Baracca - Cluj-Napoca

Baracca offers good, beautifully plated food at fair prices. The atmosphere is a little bit reserved. They also need to change the menu more often and adapt it seasonally. Recommended!

This is a nice fine dining restaurant, with excellent starters, main course, desert and lovely wine, all for circa for me this time anyway) about Lei. Good value for the quality and nice service. One point,not about Baracca, but fine dining generally in...Cluj,the wines range from what you would expect to pay in a good restaurant in the UK (maybe bottles in their ranger are circa to top end expensive (all of the rest i.e. per bottle). The cheapest wine is still lovely though,. Not sure what this is about but there you are.

My parents were very excited to bring me to this restaurant, since they’d already eaten here two times in the past. Wihout a doubt, it’s an experience. Some of the dishes are incredible, others are interesting, but the fun, yet confusing part, is that you...rarely know what you’re eating. Before describing the food they serve, it’s mandatory to applause the waiters at this restaurant. Besides their manners and extremely professional behavior, we were served by different waiters, who made us feel welcomed and surely improved our night. We shared two appetizers: goat cheese mousse and fois gras. Honestly, as a fois gras lover, when the dish arrived, I was questioning where exactly the liver was on the plate. So, as a small note, don’t expect your regular French fois gras, but rather a terrine in a very light, mousse-like texture. In my opinion, the goat cheese appetizer didn’t have anything fancy, but the lime sauce, as simple as it sounds, was the item that completed the dish. As a main course we ordered the following: duck breast, beef cheek and Mangalica tenderloin (photo). This restaurant’s chef definetely knows how to cook meat, since all three dishes presented impeccable cuts. For me, out of the three, the Mangalica pork was the most interestkng one, not only because of the taste, but also due to the mixture of textures. Lastly, we wanted to share some desserts, so we ordered apple tart, sticky toffe pudding (photo) and red beetroot and raspberry cake. I couldn’t really taste the toffee, however, a very strong chocolate caramel flavour was the star of the dish. Despite how sweet it was, there were some small bits of chocolate with quite a significant quantity of salt, which balanced the dessert perfectly. The apple tart is very similar to a lemon meringue, structurally speaking, with bits of caramelized apple inside. It was fine, but I definetely preferred the pudding. For me, the beetroot cake was a big no-no. The beetroot taste came through quite powerful, and it was quite hard to remember that this isn’t necessarily a vegan, healthy dessert. However, it you’re into this earthy taste, definitely give this a go.

Good food and desserts. The only problem is the atmosphere which wasn’t very welcoming. Affordable prices and overall recommended

Our experience was strongly influenced by the behaviour/attitude of the waiter, who apparently is the owner. He appeared to be annoyed, and he showed it, because I said I wanted to taste the wine my daughter had ordered before ordering it for myself. He replied...“the wine is good”. But my thought was about my personal taste, not his. Starters were great. But they kept taking our plates off the table before we had all finished; my daughter had to say “I am still eating!”. Mains chicken breast was a bit dry. Beef too. The waiter/owner took it upon himself to pour the sauce over our plates, but then took it away. I would have preferred that he left it for us to do as we wished. There was not enough sauce much of it went back to the kitchen! Desserts were very good. The bread was amazing (sourdough). But again I don’t want someone else to pour sauce over my food I want to do it myself. Overall very good food. Cold, slightly confrontational and non-pleasant service. Passive-aggressive. No-one made us feel special at all, not welcome. This soured our evening.