Best Romantic Restaurants in Soquel

Great ambience, excellent service, and the food and drinks were delicious!

We come here nearly weekly since ~2022 (prior to that year too but during pandemic it was spotty - once pandemic subsided, nearly weekly from San Jose, CA to Santa Cruz CA). This place is great - regular attendees every week (37 mile one way from San Jose every Friday). That's big endorsement for their chocolate desserts (we usually get ectasy sundae and warm brownie cake, chocolate gelato, etc). Our go-to entree dishes are past rosettes, Oaxacan chicken mole, hand rolled fettuccine, roasted pork. We don't drink alcohol so can't speak to that.

We had lunch outside yesterday. The food, service and ambience were wonderful as usual. We've dined here many times over many years, and have never been disappointed, seriously! We both selected from their Lunch Specials menu (which changes frequently). I had to try the Huevos Rancheros. Theirs is close to, if not the best rendition of the dish that I have had. Thin, crispy tortillas (whole, not chips), layered with black beans, lightly spiced and smokey ranchero sauce, topped with two perfectly cooked fried eggs, sour cream, 1/2 of a sliced avocado. Just delicious! My wife had the Grilled shrimp salad with super-soft gorgonzola cheese with balsamic drizzle and sliced poached bartlett pears. Salad had arugula, shaved brussels sprouts, and dries cranberries. Also, simply delicious! We live locally and it's wonderful that we have Cafe Cruz in our back pocket to dine at whenever we like.

A very nice dinner. Russel was an attentive, competent server. We will be back.

Our dinner was OK! We were expecting something a bit different. It was not bad but it was disappointing that it was not more of a traditional Italian menu. My husband ordered the pork chop and thought it was very tasty. I got the butternut squash raviolis. They were a bit dry and could of used more flavor. The Caesar salad was just ok. Needed a bit more flavor. I know they have good reviews so we probably just ordered the wrong dishes. I would try them again some time.