Dinamo — Restaurant in Richmond

My wife and I happened upon Dinamo after parking at the VCU parking garage and looking for a place to eat while waiting to see a Joe Bonamassa concert at the Landmark theater. It was late to be looking for a place to dine, and Dinamo was packed. We figured all these people couldn't be wrong. We went in. A friendly waitress met us at the door and encouraged us to stay after stating it wouldn't be but 15-20 minutes. Okay, it was a bit longer, but that turned out just fine. While we waited for a place to sit we were placed near the kitchen. This offered us an opportunity to see everything coming out to the customers. Wow, so much looked great we were having a tough time deciding on what we would order. The wait staff was very accommodating answering our myriad questions about the various dishes. We did get a seat at the bar and that was just fine. We ordered. I got the lamb stew and my wife ordered the frisée w/ duck confit. Both were excellent. In fact, I wished I'd been more adventuress...next time for sure! The wine we ordered was excellent for the dishes, as was the appetizer bread. Bottom line is we managed a great meal in short time and still saw all of our show without a hitch. Dinamo was a great experience for us, and...

Shhh! Don't tell too many other people about what you read here...

Seriously,it would be a shame if crowds wrecked the intimacy and friendliness of this small establishment. The atmosphere pares perfectly with the authentic Italian food at a price that even students could afford. Speaking of students - yes, it's close enough to VCU for parking to be an insurmountable problem - if you plan on eating dinner before 5pm. Otherwise, you may even get a space within a few hundred feet.

Dinamo is owned and operated by the folks who brought you Mama Zu's. And they brought experienced kitchen staff, including chef, with them. The only thing they left behind was the attitude. The menu provides more selection than you would expect to find in a place this small. It probably seats no more than 30 people, maybe less,but they don't crowd their patrons shoulder to shoulder. There is no downside to this place. Eat...

The menu doesn't offer a lot of choice, the quality of the ingredients are not bad but poorly associated with each other. Everything was unnecessarily spicy making it very hard to enjoy and taste the food. With so much pepper all taste the same. This place has good potential, good service and a good atmosphere but all have bell pepper which doesn't match with most food and all we had was spicy . If at least they would add a note to the menu so people know. Got sausage with linguine, pasta was not al dente, loaded with a heavy oily spicy bell pepper sauce and mushrooms kind of gross. The chard was undercooked and guess what spicy red pepper, chicken was kind of ok, Hopefully it was just a bad...