About this time each year the Italian husband tends to get a bit crotchety. He's even admitted it (newsflash to close friends). Easter being such a huge, big deal in an Italian Catholic household.
And despite the fact that he's closer to his half century, the past 18 years of which were spent in Northern California, this Mama's boy still craves the five course feasts which my saintly mother-in-law is still known to be making by hand in her tiny cucina in the Italian neighborhood of her adopted UK hometown.
This presents a challenge every March or April. Attempt to replicate the spectacularly simple Neapolitan dishes of countless generations of the aforementioned husband's famiglia (we certainly have access to the majority of fresh, organic produce and grass-fed meats), or skip the facade of not being anywhere close to extended any of our family members to bolster the ideal holiday tableau and make a bee-line for the very best Italian restaurant in the region?
We've tried a few. And there are some tremendous choices of Italian trattoria's here in Sonoma County. Still, we usually resort to the humble vineyard kitchen stove for a slice of old Avellino on high days and holidays.
This Easter we opted for a departure from the norm. Taverna Santi all the way up in rural Geyserville was our selected destination for a highly recommended, old-world dining experience. No Easter gimmicks. Not a hint of a seasonally special, extra-weighted menu for the evening. Unpretentious from the outside and refreshingly plain on the inside, Santi's simplistic old world Italian dishes spoke for themselves.
When four out of five went straight for the Spaghettini Al Sugo Calabrese, with its rich sauce of beef and pork ribs, tomatoes and herbs with pecorino cheese, it was clearly apparent that this was a menu which spoke directly without any necessity for frills to the most ardent of Italian diners!
The only one amongst us without a single drop of Italian blood coursing through her veins (thank heavens for small, & balanced mercies), took the educated outsider's line of looking more closely at the menu (and that was before the bottle of La Spinetta De Casenova, handcrafted by another Rivetti winemaker in Italy)and opted for lamb from Bellwether Farms in Valley Ford, succulently flaking off the bone, after a heavy-duty, old-world-style good and proper slow food braising in herbs, white wine, chicken stock and onions. All dished up with fava beans and artichokes, and creamy, white polenta. Divine.
Forty miles give or take a few from Petaluma, Taverna Santi is a little off the beaten track for a regular Saturday night out. Yet Easter Sunday's zero traffic on the 101 made it an easy after-dinner drive back south.
It has been said that Santi is a slice of Italian cooking taken back some seventy years or so. Practically all of the kitchen staff have Italian parents. Tucked into an unassuming row of dusty Victorian downtown buildings in tiny Geyserville, Santi is situated at the solid base of the fork of the legendary Alexander Valley and Dry Creek Valley. Somewhere in which ultimate authenticity and Nonna's secret recipes speak for itself. In Italian. With no washing up for me. And the Italian husband has not a single thing to complain about. Va Bene e Buona Pasqua! And for all the Brits out there, the hot cross buns from Della Fattoria Bakery were the best this year. Centuries old, those simple, sweet little hot cross buns are to Brits what an entire Easter menu is to the Italians amongst us. It's a cultural thing!
I'll have to add that to my list of places to try. Sounds delicious. We forgo the lamb and opted for homemade cannelloni. We Italians have to stick together!
Posted by: Suzanne | Monday, March 24, 2026 at 01:30 PM
Yum. Homemade cannelloni. Don't forget the Italian husband's invitation to cook up a Sunday dinner sometime this Spring!
Posted by: Frances | Wednesday, March 26, 2026 at 03:11 PM