Santi Restaurant

I had:
* pork loin panini w/​Aioli. The pork loin was moist w/​caramalized onions & some pickled red onions salad on the side. Simply delicious!
* panna cotta w/​reduced aged balsamic vinegar & fresh strawberries.
* apple puffy pastry w/​ice cream. My favorite. Great comfort food!
Solid food! Won’t get their liquor license until ⁵⁄₃.
Definitely a fan.
Note: the restaurant has moved. Google them!

Went with the family on Christmas Eve. We ate early, so no wait. My folks live in Sonoma County and chose this rustic (?) Italian food place. I love the unassuming historical building front, and the cozy, warm dining rooms. There is also a bar area, which adds to the general appeal. I decided to eat light, and get two starters instead of a main, etc. Let me tell you about my pear gorgonzola salad. Well, first off, it was supposed to be Persimmon and gorg, but somehow they couldn’t find any Persimmons in Sonoma County in December. There was probably a tree planted somewhere within 100 feet of the place. I mean, how can you not find a Persimmon, here, now?
Anyway, the heirloom pear was fine, I like that. The gorgonzola was indeed tasty, and off to the side in chunks for easy savoring. The lettuce leaves were SO FRESH; I think they were still growing as they sat on my plate! Memorable salad… with light, yet evenly applied viniagrette. Very good.
My potato and cheesey thing was unfortunatley forgotten about in the oven and was tough and inedible. Boo hoo. But, they made up for it by giving me the comp of my choice; dessert and cappucino. The desserts were all fab, I had the steamed chocolate cake. Sounds wierd, but it was delish with some sauce and candied pistachio things. My potato dish was the only thing gone wrong. Great service, and even the bunnie (yikes!) with noodles that my folks had was great.

Very nice preparation and nice ingredients. Great use of the side of the street that seems to be sprouting good restaurants, galleries and wine tasting places. Cant quite understand why the other side of the street in Geyserville seems dilapidated, but this place is definitely worth a trip back. Nice Calabresean and Neapolitan style Italian food with a slight California edge. Not super pretentious and quite reasonable prices (for lunch).

Man do I miss this amazing food: The dedication to the history of & regions of Italian cooking combined with chefs of great taste makes it hard to go wrong with anything on the menu. Whether you are adventurous and looking for tripe, sweetbreads or roasted bone marrow this is your stop. If you are looking for impeccable chicken, fresh seasonal fish or comfort food Santi also has you covered. Supper club, a monthly regional price fix meal is the best value as well as the Wednesday night specials and ½ off wine night on Mondays. Their catering is also amazing. Ask the knowledgeable servers to find what you will like best!

As we were driving and thinking ‘where are we?’ the restaurant showed up in middle of nowhere. Taverna Santi looks like a barn from the outside, but the inside was pleasantly elegant. We got a plate of mixed antipasti (grilled eggplant, slow roasted shred pork on crostini, and sardine) which was fantastic. I never knew sardine tasted so good — pungent, salty, and full of flavor. I became a fan of sardine. Our Main dish was Spaghetti al Sugo Calabrese (Spaghetti, braised beef and pork rib sugo tomato, herbs, pamaggino) and beef & chard Ravioli in brown butter sauce, and a side of brussels sprout. The spaghetti was perfectly cooked, and the meat sauce on it was hearty and toothsome. it’s the best of «pasta w/​ragu» I ever had. The ravioli was flavorful, but it was drenched in the pool of butter sauce which was too much. I wasn’t hot on it. However, the side dish of brussels sprout was heavenly. Never thought I would describe ‘brussels sprout’ as heavenly, but it was. It was light sauteed with pancetta, little chili flakes, and maybe tiny bit of anchovy for flavor. It was perfectly cooked to crunchy texture! I’ll be definitely back here!

