Venticello

Absolutely top notch! Great service, outstanding dinner menu, and sublime desserts.

Blue cheese gnocchi was the best i have ever had! Could have eaten it ten times over

Excellent, small local Italian joint. Great food, service and ambience.

Very small place. Authentic Italian food. Excellent service.

Excellent food and very helpful staff. Convenient if you are staying at the Fairmont.

Staying at the Fairmont this was a perfect restaurant that was walking distance to the restaurant. I would highly recommend if your looking for something close and cozy.

Had a great Italian meal. Service was great. Food was delicious.

This was an amazing dinner. The fettucine was amazing as were the meatballs and Brussels sprouts. Loved it

really great. I was most impressed by the salads actually, perfect balance of salt acid sweet

Pork belly was alright. Little dry. Service and wine are great

Venticello was great! We've been meaning to go for a long time, and we're glad we did. It's in an awesome spot in Nob Hill, the ambiance is really quaint and romantic, the food was delicious and the staff were very friendly. The one slight critique I would give is that the food took a little while to arrive, but no harm done. Definitely recommend.

Enjoyed every minute if my dinner. Pasta Carbonara is a standard at many Italian restaurants, but it's rarely done as well as this. Simple, fresh ingredients made the plate stand out. Paired with a wine that the bar keep Daniel recommended it was one of the best meals in a long time. The Caprese salad was drizzled with a fresh pesto sauce, fresh mozzarella and to me, the most important part of the salad was the tomato. Fresh, sweet and full of flavor. I mentioned to a member of the staff that either someone really cares about what is on the plate or they just had an exceptionally good day at the market. Clearly they care, everything was sparkling clean and prepared so well. The bar and restaurant were full, on a Wednesday night and I was st the bar when several customer went out of their way to thank the chef for a great meal. It seemed every few minutes someone wanted to thank the owner and the chef. The interior of the restaurant was very welcoming and comfortable, subtle lighting, comfortable chairs and outstanding service from the very busy staff. If and when I'm back to Nob Hill, I'll definitely make a reservation and return to Venticello.

Charming. Impeccable service and outstanding quality of food. Presentation was beautiful, simple and elegant. The small size of the restaurant allows it to have a distinguishing charm and provide a warm dining experience. My only regret is that we do not recall our server's name- such that he could be honored. We thank our travel agent from North Carolina for this suggestion and 6pm reservation. A must!

I had a Caesar salad and the gnocchi, both of which were DELICIOUS! The line to get in (even with a reservation) took a few minutes, but it wasn't too long and service was great once we were seated. Overall a great experience!

Exceptional food and service. We sat at the bar as it was very busy and had the most wonderful experience and delicious food. Helpful, delightful Daniel was a pleasure to talk to. A few things went wrong - No pizza, no bread, but didn’t hamper our experience.

I recently experienced Venticello for the first time and absolutely loved it. If you're looking for a quaint and intimate Italian Bistro, then you're going to love this place. The fall menu was just released so we got to enjoy a lot of the new selections. The kale salad and skirt steak were excellent and the apple pie with marscapone was to die for. I'll be back soon.

After a event at the Fairmont Hotel, we looked for our nice place to eat. Found just a couple a blocks away was Venticello, Italian food and bar. It's a small place so reservations have to be made, with small tables and one that can handle a large family group. Nicely decorated, the feel like home. Tablecloths and napkins, attentive friendly staff serve and inform you of special dishes. Food was delicious and filling, I had starters of delicious tender prawns and eggplant dish to share with focaccia bread with balsamic vinegar and oil. Our party had carbonara, manicotti, lamb, and a huge tender pork chop, all delicious with flavorful sauces. We ate leisurely and enjoyed the atmosphere and food. We will be coming back here for sure.

Loud. Elderly crowd -- we were the youngest one's there -- which is saying something trust me. I was going OMG here we go again when my "simple mixed green salad" showed up and it was excellent. And my char-grilled Bronzino (Bronzini) was as good as fish as I've had anywhere. So, happy happy happy! And service to continental standards.

Fabulous neighborhood bistro right on cable car route. Go late or you will wait. Always packed, very small, and can be loud, but still romantic. I always go there when in San Francisco.

I consider Venticello one of the top Italian restaurants in San Francisco, and that is saying a lot. I had lamb chops, which were quite good. Beer and wine only.

Best Italian in San Francisco area. Excellent service, excellent food ingredients and quality. Pizza is the best! Real wood oven. A must if you're in the area.

Loved this place! We stay nearby just to have dinner there. The ambiance, the food, the service is all superb. I want to use this place in a setting for one of my books. Bryan Mooney Author

Impeccable service. Dinner was elegantly plated and delicious. This is not a "family" style, huge portion, mediocre tasting chain type of restaurant. Great setting for a special night out or just dinner with the family. The place is small and cozy. Wait staff was attentive, but not over bearing. Thank you for a wonderful meal and night!

