Thanks to Miss Cindy, one of our 365 Things To Do In Pasadena fans, I scheduled lunch at Celestino’s!  Cindy raves about their Chilean Sea Bass.

Celestino is an Italian Restaurant in the South Lake District of Pasadena.  It has a wonderful dining room, a beautiful patio facing Lake, as well as additional outside seating in their interior courtyard.

Parking is quite easy, especially for South Lake Avenue.  They validate in a parking lot off of Hudson (which is parallel to Lake – 1 block West of Lake).  It’s a one way street so please be careful and enter Hudson off of Cordova.  The parking lot is immediately on the right as you turn just past one of my favorite condo complexes – 160 South Hudson.  Take a ticket and don’t forget to validate.  You can enter the restaurant from the back.

My cohort for this outing was Mondie Pic’l, lender extraordinaire, who I’m trying to talk into writing some posts for our always wanting to be up to date readers (maybe a little public push will help!)  Stay tuned for that… 🙂

Back to Celestino… we took a table outside on the patio.  I was impressed with how nice it was.  The tables were nicely set and the service was good.  Mondie ordered the Chilean Sea Bass which was not on the menu, but thankfully was on special.  She was kind enough to let me take a bite and it was delicious – nice and moist!  The sauce, I believe it was plum, was wonderful!

I ordered a simple pasta with tomatoes and garlic or as Celestino calls it Capelli d’Angelo al Pomodoro Fresco e Basilico.  It was quite nice – pasta was prepared al dente, tomatoes were fresh and it had just the right amount of garlic.  Not too overpowering.

We shared a starter salad with arugula and artichokes which was quite good.

Overall, it was very pleasant.  The food was great.  The ambiance perfect.  The pricing was a little on the high side especially for their specials.  My only complaint was the lack of service after we paid our bill.  We were sitting on the patio for quite awhile and no one came out to refill our water glasses or ask if we needed anything.
Outside of that, it’s definitely worth a taste, especially, if you are on an expense account.  🙂

Location:
Celestino Ristorante & Bar
141 South Lake Avenue
Pasadena, CA 91101
(626) 795-4006

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