Dattilo Ristorante Italiano — Restaurant in Hemet

*Reasonably priced, excellent place for a first date, anniversary, birthday, or any other excuse you have for going out.

If you're the kind of person who craves authenticity and old-school Italian charm, then you'll love Datillo Ristorante. The place is owned by a real Italian family (vs. some soul-less corporation) and has been around for over 34 years. Who knew Hemet, home of taquerias and fast food, still had a quality sit-down establishment such as this?

I didn't get any of their famous pizza (this time) but instead was treated to a plate of perfectly cooked spaghetti with to-die-for red sauce. I mean the sauce was awesome- fresh and not-acidic. (Yay! no heartburn!) The noodles were al dente, the way I like them, and the meatballs were not greasy and spiced perfectly

If you're going to absorb lots of calories and knock your diet off track, make sure its worthwhile, fresh and well-prepared food. Datillo made going off my low-carb diet easy and painless. HA!

My meal included two slices of their homemade bread (I could have eaten a whole loaf of that stuff!) I chose the lentil soup as my side dish.

While the food was indeed awesome, its the ambiance that impressed most impressed me. Staff was friendly and attentive, the bartender, who I later discovered was actually one of the owners was a delightfully young 80-something man full of entertaining stories and a song or two. An added feature of my visit is that one of their long-time patrons was having a birthday celebration...her 107th Birthday! Maybe there's something in the Datillo sauce that contributed to her longevity? I got to meet that lovely lady and hear her sing along with the owner. Pure gold!

If Buca di Beppo were REALLY Italian, it would be like Datillo Ristorante, only not as good. PS: If you drink adult beverages and you like a slightly sweeter cocktail, ask for an Italian...

First time visiting this restaurant. Husband, myself and the kids went to celebrate Valentine's Day. Very impressed at first. The fine dining yet small look and vibe it had was delightful. Even though we waited about 40 minutes, it was still OK. It wasn't till my 6yr old daughter spilled her water, that we started to get a negative experience. The servers solution was to put 4 cloth napkins on top of the spill. Water being all over the chair and floor, I personally had to switch her chair with another empty table. Floor was never moppd and eventually soaked my shoe. When we adviced another server, she was very apologetic and offered her help, while accidentally pouring the ice from a cup she was taking off our table, on my husband. Not till then did they offer to move us tables. We sit at the new table and not even 5 minutes later, server accidently knocks my purse down and spills wine all over it. She immediately picked up my soaked purse and places it on our table and starts drying the floor. I lay my purse down so that the liquid doesn't leak more in to the inside. I accidently say " I don't want water inside", she looks me dead in the face with an attitude and says...."its wine". She was extremely rude, and for that, the owners granddaughter apologized and offered a discount and some chocolate cake. They brought the cake and check. There was no discount, and when brought to her attention, she said we got cake for the inconvenience. A slice of chocolate cake in exchange for my Ruined shoes and purse. Worst spent 70 dollars and worst spent...

Went there for a birthday party and they were accommodating for that, that's where the pleasant experience ended. We had our own section of the restaurant so we really weren't in the way but they were constantly moving us (I have 4 kids, two Littles) to make room for some mysterious cart they had that we were obviously some big road block for. So we were uncomfortable from the start as we couldn't control our own seating arrangement. After that they took our drink orders and we waited for fifteen minutes for them to arrive. Then apps, it was only a few antipasta salads but they took another 30 minutes. Still no bread to munch on at this point. After our salads arrived they were ready to take our dinner order. They took our order and we waited for soup or salad..... This is 45 minutes in, I looked around at the table and everyone's glasses were empty! They hadn't done a refill the whole time! Our soups and salads came 20 minutes later and they finally gave us a refill.... Or so we thought, they brought out decanters that had enough for about a third of the table. Two trips later everyone had a drink... Thirsty. Dinner finally came and the food was decent, we had a cake for the birthday girl but we had to go as we already spent more than 2 hours on this excursion. The waitress seemed put out when I asked for my check after dinner because she had to make an extra trip to ring it up. Keep in mind the whole time, the restaurant was like a third full. I won't be...