Trattoria Grappolo, Santa Ynez, CA
I was in charge of dinner reservations for our Santa Barbara trip, and I took this place off the list more than once. First, it is Italian, and half our party is gluten intolerant. Second, it was a hike from Santa Barbara. But I read so many good things about it, I bumped it up to the top of the list.
And it was great.
This place is known for its food, not for its service. The location is a kinda strip mall/shopping center, but really small town. I am pretty sure the building was purpose built as part of the “town center” for Santa Ynez, but since I am unfamiliar with the area, the architecture didn’t look like everything else I am used to in the DFW area. The building was a traditional two story farm house appearance with wrap around porch, dormer windows, standing seam metal roof and pier and beam foundation (or maybe just the porch was pier and beam). The interior of the dining room had the open kitchen in one corner with a bar around it, and then typical restaurant tables and chairs filling a rather small room. The place was packed.
There was a group waiting when I walked up to the hostess to check in. This totally threw her off. Apparently she was getting ready to seat them, and didn’t know how to tell me that it would be just a moment. Quite funny. We were seated immediately after she returned.
The waiter was quite laid back, to the point that I doubted any of the gluten intolerance information was getting through. Everything turned out fine, for the most part.
The food was excellent. We started with 3 appetizers between 4 of us, and should have just done two. The caprese and carpaccio di bue were well prepared. The rollio veneto, a pizza roll made with smoked mozzarella and radicchio, was awesome. We raved about it so much, one of the gluten free girls felt obligated to lick the center of one of the rolls. That was enough to make her sick later, oops.
The only problem with the rollio veneto was that both men ordered large plates of pasta, and both men were already full. A large plate of pennette con funghi e salsciccia left me stuffed. It is a traditional penne with a tomato mushroom sausage sauce, where the bits of sausage and mushroom were small enough enough to stick to the pasta. It was amazing. The girls raved about their gluten free dishes (Fagioli con Salsiccie and Calamari alla Positano) and all the gluten free dishes were shared, thus we know the culprit was a single lick to the pizza roll.
Everything was washed down with a bottle of Brunello. It was my first Brunello, and while I was assured it was a good representation of the wine, it wasn’t my favorite. Of course, having a wine list with almost a dozen Brunello’s to choose from was a treat.
In summary, the food was outstanding, the service is what you would expect from a small local restaurant and the wine list was great if you like Italian wines.