Café Altano

After seeing the Cirque du Soleil, we were starving and exhausted from our trip. We saw reviews for the German place across the street and the beer in the boot got me. Unfortunately, the wait time was an hour and we were simply too tired to wait that long. We left, uneasily looking for another place with good food and came here.
Atmosphere: Loud enough to feel lively on a Saturday evening, but still quiet enough for a couple to have a nice romantic dinner even though the tables are quite close together. It was mostly full with only one or two tables unoccupied. Warm and homey feel but still elegant enough to feel a bit fancy.
Service: A bit slow, especially towards the end, but got the job done. The food came out in a timely manner.
Food:
Broccoli Soup: Yum! I loved this soup, it wasn’t creamy, which was a huge seller for me. It was savory and warm with slightly chunky pieces of broccoli in it. Simple, but very well made.
Beet Salad: Great salad, with thick slabs of pink beets, spinach, orange, almonds, and goat cheese in it. It had a great vinaigrette on it and came together very well.
Spinach Ravioli: Large round ravioli stuffed with spinach and cheese in a marinara sauce. It was very good, but not spectacular. Still, I would come back and have it again.
Whole wheat spaghetti: My bf’s dish and my least favorite. It was too oily and dry for me. But the eggplant pieces in it was flavorful. I wasn’t a fan, but my bf loved it. I guess I just like my pasta dishes with sauce in it?
My favorite was the broccoli soup, but everything else was quite good. The prices were very reasonable and the ambience is a great place to take a date.

Funny story! So i ended up here to check out someone who works here for a friend of mines and took along another friend. It was a nice night out and the restaurant was pretty steady for a Sunday night.
We started off with the bruschetta which was delicous and the ingredients tasted so fresh. It had fresh tomatoes and parmesan. so good!
For our entrée’s, I got the butternut squash ravioli and shehad the fulton valley chicken. The ravioli was really good and not overly sauced like some people do. I could actually enjoy the butternut flavor. The fulton valley chicken came with a nice serving of vegetables and mashed potatoes. The chicken was actually done iup like a cordon-​bleu style. This also was very tasty.
For dessert, we ordered the vanila crème brûlée which was okay! It wasn’t the best i’ve had. It was thick, almost like a bread pudding texture. Crème brûlée should be soft and moist… not what we had.
The restaurant was not what i expected. It was a lot smaller then it looked in pictures and they have a small bar and seating outside. It was really welcoming and relaxing. We sat by the windows which have a long padded window chair running along it. Also they have an open kitchen which I always love. Seeing the chefs prepare food and being able to actually monitor them makes meeh feel at ease.
The servers were nice but kind of bland. They would just ask how everything was and we would say fine and then they would just walk away. Not really big on conversation and it wasn’t that busy. And we waited forever for someone to come back so we could ask for dessert menus. I’ve been a server before and having people ask for dessert is a rare thing esp. since it means a bigger check which means a bigger tip. Its a good thing me and my friend were having a good time or else… HA!
Overall, this place is pretty good and i would defintetly return to just enjoy the people watching and area. Oh and if you are wondering about the person we were checking out… my lips are sealed!

On a personal note, this was the perfect place to end an epic evening with my friends in the city. We had just gotten back from an SF Ballet show on Van Ness and Café Altano was within a super convenient distance The atmosphere of the place is super cozy with dimmed lights, dark wooden floors and brick walls.
I recommend the calamari and the Bruschetta for appetizers. My friends and I gorged on those! For a main course I had a gnocchi dish with cream sauce and it was fantastic! I will definitely come back

