Il Posto Trattoria — Restaurant in Napa

Casual atmosphere, excellent food. Our hotel conceirge recommended this place to us for a casual italian experience.

First impression was a small local place not in the downtown area- nice mix of people - high school kids, families and couples on dates.

Service was excellent- wait staff would stop and fold your napkin if you got up to go to the restroom- which I thought was very attentive.

Food:

Was also beyond my expectation, order an appetizer platter with various meats, cheeses and toasted bread. The house made pepperoni and sausages were nice.

The main course I had hand made tortellini with scallops and prawns in a basil pesto cream sauce- probably a Top 10 all-time meal for myself. My wife had cantelloni, which she seemed to enjoy, but not nearly as much as I enjoyed the tortellini. For dessert we had the house made ice cream sandwhich, a chocolate cookie with pecans and vanilla ice cream.

Atmosphere: The space was well decorated with old pictures and cooking utensils- my only knock against the restaurant is that it is a bit loud inside. The space could benefit from the addition of some accoustic panels on the wood ceiling to really cut back the noise level. While we could hear each other across the table, there were times we had to lean in to talk or raise our voices to hear one another.

All in all, definitely recommend this place to anyone looking for excellent italian with a casual atmosphere and great service!

Also, hit Open Table and book your reservation - you may still have to wait for a seat with a reservation, but this is a popular restaurant, so expect at least a good 30-60 minute wait on a...

This place really amazed me! Service was exceptional and every single thing we tried was SO good! We are vegetarian, and told them at the outset, and they assured us they could make anything without meat.

We started with the polenta appetizer which came with marinara, arugula, and shaved parmigiano. This was absolutely good -- the sauce has the perfect amount of wine in it. Next, we had the Barbabietole salad, which came with roasted beets, arugula, frisee, pommegranate, various fruits, marcona almonds and a citrus vinaigrette. When ordering, we had asked about the size of the salad, and was told they were individual, so we ordered 2. When they arrived, they were actually quite large, and next time we will just split one (the waiter did apologize that the salad was larger than he was thinking).

Following the salad, we had the Margherita pizza and Cannelloni . The latter consisted of spinach pasta filled with musroom and ricotta, brocolli di cecco, parmesan cream sauce, and chile oil and was mind-blowingly good! Adding the chile oil made this a dish unlike any I'd really ever tasted! You only get 3 cannelloni, but it was very rich, and was perfect split between the two of us (we even had one leftover to take). The pizza was also amazing. The crust here is thin and extraordinarily tasty (I could just eat the crust with nothing on it!), and the sauce used has a perfect amount of wine in it! With all of the food, we had half of the pizza left to take with us for later.

It is a little pricey, but I felt it was worth every penny (and I really rarely think that about pricier meals). We will...

The staff was very friendly and we enjoyed the busy, intimate atmosphere. Unfortunately, we weren't really impressed by the food we received. We ordered an appetizer to feel out the place. We had the Pane Formaggio and while it was tasty, it was very one-dimensional. I don't know if it needed a bit more seasoning or what, but it needed help. It came with a marinara for dipping which also completely lacked depth. It tasted like they'd put a bunch of tomatoes in a blender, warmed it and served it. It needed a lot more love and a lot more cook-time to achieve a deeper flavor. Also, it was exceedingly acidic so if you get heartburn, stay away from their red sauce. Next we ordered Cesar salads which were also disappointing. The dressing tasted more like a weak ranch than a Cesar dressing. Since the marinara had fallen flat, we decided to avoid any dishes that would contain it. For our entree we shared the Ravioli which was pretty good. This dish also lacked depth, but overall we enjoyed it. At home I'm going to make a modified version of this to include onions, a little salt, parm and a little pancetta to create depth and flavor which is exactly what was missing from the dishes at Il Posto.

Overall, the dishes lacked the love and depth we expected. It seems like they started with "Grandma's recipes" which are awesome, but require more love than a high-volume restaurant allows. I don't think we'll be back on future...