La Cantina

Italian food rules!
This is a secret little place with free parking in Bridgeland but apparently has been operational for years.
Do not come here expecting fine dining service, this is not that type of place.
Especially sitting by the bar, the servers have a dont-​give-​a-​crap type of attitude and if you are in casual mood, it is downright comical, how they speak about and towards one another.
We ordered a small minestrone soup and the calamari to start. Both recommended.
The soup was homemade, chock full of veg and the spicy marinara sauce that went with the squid was delicious. Love the fresh bread. No charge for seconds!
For mains I had the fettucine with asparagus, scallops and shrimp. The pasta, while dried and not house made was well cooked. The seafood was cooked with care. I had to take half home with me. Choose the rose sauce, it was quite good!
We also ordered the gnocchi, made in house and did not disappoint. I found it very cheesy, super soft in texture. Large portion.
After we ate, I asked as an after thought if cheese and ground pepper had been available for the dishes. They sure were! But I guess they did not care to offer us any. Boo.
We skipped dessert but if you feel springing $ 10 for a piece of tiramisu, this is where you get it. $ 7 for a cappuccino.
If you are looking for a good, filling, piping hot meal, come here. Prices reasonable enough for starters and mains compared to other places in this area.
If you want to be waited on with perfected service and classy ambiance, choose elsewhere.

Once upon a time, I found a LivingSocial deal for La Cantina — knowing my boyfriend is all over Italian food, I purchased the deal. And let it sit… and sit… and sit…
Flash forward to last Friday — the very last day the deal could be used. Oops. We tried calling a couple of times but didn’t get through. Figured they were probably busy. The deal didn’t say you needed a reservation so we decided to saunter down and see if we could get a table.
Getting there is a bit tough — if you’re driving south on 1^st St NE you’ll have much better luck — otherwise it’s a bit of a U-​turn if you’re coming from the south and have to take Edmonton Trail.
There’s a tonne of parking — including overflow across the street. I guess the Calgary Italian Club hosts weddings in its venue, so it needs lots of space for guests. You’ll see a little door to the basement on the east side of the building to get to La Cantina.
We were originally told that, due to all the reservations that had been made, we’d have to come back and try for 8pm (it was just before 6 at this point) — while we were debating what to do in the meantime, it turns out someone didn’t show up for their reservation so we were promptly seated. Perfect!
We let the server know right away that we had a LivingSocial deal, which I disclose with trepediation as it can result in poor service at some venues. However, she was perfectly fine with that (I joked that they must be seeing a lot of them since it was the last day) and service was awesome. She checked in often, we never had to wait for anything — my only feedback is that our water glasses could have used filling.
The food was excellent. We had the veal parmigiana with penne/​marinara, and the chicken in dijon sauce. The latter was very flavourful — the veal was excellent, although apparently the marinara could have used a little bit of a kick. We also had the bruschetta, which was delicious. And the wines were well-​priced — we shared a half litre of the house.
All in all, we’ll definitely be back. It’s not too far from home and the prices made the visit well worth it. Even without the deal, it was a great value for what we got.
One more nit-​picky thing, the music was Top 40 — we wished it had been something more classic to go with the venue. It seemed a little out-​of-​place.

Menu items are excellent. Pasta is very flavorful. Dessert was vile especially the cake we ordered. It was clearly microwaved. It’s a bit if a hole in the wall, but the food is excellent.