I am ashamed to say — I have been coming up to this area for literally years and never visited Geyserville. As one friend kindly offered, «you haven’t missed much» I felt compelled to correct her as soon as we exited the car. What a wonderfully peaceful and beautiful place!!!
This is not your typically crowded wine country location — which I am so thankful for. I really dislike Napa and St. Helena for that reason. I prefer Sonoma and the Dry Creek area (Alexander Valley too) for that very reason — fabulous wines without the ‘tude.
Santi was just what we were looking for. One of my friends was very familiar with the manager (owner?) and we were seated outside on the deck. It was just wonderful! We enjoyed a really good lunch (two of us ordered the hanger steak and one had the spaghettini — we were all really pleased) Great wine selection — can’t go wrong with any of it.
The thing I really enjoyed was they allowed us to sit and talk for nearly 4 hours! The day was so nice and the atmosphere so wonderful that we just sat and talked as if we were on our own back porch.
Staff was very friendly and welcoming — this is a definite «new» stop for me when I am up in Dry Creek!
Plus: Great for receptions and big groups — huge outside seating area that is wonderful and big fireplace room.
Also fantastic for romantic dining and business too. Just an all around great place with fantastic food (love the house made salumi!)

Prob the only decent place for a foodie in Geyserville, but it did not disappoint. The food was great, the ambiance excellent and the service really good. Excellent local wines that were not very expensive. Everything tasted super fresh and it was a relaxing dinner out in a casual wine country place.

Compared to many rstRNts around Healdsburg, Santi is perhaps d ugly duckling. Located on d 1 street (ghost) town of Geyserville, Santi l%ks & feels like a converted jailhouse. D antigue ironworks & dark w%d furnitures offer v. little ambience or appetite. If u expected wine country fine dining setting, dis ain’t 4 u.
But when it comes to f%d, Santi has a LOT to offer. Price is right & they give u 2 servings 4 d price of 1. C%king is Tuscany country style, emphasizing fresh ingredients & minimizing any fancy sauces. Some might call it bland c%king. I ordered d porchetta ($ 27.75), attracted mainly by d idea of a whole roasted pig deboned & served in a thick slice across dfrnt meats. D slice turned out to be 1″ thick & as big as a dinner plate. D skin was really crispy, d meat was not as tender as I thought. Taste was ok, saved by some rosemary seasoning. D sides wer sauteed greens & mashed potatoes. B+
Her order of spaghetti w/​braised beef tripe ($ 14.75 small) had xlnt taste overall. D tripe was tender & flavorful, just like ones I had in Florence. D pasta was al dente w/​perfect tomato sauce of basil & pecorino romano. Every bite was 1dRfL. A+
We had panna cotta ($ 10.50) & cappucino ($ 3.75). D former was dense & not sweet (to our liking). D latter was strong w/​a thick & smooth froth on top. Now that’s classic Italian cappucino!
Our server was frndly, responsive to my little chats & not intrusive during d meal.
In retrospect, d name Taverna Santi actually tells us a lot about its style. It could be placed in a small Tuscany town & popular w/​locals for drinks & simple f%d. Nothing fancy here, maybe a counter culture by design?

There’s a reason why so many winemakers dine here regularly. Anyone who REALLY KNOWS ITALIAN FOOD will appreciate Santi. I’ve brought guests here who had come straight from Italy and they loved it. Lots of fun for groups and in the summer we like to sit outside in the garden for lunch.
I’ll actually order pasta here — it’s so superior to what you can make at home– and my honey is a damned fine cook.
Yes, the service can be a bit slow at times, but in a European way– the first courses come out on time promptly so you don’t die of hunger. The rest is worth the wait and the service is always gracious. Plus a bonus– very fair corkage policy (buy one get one free corkage) if you picked up something at one of the wineries nearby and are with another couple. And their own list is interesting and well priced.
Oh– and did I mention, really classy, comfortable ambiance. Ask to sit near the fireplace on a cold night.

