Dinotto Restaurant

We had an absolutely delicious meal, with a perfectly matched wine. The outside garden is a delight and we felt as though we were in a private, secluded garden. Our waiter took the time to highlight specials and other items on the menu. He was very knowledgeable. We'll be back!!!!

The food was very good, and the service was excellent. The meal was extremely well timed for our show at Second City.

Absolutely wonderful experience! Good selection of Food and wine. Staff are beautiful, and service is excellent.

Warm, inviting atmosphere, delicious food, and attentive wait staff. These are the reasons why we love to visit Dinotto again and again!

Service and food were fantastic! Good atmosphere as well. It never disappointed me. Just had a one big satisfied stomach!

Yum! The chef always makes my pancetta chunks extra big on the salad, and I really appreciate it. I sometimes crave the food from your restaurant. Thanks for being amazing!

The food is very good and perfectly prepared, but beware - the portions are huge, so come with a big appetite!

Delicious eggplant parmesan. Great apple tart and bruschetta. My mouth still waters just thinking about it! Good service too!

The first time I was at Dinotto's when they first opened in the Gold Coast, and my last experience was exactly like the first good food, good wine. It's a quaint cozy restaurant with wonderful Italian food. The staff are welcoming, consistent and congenial. If you're looking for a good meal, this is one of the best - whether lunch or dinner.

The Christmas atmosphere was very festive, so the evening felt special. Our server was well informed about the choices, and presented the daily specials in a mouth-watering way. The plates were warm, the food was delicious, and the

Service and food were excellent! It's a quaint cozy restaurant with wonderful Italian food. We'd like to visit again.

Excellent Northern Italian cuisine in this friendly, smart old town restaurant. Although guests' attire can be as casual as shorts and denim and as formal as suits and dresses, the atmosphere is welcoming and pleasant for all. Hand-made

Cozy restaurant with nice service serving up large portions of pasta. Penne al Russo was the delight of the night with moist bits of salmon throughout. The scallop dish was also delicious.

Lovely cozy little cafe reminds me of being in Italy. Mouth watering food and great atmosphere. Tried something out of the ordinary and loved it. Great combination of flavors I never would have thought to put together. Asked for wine pairing and great choice was suggested!!

Wonderful experience. Atmosphere, food, and service are outstanding. The staff was very friendly. Warm, intimate environment.

Charming restaurant with attentive wait staff. The food is delicious and servings are of appropriate size. It's always fun!

Had a first date there. We showed up, the service was great. There are a few seats at the bar and you're waited on immediately by warm and friendly staff. No one is pushy; it feels like a neighborhood, cozy, Italian gem of a date spot. The waiter had personality and was very knowledgeable about everything on the menu. To top it off, the food was amazing. We both loved what we ordered. The restaurant helped the date feel even more comfortable.

We were served delicious food and wait staff was very attentive. It's a perfect restaurant to relax with family and friends.

Consistently great food with friendly prompt service. I really enjoy this neighborhood gem.

Good food, comfortable ambiance. Very friendly, efficient and knowledgeable staff. Out and out, a nice restaurant place to spend an evening at.

We dine here whenever we are in town. Love it. Have been on three trips at Dinotto.

Dinotto is a great restaurant. The waiter was great and the food was very tasty and properly served to us.

Great place. Pasta was awesome. I had a great time dining here. Will visit again!!!

Great restaurant. Staff was very nice and friendly. Food was excellent. Perfect atmosphere for a nice date with a loved one.

We just enjoyed the quintessential dining experience at Ristorante Dinotto and we didn't even have a reservation. Thankfully, it happened on one of these gifts-of-a-perfect-weather-evenings that we here in Chicago have been experiencing

Absolutely fantastic! We're never disappointed with food, staff, and Dinotto's experience! It was very, very good.

We are always greeted warmly at the front door and seated promptly. That sets the tone for a comfortable evening of wine or cocktail followed by a delicious meal, all served by experienced and gracious staff. We have never been

Oscar said that he had been working at Dinotto's for approximately one month. He did a very good job. The water server that evening was very good.

Dinotto is a wonderful family style Italian restaurant in the heart of Old Town. Not too expensive, the food is absolutely delicious. The restaurant offers a great variety of Italian foods. The waiters are extremely attentive, and the

Our server, Manny, was amazing. His suggestions were excellent and were rivaled only by the quality of the food. His suggestions made our experience excellent. Nice ambience, good service, good food.

My friend and I came into the restaurant around 5 pm on Wednesday. The food was good, and the server was very nice. Good service, nice atmosphere, delicious lasagna.

Very nice. I had a fantastic experience overall. The server took the time to explain the menu, while pointing out some highlights. I had both a salad and entree special which were divine, and the prices were adequate for the portions provided. Needless to say, I am eating at Dinotto during my next trip to Chicago!

Food is excellent, as always. Innovative dishes, well prepared and served and always delicious. We have been to Dinotto many times and always pleased.

Had a nice first dining experience at Dinottos with my family. Wonderful meal in a relaxed, comfortable environment; excellent service. Completely satisfying

The wait staff at the restaurant is simply great. I go there with my friends sometimes and the staff is always nice to us. It's a fine establishment in my nearby area.

They completely understand the gluten free/Celiac diet and are very careful with cross contamination. Anybody with Celiac disease can feel comfortable eating here. They also have some of the best pasta sauces I've tasted. I actually crave

I just gave Dinotto Restaurant a 'Recommend' at Citysearch

Classy, low-key restaurant with an ever-changing, thoughtfully put-together, diverse menu. The staff is enthusiastic and knowledgable. The waiters really like their jobs.\r

In addition to our server being wonderfully attentive, our server assistant was also spot on with his table service of clearing and refills of water. We will definitely be back at Dinotto soon and tell our friends about it.