Four stars, seriously? I expected more of Unilocalers.
I have a rule of thumb that one should try everything twice. This especially applies to food/​restaurants. My mister & I tried this place out once on a whim. The waiter was chipper but completely inept at his job. Dinner took ages. The food was decent, but nothing that great. My mister loves pasta and shook this site off as a one-​time thing.
Last night, a group of us (8 total) went to Café Altano after my friend couldn’t find reservations to seat all of us anywhere else in Hayes Valley. I wasn’t expecting a lot from Altano, but what we got was even worse than I could have prepared myself for.
The service was horribly disjointed, disorganized and disastrous. After a while, we ordered appetizers and wine. The appetizers came, but there was still no wine. The waiter came and showed us our 2 (of 3) bottles of wine ordered, but left them corked on another table. Apparently, there were not enough wine glasses for our table. That’s fine– don’t tease us, tell us about the wine glasses being cleaned at the moment and bring it all out at once.
By the time we had finished our appetizers we still didn’t have wine. It had been an hour and we had menus awkwardly occupying our already cramped table. We had to flag people down constantly: Why is our wine over there, can we have some? Why did you take away those corked bottles of wine now, where did they go? May we order please?
My friend discovered a huge crack in her water glass & I alerted the waiter of it, letting him know that there was not only a crack in it, but there appeared to be a hair in the glass as well. The waiter apologetically took the glass from me & went away. When he came back, it was to inform me that there was only a crack in the glass, not a hair. «So, the glass is still broken, right?» «Yes» he replied, but still wanted to keep correcting me on how I was wrong about the hair. I think, no matter if I was mistaken or not, a waiter should never make a point to come back and tell the customer they were wrong. I didn’t send a plate of food back, it was a free tap water glass. Just sit with the fact that I made a mistake. The glass, regardless, was broken. One issue with the glass is enough.
It took even longer for us to get our meal. My friends were all itching to catch a concert they had tickets to. I had good food (the Pork Osso Bucco), other food (like the Fettucini) was completely bland and tasteless.
In total, all of us were underwhelmed and even upset. We couldn’t wait to leave the restaurant. I will never be coming back.

Vicky and I took the day after Labor Day off!!! We could have eaten anywhere my first choice was closed for lunch. I was craving polenta and was pleasantly surprised on the cleanliness of everything.
I think everyone has their own scale of points for flavor, cleanliness, customer service, I always hope its a whole package. Café Altano was all of the above.
We made our own tasting menu and ordered clams and mussels, beef carpaccio, polenta cakes, and linguine la casa.
The clams and mussels are cooked w/​white wine and I didn’t feel like it was missing anything as I ate it. The beef carpaccio was refreshing w/​argula, cheese, onions and capers, but it was missing a little kick.
The polenta cakes were good, we ordered it without the mushroom so maybe that’s why it felt a little over sauced. We actually re-​plated it w/​a couple spoonfuls of the creamy sauce. yummy
My favorite dish was the linguine la casa made w/​prosciutto and creamy pesto, it was DELICIOUS, but I was too full to take more than a couple of bites, so I took for lunch the next day and even as leftovers it was DELICIOUS.

We came here last night because Bar Jules was closed, and I was pleasantly surprised at how great the food was! There were 3 of us, so we chose to share the beet salad, the gnocchi, and the prosciutto pizza. Our least favorite was the salad, but that’s probably to be expected when our other two options on the table were smothered in delicious cheese. ;)
Service was lovely and quick, our wine was also great, and we topped it off with bread pudding as a delicious end to a filling meal.

Wonderful surprise find! After a great show seeing Bill Maher at the symphony hall, we Unilocaled and found this place to try. Street parking was easy to find and it was a beautiful night.
Started with the polenta cakes, which were over-​the-​top amazing, and I don’t like mushrooms. Polenta doesn’t taste like much, it’s what they put ON them that was wonderful! Caprese salad was pretty good as well, but I’ve had better buffalo mozz. Beet salad was very tasty (yellow beets) with lots of stuff in there. I had the red snapper special, served atop some crazy-​good risotto. Hubby had plain olé spaghetti, and it was good. Everything we had was great! We will surely return. It’s a nice atmosphere, very friendly and attentive service. Made for a very good night out!
They have basically one wine of each type of grape, some from CA, Italy, Portugal. Good prosecco and pinot noir.