In preparation for a recent trip to Geyserville, I looked up restaurants and found all the glowing reviews for Santi’s and made a reservation months in advance, waiting patiently to experience the delights of this supposed gem in the middle of nowhere. Little did I know when I walked into the restaurant the other night, that I would spend the entire evening continuing my wait.
I’m glad to read in other reviews on Unilocal and Opentable that diners have experienced wonderful, attentive service and outstanding cooking, but both were missing during my visit. It took two and a half hours for us to get one salad, two entrees, a couple gallons of water poured one glass at a time, and one dessert (which was complimentary because the service was slow, but ironically took forever to get because we couldn’t get the attention of our server).
Food was just okay, and the service (aside from the excellent water guy) was absent. The following day, we ran into a group at a winery who had dined at Santi’s the prior evening too, and they also noticed that the service was horrible although there were plenty of servers throughout the restaurant.
If you’ve been wine-​tasting all day and are looking for a hearty meal to satisfy you, I can’t recommend Santi’s unless you have the stamina to wait hours to be fed.

I heart the Spaghettini al Sugo Calabrese We came here for New Years dinner since I enjoyed coming here for our company holiday party. I fell in love with that spagettini right than and there!
We started with the salumi appetizer board with a heavenly pinot noir.
I shared a crab beet salad concotion that was devine. Than it was time for my favorite-​the spagettini. Needless to say, I didn’t have leftovers and didn’t save room for dessert or coffee for that matter!

I just can’t love this place. I’ve been here for lunch many many times, and dinner a handful too — most recently this last Monday nite — it’s good, but it’s far from GREAT. Also, I think it’s a little too pretentious for where it’s located, although it gives the snobs in the sticks somewhere to rave about.
Service is spotty, and was especially slow during the evening, and I would like a little more light to see my food by. (or then, maybe not — depending on what’s ordered)
I have given up ordering steak here, it’s usually over done (med rare is not that hard?) but like the polenta, and the cod.
Nice winelist, and usually good desserts and coffee. I’m sure I’ll be back for lunch — but it’s not usually my choosing, and certainly there are better places not far off.

The Spaghettini is the most delicious and heavenly pasta dish I’ve had in my life. The salumi plate had three awesome salumis; one was made with a bit of orange, and the other with some fennel. Yummm.
Right now Santi is treating patrons to a free espresso or a free dessert after lunch (not dinner). My chocolate torte was very good and my man enjoyed his espresso very much.

…but, admittedly, I’m only giving it 4 stars because they did fall a bit short in creating a vegan version of an entrée for me. Though it was very tasty, spaghettini with half dozen tiny seared cherry tomatoes and a few chunks of zucchini with no spices (garlic? pepper? basil?) is not quite what I expected from a restaurant of this caliber. It was delicious, but not $ 26 of delicious, you feel me out there, vegans?
Now, that’s the only down side of the entire dining experience. The restaurant is nearly the only feature in the tiny strip of buildings along 101 that make up «downtown» Geyserville. There is a tiny awning sheltering a blue neon sign over the door — don’t blink or you’ll miss it.
The interior is intimate and a bit dark — but cool. They have the room partitioned off with French doors and some fabric treatments overhead to keep the volume down given the amount of hard surfaces. They also have a gorgeous deck for outside dining which I would love to try next time I eat there.
We were recommended a gorgeous wine — Layer Cake, a «Primitivo» (aka zinfandel) from Puglia. When my sweetie and I tried describing some of the different flavors in the wine — fig, blackberry, chocolate — my sweetie’s mom looked on the label, «Where does it say that’s in there?»
The «insalata di pesce» was really popular with our table — the grilled peaches on the salad were just the right ripeness and it was an experience worth repeating. Two orders of risotto with duck were on the table — well reviewed though a bit salty and one person said «I wish there were more bigger pieces of duck.» The roasted quail was really well received — poor tiny quail — and the bed of polenta was very tasty. For dessert, the parents had panacotta — a softer texture than the flan they’ve tried before, but they liked it. The tangerine-​pineapple-​rum sorbet was really delicious — and when all was said and done, we were quite happy with our meal.
Service was also fantastic — we didn’t have to wait for water, plates were cleared efficiently and our server was friendly, professional and responsive.
We were also asked if we wanted Pellegrino, Panna or (filtered) tap water with our meal. To me, this is a great service — given the water shortage, restaurants shouldn’t just pour glasses of filtered water that might not be consumed, and it’s great to have the options.