Great service and food. The waiter was great and the food was very tasty! Always a good experience at Dinotto Ristorante.\r

My husband and I enjoyed a lovely northern Italian dinner in a charming and romantic restaurant in Old Town Chicago. The food was excellent and we appreciated the warm, friendly service.

We had the most fabulous experience at Dinotto's. The cauliflower dish was absolutely delicious, and the waiter suggested an incredible salad with the MOST yummy dressing. Would definitely recommend your restaurant to anyone. Thanks!

I tried this restaurant again as it was a year since my last visit, my experience was similar as last. Food was low quality and overpriced, the restaurant was cold and the table candles were plastic with a flickering bulb - it seemed like

As a huge fan of salmon, I try it in virtually every restaurant we visit. This was the first time that i was ever served burned and dried up salmon, which actually was so dry and black that it stuck to the parchment paper. I would have sent it back but no waiters came around until it was time to pay the bill. Service was very slow and non-communicative.

Dinotto's started out promising - quick and friendly service, clean and romantic atmosphere, and tasty bread with a pesto butter. The good stops there. Our appetizers were average at best - eggplant parm drowned in cheese with minimal sauce and caprese salad (pretty hard to mess up) that was a very small serving for the price. Our entrees were dreadfully bland. The "crispy risotto with shrimp" was basically a rice ball in brick shape form with shrimp in a very dull runny tomato sauce. The spaghetti bolonese with sausage was the absolute worst I have ever eaten. The sausage was burnt and without flavor - ballpark saugsages are way better. The sauce was embarassingly bad - no flavor whatsoever - a raw tomato offers more flavor. Save your money, try somewhere else.

Ok, I read some of these "poor reviews" and I wonder if they're done by other restaurant employees in the area. I've been to Dinotto's on and off on many occasions, over the course of the past 3 years and I must say that this is a great place, be it winter or summer. The food is excellent. The atmosphere is great, the drinks are wonderful and the servers are friendly. We recently went to celebrate my sister's birthday and we dined al fresco. My sister absolutely loved her birthday dinner. And the owners always make it a point to walk around and say hello to their patrons. I like that kind of attention. If you haven't been to Dinotto's, you have to try it.

I was last at Dinotto in the winter. When walking out of the restaurant then I said to myself "I probably won't be coming back." It was so-so and there are so many choices around that I can avoid the "so-so" places. Last night a friend came into town unexpectedly and she wanted to go to Dinotto. So off we went. The restaurant was not packed, in fact I was surprised to see the staff / owners sitting down at the bar - taking up prime space. In any event, we were immediately welcomeed and seated. The waiter came by and took our drink orders and then disappeared for 10 mins. I did say that the place was not packed ,right? My friend and I were so busy catching up that we really didn't pay attention to it, until she got up to go to the bathroom. AND there he was... sitting at a back table with friends.

So we called the owner, Dino, over and explained our frustration. He was so rude to us. He actually told us that we could take our business down the street if we didn't like it. Can you imagine?

So we ordered one entree and one appetizer and split them both. The food was AWFUL, presentation was pretentious.

What we should have done was gone down to Topo Giogio, picked up a couple of orders of pasta and brought them back to Dino and Dinotto and shown them what real Italian food looks and taste like.

NEVER GOING BACK... EVER. Thanks, Dino.

It's unfortunate that the service at this restaurant is slow, because the food is great. I came on a Wednesday night, with reservations made, and while they promptly sat us at a lovely table outside - the gnats and flies immediately came to join my date and I for our meal. Be sure to wear insect repellent, or at least bring some to spray around you if you are seated near the gate facing the street. While the slow service didn't bother us (we had time to waste that evening), the fact that the "bottled waters" aren't newly opened in front of you to prove they are new, and the fact that they are refilled from the kitchen tap did bother us. I hope they get new management and staff, because it would be a waste for this restaurant to go under.

My wife and I wandered into this restaurant on a cold thursday night - we had good service and the food was great. We're definitely going back. She ordered the veal milanes (?) and i have their "famous" lasagna which was really delicious. For dessert we ordered the Tiramisu. We consider ourselves Tiramisu experts and I believe we just had the best Tiramisu ever outside Italy!

My wife and I went to Dino Lubbat?s restaurant, Dinotto?s, in our neighborhood on a Wednesday evening. We were delighted to hear about their ? price wine that night. When the bill came, I presented the waiter with our $75 gift certificate, at which point he explained that Dinotto?s policy doesn?t allow gift certificates to be used on promotional nights (the ? price wine). Keep in mind, our gift certificate was not a coupon or some other promotion ? my parents paid Dinotto?s $75 for this gift certificate. I explained this to the waiter but he could only state their policy. I quietly asked for the manager.

We then patiently explained to the ?manager? that a gift certificate for $75 is not a special offer or promotion by Dinotto?s but a certificate that certifies that, in this case, $75 has already been paid to the restaurant. The gift certificate was a benefit to the restaurant by them having been paid several months advance, and that honoring the gift certificate for which they were already paid was not some sort of promotion or special offer that the restaurant was extending to the patron.

This ?manager? persisted in saying that he couldn?t afford to give us two promotions ? both their ? price wine promotion and using a gift certificate. We explained again, he has already been paid $75; a gift certificate is not a promotion.

I then asked for the ?manager?s? card only to discover unbelievably that this ?manager? was Dino himself. We couldn?t believe it.

He actually claimed couldn?t understand why we would use the gift certificate and pay full price for the wine instead of saving the gift certificate to take advantage of his half-price wine offer. Dino, if you?re really scratching your head, let me clear it up for you ? We?re NOT coming back.

(By the way, we decided the waiter was not to blame so we tipped him 20%+ of the full bill.)