Eccolo

Delicious, Delicious, The food was excellent quality and ingredients very fresh. The service was prompt and courteous. I've had a wonderful time every time I've visited. :)

An out-of-town foodie and I ate at the sparsely populated Eccolo recently where we gushed over the restaurant's amazing house-cured salumi plate and fab dessert but were DISGUSTED by the so-called crab-lemon pasta that had obviously been coagulating and hardening for about 30 minutes (and that was after having taken the advice of our wait person on her recommendation). However, if you eat nothing else, get that salumi platter! Historically, I've found their entries to be sometimes delicious and sometimes about the worst food I've ever eaten (except for Cyrus, that is!). Note: we advised our wonderful wait person of our issues with the pasta and the charges ($18 per plate) was immediately removed from the bill. And the dessert (3 varying types of gelato) were wonderful!

Eccolo has a relatively decent wine list with a focus on Italian wines. At the beginning, the waiter was quite helpful in regards to our wine selection. However as time went on and it became busier, it seemed the waiter was overworked. We had to wait almost an hour for our entree to come. For the price of the entree, the portion size and flavor was definitely lacking. We waited another 30-45 minutes for the waiter to order our dessert,which almost made up for the main dish. It had much more flavor and was almost bigger than our entrees. I would recommend Eccolo to someone looking for desserts and drinks, but not or a main course.

I ate at Eccolo with a party of 7 on a recent Sunday evening. When we arrived at 5:30, the restaurant was maybe 1/4 full. It took a while, but our drink and dinner orders were taken and we were served water. Our wine arrived, then nothing happened for about 40 minutes. No refills on drinks, no appetizers.. When the appetizers finally arrived one was missing. We didn't do anything about it because we were just hoping dinner would arrive soon. 30 minutes later dinner finally arrived and we were shocked at the portion size. 3 of us had ordered a seafood stew that had a good flavor but almost no seafood in it. Another in our party had ordered a beef dish that again had good flavor, but was mostly lettuce/greens. Of course we wanted dessert after that, but had to track down a different waiter to get the dessert menu. I've never left a restaurant so hungry. There was a big party that started at around 6:15pm, and it seemed like all the staff was focused on that party. I would never eat here again.

For each birthday, my family likes to get together and try a new fancy restaurant. But now that there are 2 toddlers in the family and we're new to Berkeley, I didn't know what to do. I picked Eccolo mainly because it's on 4th street, which I love. It ended up being the perfect place! The staff was very accommodating, especially regarding the toddlers. They had a separate kids menu and asked us soon after we arrived if we wanted to order something for the kids right away. The ambiance was very nice with the perfect amount of light. And the food was excellent. The proscuitto appetizer was fabulous and my butternut squash cannelloni was delicious. Whenever the little ones were restless we were able to take them outside, walk them down the street with lots to look at in the windows & not too busy with cars.