Café Arrivederci — Restaurant in San Rafael

Honestly, I don't know if I have ever given a five star review so I felt this restaurant deserved a write up. I went to this restaurant for late lunch with some of my friends. I had a lunch special with salmon, pasta, veggies, in a cream sauce. The meals come with bread and they were happy to give us butter, which I prefer to vinegar. One of my friends had another lunch special, which was a pasta and shrimp dish and the third had a pork dish. All three of us thought our meals were fantastic. I also had a really wonderful cocktail, in which they put extra syrup because I said I like sweet drinks. I often get drinks I don't like but their drink here was very good. At meal's end, we shared desserts, which also were delicious. The service was exceptional. Very friendly, very attentive servers who are not in the least bit intrusive. The setting surprised me when I entered the room. It is a very nice, cloth-napkin type restaurant with art by local artists and relaxing music. They also have an outdoor dining space which is very shaded, and separated from the road by bushes. In nice weather it would be a great place to eat. The only two "negative" things I would say is that I find the hard wooden chairs difficult to sit in for very long as a disabled person. Also, my friends, who are regulars, said it can get very noisy during dinner time when the place is full. I was happy we were there early and it was quiet and nice. But they come all the time anyway because the food is worth it. All in all, this is the best restaurant I have eaten at in quite a while. Would definitely...

Googled the menu for Cafe Arrivederci San Rafael to place a pickup order and thought the prices looked reasonable online and remembered the food being pretty good. Turns out the prices listed on google for the restaurant are inaccurate, but they must be reeeally old bc both items we ordered actually cost nearly $10 more, which is quite the increase to be a “little outdated.” I only went to their direct website after a lot of confusion trying to figure out why it was so much more than we expected.

Then I finally got to the food and was quite surprised. Lol there were a total of 6 tortellini.* That’s it. That was the entire item that cost $25, almost $10 more than I expected (and more than was posted online, and more even than I would’ve been willing to pay for what I got). The tortellini tasted like ground hamburger and canned pasta sauce, and the tortellini pasta itself was hard (not “al dente;” hard, like stale). Surprisingly disappointing. The bolognese was not worth the cost either. The tiramisu wasn’t bad, but it’s hard to ruin tiramisu. There were chocolate chunks in it, tho, which was weird and unnecessary, but oh well.

The staff were super sweet, tho!

(**eta that the bolognese ended up being so bad we couldn’t finish it and had to get something elsewhere)

(*eta #2 bc I just realized the menu claims tortellini includes prosciutto and peas: there was not a single pea or piece of prosciutto and not a hint of those flavors in...

Our family party of 13 were gathered from all across the country to remember my wife’s brother and celebrate his life the night before we scattered his ashes on Mt. Tam. We had originally planned to dine at another nearby Italian restaurant, but they didn’t take reservations, so my niece called Cafè Arrivederci and they were able to accommodate. We were so pleased they did. We were seated in a private room and the staff did a perfect job keeping up with us as the dinner progressed without ever seeming to hover or intrude. The cocktails, antipasti, primi, secondi, contorni, dolce, and wine all came at just the right pace to allow us time to reminisce and eat at our own pace without disturbing other diners and without ever feeling pressured or forgotten. In other words, a truly Italian dinner experience. Everyone enjoyed their meals, and although the restaurant has a large and varied menu and our party was made up of people with widely different tastes and preferences, we all agreed that our dishes were well executed. The facility, while not at the high polish of a premier fine dining establishment, was perfectly suited to the menu and exceeded our expectations...