Petaluma Eats! at Sugo Trattoria

The food at Sugo is excellent, but so is the service.  Unlike many restaurants, at Sugo when the owners or servers ask how your meal is, they really want to know.  I was asked about my gnocchi and told them the truth that although the actual gnocchi was excellent it seemed to be lacking in flavor.   The owner said she’d be right back and went to speak with the chef.  …in her absence I discovered that my perceived lack of flavor was caused by “user error.”  As dumb as it sounds, because everything was white, including the bowl, I hadn’t noticed that the sauce was there, and was wonderful, but simply had slid down to the bottom of the bowl.   Once I stirred things up it was excellent and is my favorite dish, if I can say that.  All their dishes are my favorite.  I was pleasantly surprised when the owner returned and offered to replace my meal with whatever else I wanted.  I revealed my discovery, even though it made me look like a dolt, and informed her that my meal, in fact, was fantastic.

Nice Italian restaurants are not usually known for being affordable but even if you ordered the most expensive thing on the menu (and got a Bruschetta Trio, wine and Zert to boot) you are still going to have money left in your pocket.  But I can’t even say that Sugo is good “for the price” because I actually prefer their dinners to their more expensive competitors.  In fact, I have tried to replicate my favorite Sugo meal during two visits to Italy and couldn’t even come close, and those meals were twice as expensive, and didn’t even include the cost of the flight.

Sugo is locally owned and operated and infuses family recipes into everything they offer.  They are also involved in the community, which makes a difference to a Petalumaholic like me.

Sugo has figured out how to incorporate old-world recipes with contemporary flavors without losing the downhome charm we’ve come to expect from the veteran restaurants here in Petaluma.