Review of Cafe Lucca

From the Cafe Lucca website regarding their gelato: "truly the best; judge for yourself" and "We believe our customers are discerning".

Well, if they want to post such a claim, then I'm up for the challenge!  I've been there and judged for myself, thank you.  Here's my take on this place.  A friend of mine treated me to gelato at Cafe Lucca in Orange.  Its at a nice location, there is very enthusiastic and helpful service and they allow you to have samples of the flavors.  Let me also add that we saw room for improvement: some of the gelato had travelled into neighboring bins (ie. small lumps of raspberry on top of the mango, etc.), the gelato selections were of differing consistencies, some were partially melted, others were frozen solid and then, more than one bin held more than one flavor, so the presentation was sloppy. My samples were of the chocolate covered banana, chocolate hazlenut, mango and straciatella.  I opted for vanilla bean and chocolate hazelnut.  First, the vanilla bean left me wanting, there were no telltale vanilla bean flecks or pale yellow tint to justify the "vanilla bean" title, it had a strange residue on the tongue and the spoon and it was too sweet (perhaps the mix wasn't blended completely).  The chocolate hazlenut was hazelnutty, but otherwise no distinctive chocolate flavor and it was too sweet also.  My friend ordered the raspberry and the toasted almond  Her assessment was that it was good, but lackluster.  Her toasted almond was disappointingly melted by the time she finished her raspberry.  Overall, we were both looking for that intense flavor that only comes with well made gelato and we didn't find it.

Rating: one to four spoons, four being best:
2