I’m an aspiring burger snob and I reallly like the burger here. Got it cooked rare. Bread was awesome, patty was awesome and there was some kind of special sauce, orange in color that was very tasty. Fries were solid, but nothing amazing about them.
It’s a cool atmosphere inside as well. High ceilings, trendy décor. I was a solo diner, but there were also a large group and some couples.

This place is a nice find in the hustle and bustle of Hayes Valley these days!
When you first walk in the ambiance is what strikes you; seems intimate, yet friendly, and the service is definitely on point.
But what we really care about is the food… which unfortunately dissapoints just a bit.
Came here with the gf and got the polenta and calimari to start, pizza and seafood pasta.
First off, pizza. Any good Italian restaraunt should be making their pizzas with fresh mozzerella, not that dried shredded stuff! Second, the pasta was al dente, which is great for most tastes, but in a light seafood white wine broth, I feel like it should have been cooked in the sauce for a minute longer, as the sauce did not adhere well to the fettucine.
The polenta though, was completely legit. Perfectly cooked/​grilled, wonderful sauce, great cheese. Mushrooms were a great addition to this dish. The calimari was well prepared, but do yourself a favor and ask for the regular marinara as a dipping sauce, not the spiced one.
Oh…and the sun dried tomato dipping oil-​awesome!

Came here with my girl friends for dinner on a friday night. I should have known that this place wasn’t good because when all the other restaurants in the area had a wait of at least 30mins, there were barely anyone inside this place. We were seated right away. I am usually a big fan of the bread and olive oil but the bread here was not good. I’m not sure what type of bread it was but it tasted like french bread that has been sitting out for awhile. On to the food…
1. Mussel and clams — it was our appetizer and it looked great, but the moment we had a bite of the mussel we knew their seafood was not fresh. The clam tasted fine so my friend gave them the benefit of the doubt and said that fresh mussel is hard to find so a lot of times it’ll taste weird. Ok i agreed with her and thought maybe it was just this dish.
2. Pear spinach salad– it was the best dish of the night. the pears were fresh and the candied walnut was pair perfectly with the balsamic dressing.
3. Seafood Risotto– this dish was on their specials menu and it also contained mussels. After the first dish a friend of mine was afraid to try the mussel so I went ahead and taste tested for her. The mussel tasted a lot fresher and did not smell. So we thought ooo it was probably just that first batch. The dish was great and we loved the risotto and the sauce that it in. there was one mussel left and I took it. OMG, it tasted ROTTEN and i had to spit it back out. Being the nice people my friends were they talked me out of making a complaint.
4. The pork shoulder in wine sauce — initially this dish tasted fine but when we got to the center the meat was dry and rough. The sauce was good though.
OVERALL: DO NOT ORDER anything with seafood in it. Maybe other items on their menu is better but definitely not their seafood. I don’t think i would come back to this place as there is nothing special about their menu or the service.

Sir Nicholas and I had just attempted to dine at Straw, but Straw had just opened and isn’t overly large so there was no room even on the waiting list at 7 pm on a week night. I was starving half to death and so we decided to just stay in the neighborhood to eat. I pulled up my trusty Unilocal app and Café Altano came up as an option. Since they could seat us right away they won. And all in all it was an enjoyable meal, as unplanned as it was.
Instead of ordering a regular entrée I decided to order two appetizers, the grilled polenta cakes and a beet salad. As I mentioned before I was hungry and these two plates where actually portioned well enough that they made a meal that satisfied my hunger.
I’m a huge fan of beet salads and I think like many salads it’s pretty hard to mess them up; don’t overdress them and make sure the ingredients are fresh and you should be fine. This one met all my requirements and more with the beets, arugula, almonds, orange, goat cheese, and the topper — a port wine dressing.
The polenta cakes were in a word, awesome. They had a mushroom, red wine, and creamy gorgonzola sauce and were topped with gruyère cheese. And the polenta was made to perfection. I believe that Nick had some sort of pasta dish and that was also nice, but as I watched giant pizzas being delivered around us I did have a bit of food envy.
All in all it was a pleasant meal and if I lived closer to this neighborhood I would probably go back more often. As it stands though I’m not sure it’s a place that I would frequent again because there wasn’t anything overly special about the experience to bring me back. However, if you are in the neighborhood or just really love Italian food then this would be a good stop for you along the dinners that you take.

