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Updated 3/10/25 following another visit. We tried additional dishes, reviewed below.
La Ciccia is a beloved San Francisco restaurant; so much, in fact, that it received $100,000 from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan in 2020 to help it survive the pandemic. Then in 2022, the Chef Massimiliano Conti and his wife Lorella Degan, sold their restaurant, ostensibly to a South Bay restaurant group. The sale fell through, and instead Cheryl Maloney, the La Ciccia loyal customer as well as real estate broker who'd been negotiating the sale, ended up buying the restaurant herself.
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La Ciccia Location and Hours
La Ciccia is located in a very residential area of Noe Valley, at 291 30th Street in San Francisco. The restaurant is open for dinner 5:30-9:45pm, Tuesdays-Thursdays and 5-10pm on Fridays and Saturdays (closed Sundays and Mondays).
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Menu and Food
On our most recent visit, we opted for indoor seating since it was a chilly evening, and were glad we did. We were warmly welcomed by Cheryl Maloney and seated in a central table. The menu choices are the same, although some of the prices are a bit higher, which is understandable given inflation. For example, the baby octopus stew is now $24 instead of $22, the pastas have gone up by $1-4, the lamb tenderloin has increased $4, and the oven roasted whole prawns have gone up by $3.
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On our prior visit, we reserved outdoor seating when we made our reservation, and were led through the restaurant to the outdoor patio, which has five tables and heat lamps, perfect for perennially chilly San Francisco evenings. We were given the menu, which apparently has remained, to loyal guests' relief, largely the same through the years. Below is the menu for our 2024 visit, as a point of reference for the slight price increases.
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On this occasion my husband and I split an appetizer of Baby Octopus Stew in a Spicy Tomato Sauce, which was just the right amount of spicy, and with tender octopus–delicious and highly recommended, especially with the complimentary bread to soak up the delectable sauce.
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We followed this with a first course of Truffled Gnocchi in a Pecorino Sardo Sauce, which was better than most truffled gnocchi I've had elsewhere: pillowy gnocchi and an addictive creamy sauce that was more assertive thanks to the pecorino.
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For our main, we decide to reorder the Pasta Longa cun Arrizonis (Artisanal Fettucine with a rich sea urchin sauce and tomato-cured tuna heart), which was just as delicious as previously, along with a vegetable side dish of shaved carrots.
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Below are our reviews of dishes we ordered in 2024:
We ordered quickly, although it took at least twenty minutes for the appetizers of Flat Bread and Burrata Cheese with Arugula to come out; keep the somewhat leisurely pacing in mind (our impatience wasn't helped by how hungry all of us were). Our appetite made short work of both appetizers, which went well together.
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Next were the two pastas we ordered. As in Italy, pastas are considered a first course, not a main dish, so anyone who's hungry shouldn't rely on just one pasta for a full meal; supplement with shared appetizers and main courses. We greatly enjoyed both the Pasta Longa cun Arrizonis (Artisanal Fettucine with a rich sea urchin sauce and tomato-cured tuna heart) and the Fregola Sarda (Fregola pasta with Squid Ink sauce, squid, and baby octopus) and would gladly return for both dishes. These were also the most distinctively Sardinian dishes of the meal.
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We shared two main courses; my vote was for the Gamberoisi Arrustiusu (oven-roasted whole prawns with basil oil, accompanied by a side dish of cauliflower), while our carnivorous teen asked for the seared lamb tenderloin, so we got both, figuring that we'd take home any leftovers. There were no leftovers. True, the shrimp dish was lighter, and as mentioned we were hungry, but that doesn't take away from how delicious both dishes were. Even though it's more work to eat, cooking fresh prawns in the shell does make them more flavorful. The lamb was cooked perfectly, and served atop equally flavorful brussels sprouts.
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The Verdict
While we didn't have the opportunity to visit La Ciccia under the original owners, we enjoyed our first visit to it under Maloney's ownership, especially the delicious food. Our server, from Belarus, was friendly, but pacing was a bit on the slow side for our taste, and on several occasions our water glasses were empty. This may have been a function of being outdoors, where service may be slower, although we did like that it's quieter outside than inside. Overall, we recommend La Ciccia for a satisfying Sardinian dinner, at fair prices (especially given high rents and labor costs in San Francisco) and we hope it thrives under Maloney and Chef Umberto Herrera.
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