Davanti Enoteca — Restaurant in San Diego

Let me start by saying this: i am by no means a trained and qualified chef, professional critic, or cultural ambassador to anything or anyone Italian.

Took my mother to eat here on 11/26/22. Have never heard of the place, I'm new to San Diego (been here a few weeks so far), and just so happened to be in the area looking around and we decided to grab some food. The menu {meaning the items listed on it} sounded very promising. My mom is very picky and basic when it comes to food but I convinced her to try the food with me, on my dime, despite how pricey and foreign many of the dishes seemed to her.

What we ordered:

The Butternut Squash 'side' (as explained by the server) as an appetizer. I believe it was Butternut squash, garbanzo beans that were toasted to be like a peanut or macadamia, balsamic vinegar, gorgonzola (which was actually some sort of cream sauce that may have had the cheese as an ingredient) and arugula.

The Gnudi in Pomodoro with Buffalo Mozzarella

The Spaghetti with Meatballs

Experience:

The Butternut Squash was fantastic. Hands down. Nice presentation. Great flavors. Rich taste, earthy, rustic, sweet, a little bit of tang from the balsamic and the creamy sauce. You could enjoy all the flavors separate or together depending on how you put it on your fork. Even together you could pick out the different tastes from all the ingredients. Well balanced flavor combinations, nothing overbearing, nothing stood out too much, nothing was lost among the other items.

The Gnudi was cooked perfectly. First time having it, a dumpling made with or filled with (couldnt tell which) ricotta. They were fairly dense so I think it was incorporated not stuffed but I could be wrong. I cant imagine the texture being better than it was, firmer would be too firm, softer would seem too soft.

HOWEVER

The sauce they were in honestly tasted like cento tomato sauce straight out of the can. There were some slices of garlic and a few shreds of onion throughout the sauce but it was easily 95% tomato sauce and 5% other ingredients. There were a few shreds of basil on top and about three or four small shards of the Buffalo Mozz. The garlic and onion was not infused well into the sauce. I had to hunt down the garlic and onion to eat with the dumplings in order to give it any other flavor aside from ''TOMATO SAUCE''. I caps'd that because it was so overbearing and in your face. Again, Im no where near and expert on italian food or any food for that matter but even from the mind state of the tomato being the focus, there just wasnt enough accent from the other ingredients to balance it out at all. I literally had to hunt down the slices of garlic and slivers of onion. Sorry, but I've worked in the food industry, at various levels, in various positions, from busser to dish to server and manager, from chain to mom and pop to fine dining, and in no way should a customer have to work so hard to enjoy their dish. Dining should be EASY! The other flavors were lost to the heavy tomato presence. Sadly.

Spaghetti w/ Meatball

I didnt order this one. Did taste a bite of just the pasta and sauce. I think it was the same sauce as was on the dumplings but the dish was salted by my mom so it did taste a bit different. There were the same slices of garlic. The pasta was nice, could have been left in to boil a tiiiiiiiny bit longer but it was fine. As al dente as it can get before being too firm. I didnt try the meatball because I simply dont like ground meats that have been formed into a loaf/ball. Hamburgers are about as far as that goes for me. My mother wasnt impressed though. Said it was better after she added the salt. Said it tasted mostly like plain tomato sauce.

All in all: if i was to go back, it wouldnt involve anything that has a tomato based sauce. Probably stick to the veggie dishes as apps and just leave it at that. Better sauce and kinder service could have...

I met two friends here for brunch. One ordered the pork hash, and the other ordered pancakes. I ordered a breakfast burrito. These are not complicated orders by any stretch of the imagination. We also ordered the fried Brussel sprouts as an appetizer. After 30 minutes the pork hash came out as a 4 bite portion. It's a good thing my 6' 3", 290 lb friend wasn't very hungry. Then we wait another 15 minutes before the server comes back and recognizes that we've been watching the gentle giant nibble at his snack. Soon afterwards my other friends cold pancakes finally make their appearance. By this time the humor of the situation has worn off, but the restaurant is still playing on the joke they call service. A different server comes by and checks on us and we mention that I still haven't received my burrito, so naturally the next thing to come out were the fried Brussel sprouts appetizer about 5 minutes later followed by my burrito a couple minutes later. At this point we haven't said anything negative to them. The main server has apologized profusely and performed the standard "pass the buck to the chef" routine. As we're almost finished (or as I'm almost finished since we took turns watching each other eat), the GM comes over to inform us that she doesn't understand how this happened but she comped my burrito. Needless to say, unless you have nothing on your schedule for a couple hours and you enjoy being forgotten about, it would be best to avoid this terrible service and mediocre food as I will...

My boyfriend brought to Davanti last Friday night because I was having a bad day and lasagna always comforts me. The lasagna was delicious! In fact that was the only good thing about our experience. We didn't have a reservation and were seated rather promptly which made us happy however our server just completely ruined the vibe. Wish I got her name but she was short, dark hair, slightly on the older side, and doesn't smile...if that helps. The server barely made eye contact with us and seemed to rush us while ordering it was just odd and rude. She came to the table and asked what water we wanted and as soon as we answered she walked away, mind you we'd already been seated almost 10 min so were ready to place our drink order too but she didn't ask. When she came back with water we gave our food and drink order all at once because we already knew the type of service she was delivering. We got our food rather quickly but it was brought out by someone else. The server never came to check on us when we got our food. We could see her walking around hardly checking on other tables. We just sat there watching her waiting for the check. Honestly I just wanted to walk out but I don't need that type of karma (lol). We hardly left her tip, I personally felt she didn't deserve what we...