The Red Grape - Pizza, Californian, Sonoma

529 First Street West, Sonoma CA 95476

(707) 996-4103

http://www.theredgrape.com/

Parking: small parking lot adjacent to the building complex and street parking

Hours: Open daily for lunch and dinner at 11:30am

Last Visited: November 13, 2011

Food: 3 stars
Atmosphere: 3 stars

Service: 3 stars

Price: $$ to $$$

It's been a while since I've been to The Red Grape.  Touting itself as New Haven Pizza, I remember going there when it first opened about a decade ago and thinking what a different type of pizza it was offering compared to what you normally find in Sonoma. 

While the first visit was good, my second and third visits revealed a lot of pizzas with a burnt bottom or more burnt dough than I enjoy. After not going for a number of years, we decided to see what new things they might have to offer.

It's minimalistic with painted ceiling ducts, bare floor, and wood tables and chairs.  There is lots of natural lighting as two sides of the restaurant are comprised of a wall of windows. 

The menu offers red pizzas and white pizzas as well as monthly specials.  You'll also find sandwiches and appetizers such as arancini and polenta sticks.  While there are a number of Italian items, the menu seems very Californian offering items such as Southwestern chicken salad, pears and gorgonzola pizza, and the beach club, esssentially a BLT with turkey.  For today's lunch visit, we opted to try a pizza and sandwich.

- Red Pizza: Sonoma - Pepperoni, sausage, sautéed mushrooms, red onion, and jalapeno jack cheese top a thin crust pizza. The pizza was good - not overpowered by the toppings themselves or the weight of the toppings.  The crust was done nicely without the burnt  areas that I had encountered during past experiences. I would give the pizza three to four stars.  $14.75

- Cheesesteak Sandwich - Slow roasted thinly sliced steak, cheddar cheese, and red and yellow peppers, are placed on a traditional toasted sub roll with a horseradish aioli.  I appreciated the juiciness of the meat, but this isn't exactly a traditional cheesesteak. The combination of the peppers with the meat make each bite a bit sweet.  The horseradish aioli gives moisture, but the spiciness of the horseradish is lost because the peppers overpower the flavor.  The salad was fresh with cherry tomatoes, but I found the balsamic dressing to be too sweet.  Okay.  If it was given a different name, I wouldn't have had the same expectation as that of a cheesesteak and probably would have rated it higher.  The other weird thing was that there was chicken on this plate, and chicken isn't part of the sandwich.  $11.95

Service is attentive, but not exactly warm.  The staff came back to check on you during the middle and end of the meal.  Finding chicken on the plate was not significant, but if someone had a food allergy, it could be a problem and indicates that the kitchen has an opportunity for improvement.  Since the floors are bare and there isn't much insulation, the noise level increases significantly as more people enter the restaurant.

I also noticed that the floor, particularly the hallway to the restroom, had water on the floor, a danger to guests.  Overall, I would recommend the pizzas over the sandwiches, unless you know going in that you're having a Californian interpretation of the sandwiches.