Dinotto

I thought the service and food was Excellent!!! This is a great date place in Chicago. They have very good food and excellent wine choices for a good price. Small and bunched up tables if you sit in front.

I came here for the first time last week for a belated Valentines day celebration and was pleasantly surprised! I had never heard of Dinotto's before and was going into dinner without many expectations. We had a reservation and were seated right away and had an extremely friendly and knowledgeable waiter. We both LOVED our food and since it was a Wednesday we got our bottle of wine half priced! I started to get a little antsy waiting for our food since it seemed to take a really long time considering there were only a few other parties in the restaurant but that was a minor detail. I am a fan and can't wait to come back! I'm especially excited to go on a Wednesday in the summer and enjoy half off wine night on the patio!

I visited Dinotto with some girlfriends two weeks ago for dinner on a Wednesday night.  We choose Dinotto mainly because of the half price bottle of wine night they offer on Wednesdays.  Prior to Dinotto moving locations (and even awhile there after) about 10 years ago, this was my family's go to spot in Old Town.  The food was absolutely amazing, reasonably priced and it was just a fabulous Italian spot.  We used to go at least twice a month and never had a negative experience there.

Over the years, the quality of the food has truly suffered.  So much so that while this used to be a place we frequented, I have probably been there less than 10 times since it moved all those years ago.  After my experience a few weeks ago, I know that I will never go there again.

While my table agreed that the food was actually better than we thought it would be, the service was terrible.  Our waiter was fine, until he told my group of girlfriends that he would only be allowed to use "three credit cards so he hoped we had cash."  I was with 5 people and I am sorry, but unless a restaurant is cash-only, I have NEVER heard of a place not allowing five ppl to split a tab.  The manager/owner then came over and told us actually, he could make an exception and do four credit cards, but that the machine wouldn't allow him to do anymore.  So not only had the waiter lied (?!) but we felt the manager was making stuff up as well.  He told us, he would be willing to use all of our credit cards only if he charged us a 5 dollar service fee.

In the end, we used 4 credit cards, and one of our friends owed another money.  While this isn't the end of the world, I think that the feeling of being lied to, the lack of convenience, and the overall rude nature of everyone at the restaurant once we told them we wanted to use more credit cards, just totally turned me off from this place.