Negri's Original Italian Restaurant

This was a rather great disappointment after hearing about the great Italian family style dinner of Occidental. We are new residents of Forestville and were constantly impressed by any meal we had out here until these, who are absolutely not living until the hype. At first it is not family style and although this page said Negris was opened that the whole side of the building was closed and the only service was in Joe's Bar, which was just a sterile concrete floor room with a few TVs on the wall. Super loud and not particularly welcoming. It's just super fat bar food with some Italian themes. Food, service and personnel were completely lacking in real quality or complexity. Bringing a piece of butter into a bunch of frozen ingredients does not make it good or Italian. Pizza, shrimp and polnta app, pasta, salads, were all super simple and yet incredibly greasy. Nothing to write home. There is much better food to do in just about every city in Sonoma co. It looks like we missed the fame days here, based on our experience and other recent reviews.

Food is very good. I had the mine straw soup, salad and roasted Brussels sprouts. It was a delicious and vegan dinner. The roasted mushrooms are not to be missed.

That was our favorite family restaurant for decades. Covid hit hard to close the restaurant side. The bar is still open with a striped menu. All our favorite dishes were gone, but the food was good. No more family service. It broke our hearts after a 300 miles drive, but again what they have is not bad.

UPDATE: The main restaurant is closed. Only the neighboring Joe's Bar is open. Still, great food, casual atmosphere. Old school Italian. Fun, casual, excellent food, lots of parking. I love her ravioli with a side of meatballs.

I have throughout my life based my idea of a good minestrone soup off of the minestrone that this lovely family has made for decades. I stop in for minestrone, fresh made bread and a flashback of memories every time I can when in the area. Nothing was better after working 8-10 hours with my family cutting, splitting, loading and stacking firewood as a young boy.