Cascata at Brunch: Reaching Beyond the Hotel Lobby
Cascata Italian Cuisine, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, United States
First Bite
For a party of nine, the brunch begins with logistics. Cascata’s OpenTable cap at six means a party of nine requires something more analog, an actual phone call to a host willing to play Tetris with tables. By the time you arrive at Cascata Italian Cuisine, folded into the new Steel District and the Canopy by Hilton in Downtown Sioux Falls, the plan is already in motion.
The welcome is immediate and warm, first from the staff at the door, then from the host who clearly remembers the bigger booking. Your table is ready, four smaller ones pushed together into a long brunch runway. Three match, one does not, a slightly off-size end piece that gives the setup a faintly improvised look. The water glasses, on the other hand, are unmistakably intentional, nicely weighted and more refined than the average hotel brunch service. Before the first plate lands, you can feel the place reaching for “special.”
The Hook
The food follows the grammar of comfort, upgraded just enough to feel like an occasion. Orion went straight for blueberry pancakes, I chose the caramel apple French toast.
His pancakes arrive with a side of lemon ricotta that actually does some work. The ricotta is light and bright, the citrus cutting through sweetness rather than adding more heft. Each forkful has a bit of lift to it, the blueberries and syrup kept in check so the dish tastes composed instead of sticky and one-note.
My French toast leaned into nostalgia but with a little restraint. Thick slices are drenched in caramel glaze and topped with green apples cooked to the exact right point, softened yet still holding a distinct bite. That bit of resistance keeps the sweetness from overwhelming everything, a sharp, tart edge meeting the sugar halfway. It is not revolutionary, but it is clearly thought through.
For the birthday in the group, the kitchen sends out a complimentary cannoli, plated with a dark chocolate “happy birthday” sign you can actually eat. The filling comes in three distinct flavors across the shared dessert experience, lemon ricotta with chocolate chips, raspberry, and hazelnut. Each is solid, classic rather than showy, the kind of pastry that makes sense at the end of a hotel brunch where the goal is warmth over spectacle.
What keeps the experience from quite matching the ambition is the quiet drag of inattentive drink service. My water glass sat empty more than once, long enough to notice, then notice again. In a restaurant angling for the higher end of the spectrum, that kind of basic neglect stands out more than it would in a diner.
The Bridge
Cascata wants to be more than a hotel restaurant, and you can feel that ambition in nearly every detail. The branding leans into rustic Italian flavors with a modern polish, the space connects to a gleaming riverside development, and the menu promises something above the standard “breakfast included” spread. The nicer glassware, the smooth handling of a large reservation, the complimentary birthday gesture, all of that fits the story the restaurant is trying to tell.
Yet the experience you have is more modest. The food is good, occasionally brushing up against great in the way the lemon ricotta brightens pancakes or the green apples keep French toast from becoming a sugar brick. The service is friendly at the door but loses focus at the table. The room looks the part, but the mismatched fourth table and empty glasses break the illusion just enough to remind you where you are, a higher end concept grafted onto a Midwestern hotel with all the compromises that implies.
It leaves Cascata in an in-between place. It outperforms the generic lobby restaurant by a comfortable margin, but it does not quite step into the role of true destination brunch spot. You taste potential, you see effort, you also see the limits of a space doing triple duty for hotel guests, weekend brunchers, and evening diners.
The Outro
You walk out feeling mostly satisfied, if not smitten. The greeting was gracious, the big-group seating handled without drama, Orion’s pancakes well balanced, my caramel apple French toast smartly constructed, the birthday cannoli generous and genuinely sweet in spirit. At the same time, the details that separate “good” from “great” are not all there yet, from the improvised table configuration to those neglected refills that quietly undercut the polish.
Cascata, for now, feels exactly like what it is, a higher end restaurant inside a shiny new hotel, reaching upward with some real intention but not quite soaring. For travelers staying upstairs, it is an easy recommendation. For locals, it is a pleasant brunch option rather than a must-visit, a place you are glad to have in the mix even if you are not rearranging your weekend around it.
I’d sing its praises 3/5.