Delicious food in a cozy intimate setting. We sat up top of the stairs by the bar with a distant view across the bay to Marin. Everything the kitchen prepares is very fresh and the wait staff are as accomodating and professional as can be in a popular, tightly run and busy San Francisco location. Amongst dishes our table raved about were a fresh heirloom tomato soup, a perfectly cooked rack of lamb, an herbed baked fish dish served over chick peas and argula. A secondi daily special side dish from 'off the menu' featured spinach raviolis in a sage butter and we only wished it was double in size! The waiter brought us plenty of local Anchor Steam beers, wine, Lauretana sparkling water, foccacia and even a plate of plain noodles with butter to appease a hungry toddler. For dessert we had a lovely light and liquered up tiramisu and a very rich & thick flourless chocolate cake that was so dense it seemed almost like a creamy fudge. The only dish we were disappointed by was a caesar salad which was served with crisp romaine lettuce and grated cheese, but had no liquid dressing or garlic accent of any sort other than lemon. Maybe we are Philistines and this is traditional, but to plebian pallette it seemed somewhat dull, unfinished, very dry and was the only item that lingered unfinished.

Amazing ambience, really friendly staff, and delicious food. Made reservations on open table and though we arrive 20 min late they knew parking would be an issue and was holding it for us since it wasn't too crowded yet. Portions aren't terribly big so definitely add an app per person if you're looking to get filled!

Excellent food. Had a long wait past reservation time. They were nice poured wine comped appetizers.

Delicious food and absolutely fantastic customer service! I would say that it was expensive for the portions - but this is San Francisco.

Great service, really generous portions, nice atmosphere. A bit on the pricier side but pleasant experience overall.

Boar stew on pappardelle was delicious... Downed with a glass of unfiltered pinot.. the name escapes me.

I had wanted to come here on a date for a long time, and when I did, I just fell in love with the warm intimate space. I loved it, and I would go here again.

Just what we wanted in authentic Italian light-ish supper. The boar pappardelle was pretty good, the pizza bases were nice and ingredients seemed fresh. The service from some waiters fine but the maitre d' seemed at pains to offer simple pleasantries. Yeah we were the only family in there and most were thirty to sixty something couples but our kids caused no fuss by anyone's standards and we're went quite early meaning they can turn the table after us. Shame that something as simple as a negative attitude of one or two can let the restaurant down a bit.

There is practically a horde of Italian restaurants in Nob Hill and Russian Hill area. I would describe Venticello as classic, but not super inventive. But they get the basics down really good. Service was pretty awesome. Our waitress was attentive and came by frequently, but not too often that we'd get annoyed. Food was pretty good. As I said above, not terribly inventive, but delicious nonetheless. If you're looking for a hearty Italian meal without frills, this is perfect. Soft focaccia bread with olive oil/balsamic is provided when you sit. I wish the bread was warm and crusty, but it wasn't too bad otherwise. The eggplant rollatine appetizer was very good. Smothered in tomato sauce and packed with flavor. Yum. For entree, I got the fettucine with pork fennel sausage in a tomato cream sauce. This was really good. The pork sausage had a lot of flavor and wasn't drowned out by the tomato sauce. Portion was pretty good size. Slight spiciness in the sauce.

We were there three times during our stay in San Francisco, the staff is friendly except for the redhead guy, who also works at the Rotundas restaurant. The food is very good and isn't expensive at all. It's convinient to make a reservation.

This place was great. Mellow atmosphere with a very cool Italian layout. Food was reasonably priced with a good wine list. If they happen to have the king salmon special I highly recommend.

Good but not as good as Nob Hill Cafe (their sister restaurant two blocks away). More expensive, smaller menu, and much louder

This was my second visit. Not bad. Not great, Good. I'd give it a 3.5 if I could. Service was good, carbonara was very good, and the chicken saltimbocca was only OK and a little heavy handed. Grilled shrimp app was very good with a delicious hot sauce.

Very nice restaurant but don't order the Cioppino! The menu reads "mixed shellfish, white fish, crab, calamari, in a spicy tomato brood". What I was served was, four medium size prawns, four or five clams (with some shells missing clams), and a small amount of white (the size of rice) fish or crab ? (could not tell what it really was)in a very soupy thin sauce. If we had not had guests with us, I would have sent it back. If you want a very nice Cioppino, try Tadich Grill on California Street.

Meh - I am not sure what all the hype is about. Venticello is just a whatever typical Italian joint with average tasting food and a fancy looking but crowded interior. Pro tip - the restaurant has poor ventilation, it was hella hot inside, so dress lightly.

Two stars for the black kale salad. Outstanding. Everything else was, to put it politely, poorly executed. The arancini were WAY too salty. The pizza came out burnt - it can happen, but.. - and wether the dough was completely bland, the sauce was extremely salty. Also, no buffalo mozzarella. The fresh mozzarella they use is tasteless. The service was anyhow fair.

The manager was very rude. He clearly didn’t want to have us for dinner by adding more time to the waiting line each time he asked us if we were staying. And he wasn’t really polite while talking to us. I don’t recommend this place.