Recently in Italian Category

Risibisi Italian Restaurant in Petaluma gets a new chef

f there's any question about the Darwinian nature of restaurant ownership, look to the brutal natural selection of 420 Mendocino Avenue. In three years, five restaurants have occupied the space. Four have gone the way of the dinosaur and dodo -- to no one's great surprise -- quickly facing extinction after problems with staff, management and/or the kitchen.

BBQ at Saint Rose, Nonni's, Casa Del Mar

With a menu that reads like a Sicilian love letter, former Tra Vigne Chef John Franchetti's newly opened Rosso Pizzeria & Wine Bar ain't your average pie shop. The remodeled space in Santa Rosa's Creekside Center focuses on paper-thin prosciutto, fresh-made tapenades, signature salads, antipasti and bubbling wood-fired pizzas

Roberto is back at one of Santa Rosa's favorite Italian trattorias -- now called Trattoria Lupo.

Cafe La Haye: Despite its diminutive size, Café La Haye has long been hailed as a Sonoma favorite.

If the era of flashy chef-lebrity restaurants are over, no one told Michael Chiarello. The Food Network personality who's made his name hawking Napa's faux country lifestyle on television, in books and his Napa Style stores, has just opened the sprawling Bottega Restaurant in Yountville. And though myriad failed restaurants have made it easy to dismiss concepts like Bottega as overly-ambitious, personality-driven eateries, Chiarello has created a comfortable space at a reasonable (considering the location, please) price point -- a real-life interpretation of the easy-going Wine Country style that Michael makes look so effortless on television.

If the era of flashy chef-lebrity restaurants are over, no one told Michael Chiarello. The Food Network personality who's made his name hawking Napa's faux country lifestyle on television, in books and his Napa Style stores, has just opened the sprawling Bottega Restaurant in Yountville. And though myriad failed restaurants have made it easy to dismiss concepts like Bottega as overly-ambitious, personality-driven eateries, Chiarello has created a comfortable space at a reasonable (considering the location, please) price point -- a real-life interpretation of the easy-going Wine Country style that Michael makes look so effortless on television.

Santi Taverna: Rustic dishes (beef tripe is a house specialty), braised meats and house-made salumi are main attractions at the upscale Wine country trattoria

Historic Italian deli, Traverso's is packing up the pepperoni and pinot; the mozzarella and tortellini and leaving downtown Santa Rosa for good. After more than 30 years in its B Street location, Michael Traverso tells BiteClub that they've officially inked the deal and will be headed for Fountain Grove Village at the end of the year

Located just steps from Santi, Diavola (which means devilish in Italian) serves a selection of antipasti (a seafood plate with squid, shrimp, mussels and clams; house made burrata; local tomatoes with gorgonzola and a vegetable plate) along with nine wood-fired pizzas that range from a simple zucchini flower and buffalo mozzarella 'Margherita' to a Ligurian clam and herb pizza or caper, anchovy and hot pepper pizza. The aptly-named Diavola pizza is topped with N'duja (a spicy Calabrian salami), arugula an Stracchino cheese.

Consider me among the eager masses huddled around the front doors of Ari Rosen's new casual Italian eatery, Scopa. The shoebox-sized restaurant opened last week next to Healdsburg's Bistro Ralph (similarly shoebox-sized), featuring simple, rustic fare from the former Santi chef. The name refers to an ancient Italian card game that, like poker, requires plenty of bluffing, banter, booze and snacks to be properly played

Cursing this second strike-out at the Napa newcomer, I called in my late-afternoon safety--the one valley spot that would definitely be open, definitely be packed and almost certainly have pizza (fig or not) to console my bruised karma: Bistro Don Giovanni.

Entirely unimpressive from the outside, this Kenwood sleeper slips my mind in the winter. Not that it should--here's a cozy fireplace and plenty of steamy pasta dishes that will warm your cockles year round. But the outdoor patio is such a perfect summer hangout--sipping raspberry lemonade and nibbling insalada Caprese throughout July and August--I tend to whiz by in January and February. Well, that and the fact that the parking lot's always packed to capacity.

Johnny Garlic's: Has Fieri left the building?