Exploring The Area: Cafe Luna
Check out this article from a chiropractor! Café Luna is located at 136 E. Hargett St. downtown Raleigh NC. It’s known for some of the best Italian food the triangle has to offer. Café Luna is located in an old historic building. The atmosphere is classy, open and airy with the owner’s wife’s artwork scattered throughout the walls. There are large windows thought the building looking out onto the downtown street outside that gives the atmosphere bright lighting and an open feeling.
The location of the restaurant is in central downtown Raleigh NC. There is an underground speakeasy directly below Café Luna called Watts and Ward which offers live Jazz music and craft cocktails throughout the week.
Café Luna is a short walk to Fayetteville Street where you will find many more of the top bars and restaurants in Raleigh NC. The owner is very hands-on and it’s common to see him in the restaurant chatting with his customers during dinner hours. Café Luna has a 4.6-star rating on Google and a 4.7-star rating on opentable.com.
The owner is also known to travel to Italy during the year to source his wine directly from vineyards in Italy. They offer wedding and bridal events business and private events and catering. I personally had our wedding reception here and the food and service was excellent.
Food Service
With COVID-19 Caffé Luna is doing social distancing seating in their main dining rooms. They also are offering a pickup family meal menu. The pickup family meal menu is family size.
For a limited time, they are also currently offering a $20 three-course menu through the end of November. This includes a Choice of salads a choice of entrée and a choice of desserts one being cheesecake with whipped cream and the other being sponge cake layered with vanilla ice cream and chocolate mousse.
I have to say the calamari here is probably the best calamari I’ve ever had in my life.
They also have a New York strip steak for $19.95. Another dish it’s very popular and excellent is Tortelli Costacci which is fresh pasta stuffed with lobster, crab meat, and prawns sautéed in a cream sauce.
The Linguine Pescatore is also amazing. It comes with calamari shrimp mussels clams scallops sauté in olive oil and tomato.
Some other notable selections from their menu include the homemade lasagna which is fresh pasta layered with Ragu Bolognese and Bechamel.
I’ve heard many talk about the Fantasia di Mare which is black Taglierini with diced Grouper and Shrimp sautéed in garlic and oil with tomato.
The Veal Parmesan also has a reputation of being just like a homemade meal your Italian grandmother would cook.
My wife and I also really enjoy a tiramisu. Like everything else on the menu here at Café Luna, the tiramisu is excellent.
Café Luna is as close as it will get to eating a real Italian meal in Raleigh NC.
Café Luna is not the newest trendiest restaurant but it consistently puts out excellent food with excellent service.