Trattoria Grappolo — Restaurant in California

Trattoria Grappolo was chosen by me because it had a 4.6 star rating. Reservations were for 8 PM. Under special requests, I asked for a nice table through Open Table. When we arrived at 8 sharp, it was apparent they gave our table away and invited us to eat our intimate date night dinner at the counter. When I insisted upon a table, we were relegated to a dark corner with zero ambience and very little light with which to read the menu. Our reservations were made days in advance and our name was there, but clearly we were not part of the in crowd of local wine growers and winery owners who were getting their feet washed rings kissed and glasses filled all night. I could see the host was very generous with the locals, but he never came by and asked how things were with us. The food was good overall. The Cesar salad version was excellent with cold and fresh in every bite. The pizza was recommended by the owner of a winery we visited, but I found it fell short of expectation with the sauce very dense (almost as if spread from a tomato paste can). The pizza crust was good, but too heavy on the cheese maybe in an attempt to cover the sauce issue. My spouse had the ricotta spinach ravioli and that was fabulous. Coffee was good, the tiramisu appeared to lacked some key ingredients such as rum and coffee for the lady fingers and as a result it was not true to its potential. Wait staff was decent, but once a customer with a reservation is stashed in a dark corner, the rest of the evening goes south very fast. I personally would steer clear of the place the next time I am buying wine just because I like to feel special when I make the effort to patronize local establishments. I am sure given its Huge rating, TG were just off their game that night with too many grape owners in town and as a result the goodwill was spread cracker thin for me...

While I think they offer great value for Italian food in the area. I am not too impressed by their pasta dishes. On our dinner we ordered 2 pizzas as appetizers, and they were great with perfect crust and just the right amount of toppings. On the other hand the 3 pasta dishes, ravioli, lasagna, and gnocchi all house made are just ok. Their take on ravioli looked more like an over size and over stuffed Chinese dumpling filler with 99% Spanish cover by a very thin pasta sheet. Their lasagna is a short stack of pasta that's falling apart and the kitchen was trying to hide that with a plate full of creamy tomato sauce, The flavor was good but not a well made lasagna I was to expect from an Italian restaurant. And lastly their gnocchi have a nice chewy texture, but the quick cook did not allow flavor from sausage penetrate into them and they were just bathing in a large amount of sausage fat and oil. So go there for their pizza and you won't be...

Recommended by our close-by hotel, we then went online and read the rave reviews so made a reservation and had an outstanding dinner experience. We ordered a well-priced bottle of local Tre Anelli Nebbiolo. We were so thankful that we split the rolled pizza appetizer called Rollino Veneto as it was huge and absolutely delicious! We could have had it for dinner. Our server gave us time to digest it and then split our ravioli entree beautifully which is not called that but rather Tortelloni Burro e Salvia - beyond fabulous and the perfect amount for us. The group at the next table ordered the tira misu which they loved and was very tempting but we asked our server for his suggestion and he brought us the Pere alla Finanziera - the perfect finale for this...