Amare La Cucina Baguio Honest Review

Back in Baguio! We didn’t bother making a lunch reservation because we didn’t know how long the triage would take. We had heard horror stories where triage took 4+ hours, so we were a bit worried. Thankfully Camp John Hay’s drive through triage was really fast. In and out in 10mins, so yay, looks like we get to eat lunch after all.

Unfortunately, without a reservation, we’d be stuck queuing for lunch next. Thankfully, after going around, we found Amare La Cucina – located at the El Albergo Hotel. This one is quite nice to eat at if you don’t have reservation because it has ample parking (a rarity in Baguio) and no queue to get in

So Amare’s claim to fame is it was the first restaurant in Baguio that boased a traditional wood fire brick oven. They’ve since expanded to Metro Manila though, so actually I didn’t need to go all the way to Baguio to try them out.

So dishes-wise, for the appetizer, we tried the Mozzarella Balls (₱250). Forgettable. Don’t bother with this one.

We also got the Burrata Salad (₱495). The greens were incredibly fresh, but the burrata itself was just so-so.

For the mains, we of course made sure to get their famed pizzas. We chose Alvin’s Pizza (₱490) which had their homemade basil as base. This was delicious, especially with the chili honey sauce on top. The crust is very nice too – thin with a nice crunch to it, with that wonderful smokey flavor from the wood fire brick oven pizza. Would definitely reorder this.

As for the pasta, we decided to try the Ultimate Cheesy Pasta (₱645), which boasts of a creamy rich white sauce made from 7 cheeses: cheddar, mozzarella, raclette, gorgonzola, goat cheese, Pecorino, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Hm, I thought this was rather bland. I ended up adding chili honey to this too. Pass for next time.

Lastly for dessert, we got the Roasted Mallow Speculoos Pizza (₱300), with a Speculoos Cookie Butter spread and a big toasted marshmallow on top. Hmm, the crust was great. Toasted marshmallow yummy. Everything else just fine.

Service-wise, they were incredibly slow. We had to request for water several times, food took awhile to come out, cutleries were insufficient so we had to keep requesting. Hmm, quite weird. They were nice but very inefficient.

Overall, not a restaurant I would wholeheartedly recommend? But if you’re hungry and have nowhere to go, their pizzas are pretty good.