo’s a place where, culinarily, I feel very much at home.

Years before I started Unilocaling I came here on a dinner date and, although time has faded my memory as to what exactly I ate, I always remembered I enjoyed my meal and intended to return yet never did. When an old friend recently suggested we meet here for lunch I enthusiastically agreed.
We were quickly seated and chose to sit indoors rather than the patio area. I ordered a lemon Italian soda and it came in a can which was not what I was expecting but the menu did in fact indicate it was a Pellegrino. Nevertheless, it was good.
A nice warm bread basket with oil & vinegar was served and our orders were taken. I got a cup of minestrone soup and a Michelangelo Panizzi from their «lunch specials» menu. The panizzi is like a wrap made from thin baked pizza dough. The ingredients for the Michelangelo are ricotta, ham, artichokes, tomatoes and lettuce. The flavors blended well although it was a bit bland. I was so engaged in conversation I didn’t think of it then but a little olive oil might have given it just the spark it needed. The soup was excellent, chock full of veggies.
Usually Unilocal check-​ins do nothing but provide a locator beacon for your favorite stalker but this time my check-​in got me a free gelato. They had around 20 flavors to choose from. The flavor I chose was cappuccino and it was simply fabulous. The consistency and flavor was exactly what gelato is all about. I’d definitely stop in just to get some gelato next time I’m in the area.
Service was great. He was aware we hadn’t seen each other in awhile so was attentive but not intrusive.