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Dinucci's Italian Dinners
Rating Details »
- Hours:
Mon. 4:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Private Lot
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- No
- Take-out:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Good for:
- Dinner
- Music:
- Live, Juke Box
- Best Nights:
- Sat
- Happy Hour:
- Yes
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
- Smoking:
- No
- Coat Check:
- No
19 reviews for Dinucci's Italian Dinners
This is my husband and my new favorite place. It is a great family style establishment in and old house. You walk in through the bar which is very dark and can seem a little ominous the first time. The dining room has old tables and a vast display of old bottles. On our last visit we were given alot of history regarding the restaurant and actually were served by the grandson (or great grandson) of the original owner. The grandfather still comes in for dinner every night. We have been three times and with each visit we recieved excellent service and exceptional food. We have tried the chicken Marsala, calamari, fried chicken, fish and chips and the canolli's filled with chicken and veal. The fried chicken, my husbands favorite, is juicy and crispy, they actually remove the skin so it isn't greasy. My favorite is a toss up between the Marsala and canolli's, which just melted in your mouth. All dinners come with minestrone soup, salad, ravioli (which have a fantastic meat filing) and spaghetti with a homemade light tomato sauce. Once we were not to stuffed after dinner to try some dessert and had the spumoni ice cream, which had a very nice rum flavor.
The person who said they are over priced obviously only dines at fast food or chain restaurants. The last visit we had 5 diners, two had glasses of wine and 1 had dessert and we got a quart of minestrone to go, the total tab was $125. Extremely reasonable!
On my way to sea ranch my friend called me up and said hey let's go to Italian food. I'm thinking pasta pomadero or something really nice.
Wow, when I walked in my friend's steak looked like the chef went out back, took out butcher knife and chopped the piece of steak out of the cow. It's also hella overpriced for what you get. Did I tell you about the anti-pasti? Wow, not what I had in italy. It also takes really long to get the food.
The other hand.... it's a funky little place with lots of crap on the wall. My advise just go for some beers.
This Italian restaurant and bar has such a cool, vintage, funky style, it is worth at least a trip to the bar for a beer if you're going that direction.
It really has a fun, comforting atmosphere.
The food, however, the 3 times I have been, has been mediocre.... at best!
I have had 3 or 4 different dishes here, and they were all very poor in my opinon.
The bread was as dry as sandpaper, the wine I ordered tasted old and foul, and the raviolis and lasagna tasted like canned Chef Bordee.
I have to say the ambience is very unique, and fun though.
Its out in the middle of know where... but its damn good... Its an italian joint with authentic italian, as well as some wonderful american dishes... like the fried chicken... a half a chicken! i have had a chance to have the sea food there too.... i have yet to find a place that can top there petrale sole... WOW Tons of food... Bring your appetite! And leave with some to-go boxes, cause they don't go skimpy on the portions.. i love dinucci's... and watch out for that minestrone its amazing!!!!!
Dinucci's is excellent, you really do feel like family here. The bar has so much character, and entering the restaurant feels like stepping back in time. Last time I ate here I had the Petrale Sole, which was delicious! The service is very friendly, and you get so much food for the price. Highly recommended.
Just recently went there to take my buddie I owe on a political bet that I loss on a recent election.
We both had Prim Rib dinner medium well, but somehow the med' well prim rib was not cooked as we liked it and had to cook for little more for our satisfaction. I don't know what happen, but the wait was worth it. Along with before you get the meal, you get the fixings like salad and other stuff.
This place has some character, but I don't care for the bar much. It has some dirty nasty stickers all over the wall and behind the bar counter. I would not let your grandmother see it. If you come, bring extra cash. This place can be bit pricy.
We drive by this place every time we go out to the coast. Often, our trip is at the end of a work day, and we want to wait to grab a bite to eat until we're on the road.
You know how that goes - you get those gotta get to the beach NOW impulses, and then after the Petaluma traffic you notice you are too hungry to wait and besides the restaurants out at the beach close early. So.
There it is, a mere ten minutes from the beach. Dinuccis. Always lots of cars in the lot.
This is meaningful in a town like Valley Ford where there are maybe 14 cars in the whole town, before the customers pull up.
And Italian - one of my favorite cuisines.
Our experience: We had to wait for a table. Not a table, a place at a table. The tables are lined up like a cafeteria.
That would be fine, if the food was better than cafeteria food. But, it was about three steps below Dennys. Think iceberg lettuce and extra cold sliced refrigerated tomatoes with stale crutons. Think minestrone soup where the vegetables have all lost their texture, color, and shape. Think mystery meat.
And it takes two and a half hours for this.
Stop in Petaluma. Or knock off work an hour earlier and go to Lucas Wharf, or any place in Bodega Bay - even Dietman's grocery has better Italian food.
