Carmen's Cafe

Carmens Cafe for Italian food was a treat. Located in Brookside Plaza with plenty of parking stalls around the area. We ventured out on a cold night while here as we heard great reviews of this place. I noticed that it seemed to be a favorite in the area as many familys were dining.The establishments entry was through the Bar area and then through a narrow passage where it opened up into a large restaurant space. We ordered a bottle of wine and a calamari appetizer to start which was divine. Our basket of sliced warm bread soon followed. We ordered our entries, mine a creamy vodka based rigatoni. It certainly didn't disappoint. It had a sprinking of peas and pancetta throughout which completed it. I only wished the spice level was turned up but thats an easy fix. Would i revisit when back in the area? The simple answer to that is yes!

Came here for a birthday dinner (made a reservation that morning), and had a really good experience. Our service was great and attentive. We were greeted with warm bread and butter, and water. We ordered stuffed artichoke and Italian butter for appetizers. The Italian butter is definitely worth the $3 to dip your warm bread in, and they will bring you warm bread when you run out (love that). I got baked Mannacoti, and it was delicious (just needed a little more flavor, but delicious). It came with a delicious salad, too. We gotta the white chocolate strawberry cheesecake for dessert and it was DIVINE. They even packaged up all of our food for us and gave us bread to go, too. Loved my experience and would come back!

Visited here with my sisters and MIL while out visiting them in Weston, MO. They picked this restaurant because it was in an area they wanted to bring me to so I can see this cute part of Kansas City and to see the Christmas lights. We had reservations at 5:30pm on a Wednesday and when we pulled up to the restaurant, the parking spots were filled already. Please arrive a bit early to find a parking spot if you go at this time or later. It did get more crowded as the night progressed.The front of the restaurant didn't look like much and neither did the entrance, which was a door with a curtain a few feet past the door, which opened into the bar and around the corner, the restaurant. Here's a simple review of our experience:Ambience: Intimate setting with linen napkins & tablecloths, eclectic artwork a few seasonal decorations/lights and soft music. Great vibe for gathering of friends for dinner and holiday parties.Food:Appetizers:1- Stuffed artichoke-cooked perfectly with deliciously seasoned garlicy, buttered breadcrumbs. We chose no meat on this one. I highly recommend this! 2-Italian Butter: A MUST!!! One of the best garlic olive oils I've had. It was served warm with TONS of garlic. It was a hefty serving and it was enough for the four of us to eat it with the loaf of bread that was served with it. We had leftovers even after eating so much during our evening. Wine: We had a bottle of Chianti which was good, but a little on the sweet side. Be sure to taste it before buying an entire bottleEntrees:1-Eggplant Parmigana: My MIL had this and she said it was very good. The sauce was great and the eggplant was cooked crispy and perfect.2-Chicken Spiedini Julian: Two of us had this and we were not disappointed. The breaded chicken was charbroiled perfectly and the filling of artichokes and the scrumptious fettuccine Alfredo was over-the-top AMAZING! It truly was one of the best Italian dishes I've ever had. I am still dreaming about the next time I visit to order this again

A staple of Brookside, Carmen's has been around for ages. Love this place and so many things about it.Now, you should be warned, there is no clear front door. It is jarring the entrance situation. Yes, it is a hidden door that leads to an inconvenient curtain that lands you in the lap of those sitting at the bar. Of all simple things to fix, one would think they would resolve this terrible issue but alas, it has been this way for decades.The bar is strong. Their martini game is STRONG. Let me be clear, I'm picky when it comes to a martini... Carmen's has a strong game in the martini department.Food is absolutely amazing. Truly, I can't speak highly enough of their food... however, if they could find a way to serve it hot, it would be amazing.I struggle with rating Carmen's, so I'm going with a 4-star review as there is so much potential there. They truly have all the ingredients to providing a 5-star review but the simple fixes seem to evade them...

Have been a customer here for nearly 20 years and unfortunately will never go back. So many happy memories there, and my grandmother died today so my family decided to come here to celebrate her life. The service was slow, then bad/rude, and then an order was incorrect, and the food that was correct was awful. We spent 10 mins trying to track down our server to tell her the incorrect order and ended up having to just tell the chefs at the bar. The chef then gave my mom a bowl of the correct sauce.. expecting her to just transfer the pasta from her wrong sauce into the bowl of new sauce?? Again, the servers were nowhere to be found. The "carbonara" had scrambled eggs in it. We informed the server who was nearly impossible to track down. She agreed to take that off our check, but there was still a "side of" fettuccine for $7 on the check, which she told us was for getting white sauce instead of red. Fettuccine is a pasta not a sauce... not sure how that makes sense. And that should have been communicated when ordering, regardless. To top it all off, as we were about to leave, a different server shoved through me and reached across the bar at my table to look at tickets and disrupted my personal space in a very abrupt and startling way. I think she said "scuse me" but did not wait for my response or to move out of the way. I was pushed and had to lean on the edge of my seat to give her room. The man sitting next to me very firmly said "You need to stop doing that" multiple times before she finally stopped. When she was done, I told her, "that was very rude", and she then proceeded to go loudly complain about me to the other servers around the corner. I approached her and told her "pushing and invading a customers personal space is not ok", she said she "did not push me", and I said "and don't complain about your paying customers right in front of them" then walked out. Never going back.

Service is always great and the food is always on point! My favorite place for Italian in the city! Highly recommend!

the place to go for italian. One of my favorite places to eat, drink, meet friends, catch up, celebrate. Highly recommend.

After eating at this restaurant for several years now, my wife and I were extremely disappointed in our most recent experience; where we picked up takeout food. Not only was the quantity much different (less) than we were used to, but the price of the order was not in in-line with the food we ordered. Sadly we will not eat (or order out) from this restaurant anymore / unless something changes...

Food, service, ambiance, bartender. All of it. Price was great too. We came here since Il Centro was full (our favorite) and it didn't disappoint. We will be back.

I returned to KC to see friends and we went out for dinner at Carmen's. I had not been there is 5 years. Area restaurants were busy so I was surprised when we entered and found seats at the bar. We started with bacon-wrapped shrimp. The bacon was raw and the shrimp very tough. It was covered in a thick red sauce. I has linguini and clams. The pasta was mushy. There was one tiny clam and they had made a greasy sauce that was very salty. The other two split a chicken spedini that looked dry and almost burned. The wine we selected was good. The bartender was very good. Friendly.