Delicious little date night spot in Hayes Valley!
Stopped in for a quick bite to eat and had great service with yummy food!
The bread for starters is awesome and served with an olive tapenade
that I couldn’t stop eating LOL
We had the minestrone soup and spinach salad and the stuffed chicken with mashed potato’s! MMMM!
We’ve also been for brunch which was GREAT and they have a full bar which ALWAYS adds a star in my book!

Wow, what a great place to go before the theater (Davies Center). I had the prawns wrapped in pancetta and my wife had the Grilled Polenta Cakes — mushrooms red wine & creamy gorgonzola sauce topped with gruyère cheese. These were amazing! Cooked to perfection and very large portions. (the polenta could have been an entrée by itself). Next course was Spinach Ravioli– stuffed with ricotta cheese & spinach, marinara sauce and Wild Mushroom Risotto — shallots, arugula, seasonal mushrooms, porcini juice & white truffle oil. These were also to die for! Paired with a bottle Cesari Amarone, one could not go wrong. Too full for dessert.
Our server was Remy and she did a fantastic job of getting us out on time to the symphony without feeling rushed.
Some additional thoughts… if you are attending a performance at Davies Center, book your reservation at 5:45 for a 7:30 show. Let the servers know and you will be on time. It’s about a 10 minute walk to Davies Center. Also, it’s about 30−40% less $$ than those restaurants «just around the corner». This will be our spot for future events in and around Hayes Valley.
Thanks again to Remy for her charming, friendly and very professional service.

Nice place.
Service was good.
But the food is sort of bland and unimaginative. There really was
nothing separating this Italian place form the hundreds of other Italian places in Hayes Valley.
Of course its nice to be able to eat your meal in the warm sun outside on one of their sidewalk tables. But who’s going to enjoy their meal once they realize the food is bland and sort of tasteless…
On the plus side, the dinner rolls are some of the best I have ever tasted.

4 stars for the service, 3.5 stars for the food overall. Here’s the breakdown:
–Tagliatelle with pesto cream sauce and shallots: 2 stars, way too much cream, way too much sauce, shallots are not the right addition to pesto, and pancetta was chewy, not crisp (after being drowned in the sauce)
+Roasted Corvina sea bass with white wine and slivered almonds: fantastic flavor, minus presentation points for having 7 (yes I counted) huge bones left in the «filet»; the kitchen messed up and gave me the wrong accompaniments (mashed potatoes and veggies) but they quickly brought out a side of lemony, white winey risotto (much better!)
The bf ordered spaghetti with feta, garlic, and olive oil and I have to say, it stomped all over my pesto pasta. Jealous much? Yes, of course.
Overall, I liked this place — it had a nice cozy vibe inside which always gets me.

After being told by Suppenkuche that we would wait another hour, on top of the half-​hour we had already waited, my friends and I decided to walk across the street and try this place. They happened to have one tall table open, which worked out nicely.
We ordered a bottle of wine and received a complimentary appetizer. We chose Mediterranean Meatballs off of the menu, and were all surprised at how small the serving was. There were 4 nickel-​sized meatballs in a white bean sauce. Not quite what we were expecting, but heck — it was free, can’t complain…
I ordered the red snapper with some sort of white wine caper sauce served with veggies and mashed potatoes. It was delicious! The fish was juicy and went really well with the slightly tangy sauce. My assortment of veggies was blanched, and the crunchy texture was a nice contrast to the creamy mashed potatoes. I also got to try the gnocci which was good but offered less variety (served alone).
Our server was great, very friendly and efficient. The staff overall seemed pleasant, and the décor gives off a casual and relaxing ambiance. While this may not be the best Italian food in the city, it’s certainly an enjoyable experience.