Holey — Moley! A 5 star worthy restaurant in the northen boondocks of Sonoma County.
After buying a 4 pack of Santi’s white wine french style pork sausages at the Santa Rosa Saturday farmer’s market, I convinced Bambie to drive with me up to Geyserville for lunch. That was the best idea I’ve had in 2 weeks.
The food here is simply fabulous. Bambie & me had roasted arugula with bleu cheese crumbles in an anchovy sauce on toast, a bowl of risotto, simmered tripe (Perfection — better than my mother’s — and she was a saint! {in her own mind}), a bowl of marinated olives, and panna cotta. We finished with the most expensive ($ 3.5) and the richest cup of espresso I’ve ever had.
Geyserville was a ghost town for many years, boarded-​up and abandoned. Recently several art galleries have opened. DiAvola Pizzeria (Owned & operated by Santi restaurant) opened last week to rave reviews. There’s also two wine tasting shops open for your pleasure.
Geyserville is now a fun tiny town destination when you visit northern Sonoma county. Come here for great Italian food.

Our meal was an all-​around perfect dining experience.
Absolutely delicious Italian fare, served on a warm, sunny, vine-​bowered patio with a fountain, by a waitress as pleasant, professional & graceful as any that served us a meal at Gary Danko, 5^th Floor, or Jardineire.
I had an exceptionally juicy & flavorful ½ chicken roasted with one of their house-​cured salumis served over grilled broccolini and a fantastic creamy polenta, and the beau had a savory mound of spaghetti bolognese.
We also got a yummy, refreshing Prosecco ($ 35!), an app to split, and a dessert for me (pineapple rum sorbet, mmmm) and a digestif for the beau and our check was about a bill. By far the best deal for an excellent meal to be found in the Healdsburg area.
We were wowed, and will definitely recommend this charming, top-​notch eatery to our friends.

What a fabulous spot. Worth the 10 trek north of Healdsburg! Come for the Wednesday night locals special — cannot beat the prices or the food.
Next time you are in the area — be sure to make a reservation at Santi! You will not be disappointed.

Santi may possibly be the best Italian restaurant yet seen in Sonoma County. This culinary gem is tucked away in the small, yet charming town of Geyserville. The restaurants’ interior is beautifully decorated in soft, warm colors. The low mood lighting seems to be a bit too low at first glance, but by the end of the meal, it feels just right. The wait staff was delightful, friendly, and knowledgeable. Your stomach will growl as you read the menu, which is full of fantastic choices, including divine first courses, hearty entrees, and exquisite desserts. The substantial wine list has an excellent selection of local wines. I give this restaurant full marks, as I went home satisfied and full.
. Recommendation: Ravioli, buckwheat pasta, rib eye steak, brick chicken, and steamed chocolate cake.

Any restaurant that plays Tom Waits is cool in my book.
The appetizers were inventive and quite delicious. The service was spectacular. Figs with marscapone were absolutely delectable and my brick flattened chicken the right ratio of crispy and tender. I definitely will make the trek out here again for the food.
Less one star because the desserts were just a mere afterthought, not anywhere near as inventive and delicious as all the other dishes ordered. Plus, the potatoes and the steak tasted as salty as the Atlantic. Probably a mistake, and they probably would have fixed it, but still, it should not have been that salty.
Overall, I was quite satisfied – to the point where I could barely walk back to the car.

Santi is Superb!
Right when I walked into this place, I knew it was something special. Well, actually, I knew that just driving there.. .Santi is on a lonely strip of road in the countryside. The street reminded me of one of those Western movies where main street runs right through the middle of a very small town.
Inside the restaurant, you could feel the warmth from the staff and the fireplace. :)
I have had Santi’s food at the restaurant and at private house parties and it is always made from the freshest indgredients AND it is always truly authentic. I won’t steer you in any one direction by describing my favorites, all I can say is you can’t go wrong with any of the dishes, so order whatever catches your eye.
I do remember having a 1998 Cyrus Blend with dinner — it was the perfect match.