I have been going there for year in a two some and in a very large group! It has always been wonderful and the food and people great! I go there anytime I am in the area and even go out of my way to go there, it is one of the few Family style Restaurants left and is well worth the stop!! It is in no way formal !
Dinucci's is a "come as you are" establishment for family dining. it's not a tourist trap, so most of the people you find there regularly are local ranchers and blue collar workers. The bar is a dive and if silly raunchy bumper stickers bother you then maybe you'd be better off next door at Rockerfeller Oysters. But if you wanna go some where with a relaxed, causual atmoshpere, where every one knows every one's name and you're served meat so tender is falls off the bone, then this is your place.
Several nights a week they serve a bar special for around $11-$12, which includes a dinner salad. Specials include Prime Rib, New York Steak, Pork Ribs, etc and they certainly don't skimp on the portions.
Someone else's review said it gets pricey. I guess if you're use to eating at McDonalds that's true..but keep in mind that you're getting a 5 course dinner here. ALL entrees come with salad, minestrone soup (so delicious, trust me I don't even like minestrone usually) antipasta, ravioli & spaghetti...that's in ADDITION to your entree. Entrees range in price $15.00-$30.00. I personally think this is very reasonable for the sheer quantity of food you get.
I don't know what happened the day gail a. went there, but to compare the food to Dennys is laughable. I've been going there for 20 years and I've never had an experience like she described. I find the food there to be very flavorful, hearty and actually very good.
Alright, now! I've known the owners of this place since my earliest memories. Since I was a little kid. It used to be THE destination.
The last time I dined there was WAY after my friend quit running the kitchen ... boy did I ever miss HIM when I ventured back out there!
I was embarrassed because I bragged about the food and atmosphere and brought my husband and kids all the way out there to be seated at a dirty (cleared, not cleaned), wobbly table to dine on steak that was thin, marbled with gristle, lined with fat and so tough I could have walked to India on it! The veggies were WAY over cooked to the point of coming apart in the fork and the very drunk hostess was frightening.
It was freakish.
Has it gone up in life since then?
Andrea D. has been telling me about this place for years, and I finally made it here for dinner at the end of a lovely long road-trip day up Highway 1.
Not only is the atmosphere amazing (classic Italian, packed with local ranchers' families) but the food is really good. Make sure to go with a hunger: you will stagger out anyway. The minestrone soup is amazing, and we had a delicious petrale sole.
This place really is straight out of another world: we chatted it up with a grizzled horse rancher who hasn't hunted in California for 30 years (only because he goes to Utah to do it), and our bus boy regaled us with stories about his EMT training as he spat chew into an old beer bottle.
I can't wait to go back.
The five stars are awarded for the whole experience; the food alone
would probably rate 3 or 4. There used to be many family style Italian
restaurants in Sonoma County. Dinucci's is one of the remaining few.
I like gourmet food as much as anyone,but as far as I'm concerned
there's nothing better than a big Italian dinner served family style at
a table with a red and white checked tablecloth,and bottles of jug
wine and pitchers of ice water. Like I said,the food by itself is not
spectacular. The minestrone is very good,the other side dishes are
so-so. But it's worth the drive especially on a sunny weekend afternoon,just to sit in this great old dining room,enjoying the
atmosphere and drinking that vino. Highly recommended.
My wife and I ate lunch here today. It was our first time to try it. We had spent the weekend at the Russian River for a work-related event. Rather than go to the Bay Area via Highway 101, we took the long way home along the coast on Highway 1. We had passed this place several times on previous trips, but never stopped. We figured, it's probably either really good or really bad. Today, we were both very hungry when we came up on it, so we figured we'd give it a try.
We were both very glad we stopped, and we will definitely go back. The minestrone soup was the best we had ever had. For those of you who are Italian, you know what I'm talking about. For all others, it's not like Campbell's - it's a rich, hearty stew, and is really a meal in itself.
My wife had chicken parmegian, and I had spaghetti with meatballs. Both were great. Her chicken was lightly breaded and came with vegetables that were not overcooked. The marinara sauce and meatballs were tasty as well. For the lunch menu, each dish came with either soup or salad, and was about $9.00. We were so happy with the minetrone soup that we got a quart to go, and that was only $6.50.
Dinucci's is open for lunch only on the weekends. The rest of the week, it opens at 4:00 p.m. We will definitely go back. If you're driving on Highway 1 some weekend between Point Reyes Station and Jenner and it's lunch time, this is the place to stop.
Stopped here en route to Salt Point for a weekend of camping. It was a few minutes post 9-pm (the official closing time), and when the maitre d' tried to turn us away, the owner told him to get us some food. They re-opened the kitchen and made us a FEAST!