Dinner and a symphony.
My kind of date night, especially since I get to thrown on a simple dress, high heels, and after a yummy dinner, relax and listen to classical music performed at Davies Symphony Hall.
Since the fellow is quite aware of the fact that I enjoy trying out new places and spreading my culinary wings, he had made reservations prior here, which we highly recommend. Why? Because within the hour, the establishment was packed with other groups/​couples dressed for the symphony and the host was apologetically turning people away. Sometimes, being the first couple to be seated is a good thing.
The seats facing the street (Laguna) were quite comfy and an excellent location for people watching as they slowly began to sift in. A nice basket of warm bread was brought over with a ceramic bowl brimming with lovely olive oil infused with sun dried tomatoes and herbs.
The menu is simple and rustic, with a nice variety of pastas (home made and organic), pizzas, and entrees for so inclined. I’ve been craving meat lately, so elected the Pork Osso Bucco. The fellow selected the Fulton Valley Chicken Breast.
Per their menu:
Pork Osso Bucco aromatic vegetables, port and red wine sauce, potato pure and sautéed vegetables. (
)
Fulton Valley Chicken Breast stuffed with prosciutto, roquefort cheese, rosemary, white wine and glazed with chicken jus. (
)
My selection, Osso Bucco, is the perfect dish on a cool Autumn evening. Traditionally made with veal, Café Altano does a superb job of presenting it with the other white meat: a pork shank. It came out, presented large and assuming, amidst a nice offering of smashed potatoes and a colorful squash medley, lightly sautéed. I’ve usually had Osso Bucco served on a bed of Risotto, but the savory whipped potatoes were equally competitive as the starchy accompaniment. There is something romantic about a thick cut of tender meat that falls away from the bone at the touch of a fork. I remembered to bathe each piece in the rich brick-​colored sauce.
We followed the entrees with a simple cup of coffee for myself and the Crème brûlée. The house special that evening? Orange. (
)
Presented perfectly on white ceramic, tapping away at the caramelized surface of this simple yet rich custard dessert has become a small tradition. I usually attempt to break it within three light taps and this evening, success. Not overly sweet and the delicate citrus tinge gave more zest to this comforting dessert.
By the end of our meal, the small dining area was filled with happy diners, the verbal levels rising slowly to an audible hum. Wine glasses clinking on the tables and the sounds of heels moving about the wood flooring.
7:00 had come and gone.
Now it was time to depart to the symphony.

This location is jinxed because the old-​folks home lied to the city and said the space was going to be used as a dining room for their residents. Instead, it has been a series of increasing bad restaurants, although Café Altano is bucking the trend a bit.
I did have the beet salad, mushroom pizza, and tiramisu, along with iced tea. My dining companions also had the butternut ravioli, along with an order of bruschetta.
The service was a both slow and overly familiar, and considering that the restaurant was nearly empty at the time of our meal, this was unpleasant. But the food made up for the service.
The beet salad was delicious, the beets sweet and earthy, but the mandarins were a little bit too juicy and when bitten into, the juicy overwhelmed the delicate beets. Overall, though, I enjoyed it very much.
The mushroom pizza was excellent — the crust was crispy and tasty, the mushrooms were delicious and had just the right texture, but the surprise was the fresh arugula garnishing the pizza. I spread it around the pizza and found that the bitterness of the greens was a perfect counterpoint for the sweetish tomato sauce and earthy mushrooms. Very impressive.
The tiramisu was very rich and flavorful, with the mascarpone filling fluffy enough not to be too heavy.
Now all they need to do is have slightly more reserved, efficient waitstaff and they’ll get another star from me.

