Trattoria Don Pietro - Sicilian/Italian Cuisine — Restaurant in San Diego

This is a restaurant I wanted to love. I'm a Sicilian woman with a Matarello in my kitchen and travelling in from Montana it was exciting to go to a place with recipes I love that I didn't have to make myself because there are no good Sicilian restaurants in town. Let me first start with the only good point which is that the kitchen in this place is amazing, and every morsel we were served was on point. Now, given the above, let me give the reasons for the low score. The valet was the nicest person we met. The snippy hostessshostess seated us directly under a dripping AC unit and also directly under a speaker for music that was so loud we couldn't talk at the table without yelling. The menu is unreadable. There was nothing to explain what is a full meal and what is a taste. Also, it is obvious that they expect a large alcoholic drink order given that there is a separate insert to their menu with more options than the food side, and when we didn't give them one because we are navigating in what is for us difficult driving conditions, they proceeded to ignore our table. They brought us the sodas, and took our order. A solid half hour wait for food once ordering, but forgivable because they were busy. The meals were brought. My husband and daughter were served meals. I unfortunately ordered pasta. I usually have to do the work to make myself to have this, and IwI looking forward to. While excellent this meal was a total of 6 bites of food. I immediately indicated to my man that I needed to order an entree so I would have enough to eat. There was no service for so long my tablemates had finished before we could ad the order correction, which we did nicely. There we empty glasses at our table at that point. A half hour later, my second dinner arrived. We were not offered refills. When my second meal came a half hour later, he did not fill them, did not come back, and did not give our table a second look. I ate my meal with water as a result. When I was finished eating quickly, because my family was ready to go, we couldn't flag the waiter for the check. He literally walked by us six times with no eye contact. When my man finally got up to go to the bartender to get the check, the waiter intercepted him and got us our check to go. We were so angry at that point we just wanted to leave. The valet was awesome. First smile we saw all night, wished us well and was a gem when we made change. He's the only reason I left without indigestion form how we had been treated. I don't even have words for how sad I was when we left. I loved the food, but the experience was beyond horrible. I will NEVER recommend this place. And since we are parents of a graduating Marine I will be sure to mention to avoid this restaurant in the Marine Mom's page...

My family and I love food. We've travelled from North Orange County to LA, to San Francisco, to Aspen, CO for food. We appreciate the art behind te Mexican street taco and have dined in the best restaurants in Beverly Hills. We understand taste, we appreciate service, and love food.

Unfortunately, Trattoria Don Pietro fails to deliver in every sense of what a restaurant should be. Upon entry, we were not received by the fragrance of food, instead the strong cleaning products' scent transported me to memories of an overly-chlorinated public pool. The single speaker to fill the room was directly above me, which made conversation at our table difficult. The plastic decorations and flowers were of poor taste.

We received a plastic menu, commonly found in cheap middle-of-nowhere, truck stop diners, with a font that is not easy to read. We requested their garlic bread, that should be renamed Garlic with Bread based on flavor. I personally ordered a steak, which for $60, was much worse than what you find at a chain diner. For the price, you will find a better steak at Outback. The Rib Eye was not evenly seasoned. Some bites were overly salty, others not seasoned at all. Their interpretation of a medium rare, was closer to well done, or medium well. The meat was tough to chew, it was not rested. I've had amazing $10 1/4" flap meat steaks, just as well as a 2in Snake River Gold Tomahawk, Australian Wagyu, Japanese Wagyu; again, I am very happy eating a $1.10 Mexican street taco, price does not matter, taste is what I seek.

From my 18 year old cousin, "The lasagna was alright." He does not understand food, I was expecting a "the lasagna as good."

We finished our lunch with around of Tiramisu(s), which were presented in a matte black plate, with a heavy coating of powdered sugar. The tiramisu was garnished with a two leaves of mint (from our perspective, they looked closer to a full stem). The presentation was overly done. It was not contemporary, clean, or picture-worthy.

Unless you are unwilling to wait an hour for a table in any of the other establishments, as we were, I do not recommend Trattoria Don Pietro.

The tap water...

I didn't even make it to the restaurant. Why, you ask?

I'm planning a friend 40th birthday party and she really liked the vibe of this spot. So, since I wasn't able to make a large reservation online, I put an inquiry through their website. After a few days of no response, I decided to call and see if I could get a hold of anyone over the phone. Of course, with my luck I wasn't, so I left a message with my details and waited to hear back. After a few days of nobody returning my call, I decided to once more try to get a hold of someone over the phone. Finally, someone answered. I was told by someone over the phone that I needed to email someone named Jacob to make a reservation, so I was given Jacob's email, which was a Gmail account. I emailed Jacob (3 separate times) and I never got a reply back. So, I tried one more time over the phone. Finally, I was able to get a hold of someone who could make a reservation for me. Joselyn was kind enough to take care of me and even told me she wasn't aware of anyone named Jacob or why I was given a personal email.

A few days later, I received a call around 9pm from a gal named Sarah. She called to let me know my reservation would need to have a minimum charge of $50 per person, because if a large group was going to take up a large table, they would need to make more money since they couldn't take any smaller reservations. Why she would tell me that is beyond me. She said it was a new rule the manager had implemented. I asked that the manager call me back and to call me back during normal business hours. A few days later, I received a call from Sarah, and she advised me she was calling during "normal business hours" with an attitude of course. She was calling to advise me they were cancelling my reservation. The reason? None given. If you're looking for great service, you're not going to find it here. These people are the worst - just look at their 1 & 2 star reviews, they're all service related. I should have known better, these people are literally ruining a legacy Mr. Busalacchi is leaving, over being money hungry and quite frankly, low par...