Poggio Trattoria, Sausalito

It is hard for a restaurant to occupy a premium location and serve good food. Poggio manages to do that: on the main walk of Sausalito, this pretty restaurant with white tablecloth service feeds tourists and locals with a view of the Sausalito downtown.
I followed a recommendation for a pizza at Poggio, and my friend [...]

A16, San Francisco

Named after the highway that cuts Southern Italy, from Naples to Puglia, A16 aims to recreate the flavorful dishes of Southern Italian descent. Hence, they make a very popular pizza in a wood-burning oven, the way it is made in Naples, make their own sausages (when we were there they were filling the sausage casing, [...]

E’ Tutto Qua, San Francisco

It’s been since I scraped Steps of Rome off my list of places to go to, in 2002, that I hadn’t had a nice meal in the tourist trap that is North Beach. I keep on trying to talk my friends out of heading there for a decent meal, as I hadn’t found an authentic [...]

Il Fornaio, Palo Alto

I find Il Fornaio a hit-and-miss place. Despite their large success in terms of clientèle, I am not always persuaded I am having an Italian experience. There are many compromises Il Fornaio had to take in order to get t its great success, and some of those are not too pleasant for someone looking for [...]

Zucca Mountain View

Zucca is a two-location restaurant that doesn’t brand itself as “Italian”. In fact, one of the locations, the one in Palo Alto, says it’s a “European Restaurant”. I had read plenty of good things about them, but I was a bit skeptical about the originality of their Italian food.
My friend and I met at the [...]