Oh my, here’s yet another restaurant at that highly jinxed location on the corner of Hayes and Laguna opposite the indestructible Suppenkuche. It was that interesting Brazilian place, Terra Brazilias, for a while, and then it became a pretty decent Indian place with a buffet, and then after that, it became the more chic Modern Tea, which closed late last year. In its wake is this price-​friendly Italian restaurant, and the main question is whether it will last longer than its predecessors. Why the hell are you asking me? Like I have a good Ouija board or something.
I thought the dishes were pretty good, nothing that completely blew me away but some nice variations on what you would expect to find at a mid-​priced trattoria minus the red-​checkered tablecloths. I was there with seven other people at the elevated main table after having looked at the King Tut treasures at the De Young Museum. We shared a couple of appetizers that I feel delivered the goods, the really meaty $ 8 Crab Cakes and an intriguing surf-‘n-turf concoction, the $ 8 Prawns Wrapped in Pancetta with dried figs and gorgonzola cheese.
I then had the $ 8 Chiogga Beet Salad which were combined with sliced oranges, caramelized almonds, goat cheese and strangely, fingerling potatoes (see my photo). It was refreshing, but the starchiness of the potatoes wasn’t doing it for me. My entrée was the much-​ballyhooed $ 14 Butter Nut Squash Ravioli. This is a common dish — but the sweet factor was taken up a notch with the brown butter, sage sauce and marscapone cheese. It was like having dessert and dinner at the same time. It’s not as if that was such a bad thing, but I warned you.
The flaws? Well, service was polite but lackluster — and to me, it signals an area for improvement if they plan to survive in this neighborhood. That and perhaps a bit more originality to their approach to standard Italian dishes. The flavor was there, but the pizazz was variable. I say give it a chance since I would hate to see the place turn over again. My «In Memoriam» restaurant list on Unilocal is already getting way too long as it is.
FOOD — 4 stars… good, solid Italian fare with some creative touches but not quite enough
AMBIANCE — 3.5 stars… hey, it’s warmer than a Pasta Pomodoro with something of a neighborhood vibe
SERVICE — 3 stars… like I said, polite but lackluster… more enthusiasm could have helped
TOTAL — 4 stars… good luck, and I truly hope the door doesn’t hit them on the way out

Being back in San Francisco is such an invigorating experience and reconnecting with old college classmates over dinner is always fun. Since one of them lived in Hayes Valley, we decided to drop into Café Altano for some highly rated Mediterranean fare. Unilocal culture (as well as technological awareness) is alive and thriving in San Francisco. I happened to wear my Unilocal Elite t-​shirt to dinner and was immediately approached by the friendly waitress to talk to me about how to become Unilocal Elite, and the benefits of membership. San Francisco is the only place in the world where the waitresses and bus drivers know about technology and have an educated opinion on web services.
To start the evening, our little party decided to share a fried calamari appetizer and a bottle of rosé. The calamari didn’t blow me away and was a lot like the same stuff you can find just about anywhere. The rose was crisp and had a nice fruity note, but I’m really not enough of a wine snob to describe in any great detail.
My main course consisted of the homemade butternut squash ravioli. The rich cream sauce on the pasta was absolutely delicious and tasted like it was made from fresh Gorgonzola. I need to get the recipe and try it at home! The pasta itself was cooked slightly al dente and was a little light on the stuffing, but overall it was divine.
I also tasted my friends’ dishes and really enjoyed them. The consisted of a mushroom risotto, a beet salad with candied almonds and fresh Gorgonzola, and the meatball appetizer. I’m typically not a huge beet fan, but these were quite appetizing. The meatball didn’t really stand out but the mushroom risotto was cooked very well and mushrooms were abundant throughout the dish.
I really enjoyed the entire experience at Café Altano and was really glad to have the opportunity to enjoy some great San Francisco food while visiting. I really miss the culture and life of the Bay Area and have lived without it for too long. The great meal and company could only be followed up with great drinks as we spent the rest of the evening at some of the famous, local bars. For about $ 100 for three people, our dining experience was relatively pricy. However, that’s to be expected in San Francisco and I would highly recommend this restaurant. I look forward to trying their osso bucco next time.
Food: ⁹⁄₁₀
Service: ⁸⁄₁₀
Price: $$
Atmosphere: ⁸⁄₁₀