When you sit down they bring bread (which is warm and crusty - yum), olive oil to dip it in, a plate of antipasti, and tasty homemade minestrone soup. The entrees all come with a small garden salad as well. After what felt like an eating contest, entrees arrived. Portions were huge, so big in fact that I was sad I wouldn't have room for the chocolate mousse I saw at another table when we arrived.
My boyfriend and I both got the "half and half" lasagna plate with pasta and enjoyed it, despite having to be rolled out of the restaurant when we were done eating... I felt like the girl who turns into a blueberry on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!
If you are on Highway 1 and need a place for a hearty meal, DiNucci's will do the job.
Let me start of by saying that the food here may taste good, and the staff may be friendly, but before you go to this restaurant please read this.
I was hired at this restaurant as a waitress, I only worked there for one night. I would never go back and serve that food to people. When you first sit down you are served an antipasta plate consisting on salami, an italian veggie mix, some cheese etc. Most people don't finish the entire plate, but they pick at it and eat te food as an appetizer. On my first night working there after I cleared the appetizer plates and scraped the remainder of the food into the trash one of the waiters told me "don't throw away the left over food, we save it and serve it again," I said "you what? You serve food to people that has already been on other peoples tables, that they have been eating?"
"Yah we kinda recycle it."
To me this was the first sigh that this restaurant is gross. I would never want to eat food that had been rotaiting and "recyled" around from other tables.
Not to mention how the cooks and wait staff eat in the kitchen as your food is being cooked.
It's just very unsanitary, I would never recomend his restaurant to anyone ever!
I love waitresses that are big and salacious. the type that is sexy yet still has complete control over the whole place. Dinucci's had that in spades at the bar where we sat talking about shooting incidents with an old cow-hand while waiting for a table. The servings were huge and the food strong, in a familial get together kind of way. Don't take your delicate friends here, but if you've spent the day up north working or playing hard, stop here for a boatload of good food and laughs.
My wife (fiance then) a friend and I happened up on this place by accident. We lived in Sacramento and had been over to Bodega Bay to see the old school-house that was used in Afred Hitchcock's "The Birds" and were on our way home and STARVING! We kept driving and driving and saw this place. If there was ever a place where you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, it's this one. It looks AWFUL and it took a lot of cajoling to get the girls to go in, but once we made it through the bar and into the dining room, I knew (even if they didn't) we were somewhere special. The food was amazing and the atmosphere was awesome. I felt that I'd stepped back in time three or four decades and wouldn't have been a bit surprised if Hailey Mills looking as she did in "The Parent Trap" walked through the door.
I have fond memories of this place from my visits to the area with my parents when I was growing up, and I still try to stop here for dinner whenever I'm nearby. Located in a former hotel in the tiny one-road town of Valley Ford, this restaurant gets the extra fifth star because of it's charm and authenticity. When I was little, all of the waitresses were little old ladies who wheeled everything out to you on these little metal carts. Most (if not all) of the little old ladies are gone now, but their carts live on (it's funny seeing a young waiter using one). Anyway, the food they serve here is good, honest, and plentiful. Dinner starts with a generous helping of antipasto and bread, followed by salad, followed by soup (served out of a big bowl on your table to be shared by all), followed by the actual entree itself (although you'll be full by the time they bring it to you). The staff is always extremely friendly, and it's obvious that this is a family run restaurant with a lot of history (the full story of the place is printed on the backs of the menus, and while I've been eating here for at least 25 years, its history goes back quite a way before that). You enter the building by walking through the bar (great place to enjoy a drink if you're waiting for a table) where there are old posters from past local events on the walls, abalone shells on the ceiling, and a modern pinball machine where there once was an old wooden one that had the roller type numbers to keep score). This is really a great place, the type of which you just don't find anymore.
I love this place. It's definitely out in the middle of nowhere, and you can tell by the people who frequent it: most are ranchers living on the outskirts of civilization in Sonoma County. This is another old spot for California, going through its third or fourth generation, and I believe (if memory serves) it's an old stagecoach stop (with hotel rooms above (possible brothel!)). Everything you order comes with their fantastic minestrone soup, a classy iceburg lettuce salad with grated cheese and tinned beets, and the ever-present french bread with butter. The minestrone soup is served family-style, with a huge big bowl for the whole table. The dishes are good, lots of spaghetti and fish and steak, but it's not the food that I go there for. I really love the garage-sale paintings hung salon-style on every wall (Elvis and landscapes and beautiful women and more landscapes) as well as the hundreds of old collectible liquor bottles in the most wonderful shapes and sizes that run on a shelf along the top of each wall. When you first walk in, you might think this place is just a bar (a beautiful old dive bar complete with jukebox) but the restaurant is straight ahead. We were once here in bad weather and the power went out, but they just brought candles to the tables and we ate in the dark.
