La Trattoria

This was by far the best authentic Italian food restaurant I have eaten at in a long time. A gem. The menu changes daily, with local fresh organic choices. Can’t wait to go back.

Wonderful meal with excellent service. Savory kale custard was a wonderful start before the delectable carbonara and my dining partner raved about her orecchietti. Love the family vibe and the friendly environment. I will be back on every trip to the coast from now on. What a jem!

When we go out to dinner in Arcata, La Trattoria is where we go. Patricia and Jim have created and run for now many years a family-​style, unpretentious restaurant serving meals wonderfully prepared, moderately priced, using fresh local ingredients wherever possible, and with generous portions as well. We’ve never had a dish that disappointed us. Many of the dishes include handmade pasta or gnocchi. The wine list and wines by the glass, which frequently change, are very high value with low prices on some really great wines. Tastes of the wine ordered are always available before committing. Many thanks, Patricia, Jim and all the team at La Trattoria. You provide a wonderful resource for our community. Grazie !

I’ve eaten at La Trattoria often over the years and the food has been consistently good with use of the fresh and local. I ate here with some coworkers this past Thursday and we shared the Orrechiette and Carbonara and all I can say is WOW! Killer combo. I think it is really funny a lady wanted to send back a piece of chicken cause it had a bone in it. Everyone knows thats the best part! The owners should refund her with a fast food gift card of her choice so she can get some McNuggets, lol!

You folks are RUDE and need to be called out on it! Your food is way way overpriced very bland attempts at Italian fare. The fact that you come on here and defend your OBVIOUS MISTAKES is even more ridiculous! Just accept the fact that you guys practice NOVICE STYLE and your food stinks! Like seriously LONG HAIRS, can’t just shred Asiago on MEDIOCRE FOOD and expect folks to pay $ 24 for it?
Man up manager dude and issue a refund when your food sucks and is returned by an über sexy customer like myself! CRYBABY TATTLETALES 365

Utterly Fantastic! The food is largely local. Always seasonal and huge in portion. This woman can cook! The husband and wife team are accommodating and kind. Food is authentic. Great place to take company. Casual or dressy, you choose. Only issue; Kid menu is limited to spaghetti and meatballs but they are kid friendly in spirit. Simplicity with great energy. Love love love this neighborhood place. Take out available. Best salad, Brussel sprout (if in season)

Completely agree with the other reviews, this is the best Italian in Humboldt County. Fantastic use of almost completely local foods, proudly displayed on the chalkboard menu. 5 stars for the food, 3 stars for the service. Our server was nice, but inattentive.

There seems to be so many positive reviews for this place, so we gave it a try. We are locals, and love the farm to table idea. Pure disappointment.
First they brought us out bread w olive oil. We asked if they had balsomic vinger and they said no. The bread wasnt even warm. Then the salads, a few pieces of lettuce and some shredded carrots on the side. Weak. My gf ordered the risotto, which came out watery, bland, and over cooked. They used the wrong kind of rice. It was soggy and had a slice of brie cheese on it. I had the pork braised in milk w gnocchi and roasted romanesco veggie. The pork was good, but they didn’t give me gnocchi, they gave me polenta instead. I mentioned this to the server, and he went to ask the cook. He came back and told me it was polenta… Duh, we already knew that. He didn’t offer to bring us gnocchi or anything. The roasted veggies on my plate were totally over cooked and looked brown. Over all this place was a big disappointment. For $ 20 a plate you should get what you ordered and be happy w it. Not the case here tonight. We should have sent our food back and left, but didn’t want to be those people.

I like the premise of fresh, local food and a rotating seasonal menu. My salad certainly featured fresh tasty produce. I had a chicken dish that was a large bed of pasta with a chicken leg that was uninspiring overall (though the inclusion of fennel bulbs was a very nice touch). The chicken itself was not of a good quality. Bread was forgettable.
She had a risotto dish that featured excellent young broccoli. Risotto was tasty, perhaps overwhelmed by cheese.
Service was good.

Absolutely delectable food. Have their own local pork– pancetta cured in-​house! Felt like another place in time, very cozy, homey and comfortable. Loved the house red. Saw good friends all over the room!

Tried this place years ago when they first opened. It was ok and had potential but a bit over priced for what u got. Tried again recently and was actually less impressed. The +$ 20 gnochi gulash dish (or whatever it was) was bland and, not to be crude, but it looked like a pile of grey poo with a slab of cheese on top. Very unappealing. The young waiter was great, but the owner looked sad as before. Not sure how they’ve made it this long but i’m not going back.

Went back in 2009 and had the most delicious Italian food in my life. I loved the small rustic atmosphere, the table wine served in small juice glasses, and that the food was seasonal.

Fresh local organic authentic Italian food, enough said. One of our favorite places to go in town. It’s hard to find a good restaurant worth your while in this area and la trattoria is definitely one we keep going back to. It never disappoints and everyone is so friendly! I highly recommend dining here.

I love the idea of this place but it has no atmosphere, the male owner/​partner barely speaks and frankly the carbonara was not good and the wide noodles with squash were not edible. Sorry but I’m done with this one. Try new recipes and a little mood lighting with some music.

Absolutely astounded with our experience tonight and not in a good way. This place committed a cardinal sin in the restaurant business– if a dish is sent back, you do not make the customer pay for it. There is absolutely no excuse for this. What planet are the owners of this restaurant from?!
I ordered a chicken dish that arrived on the bone and sent the plate back to the kitchen as I only eat chicken breast. To be 100% fair, I did not ask what part of the chicken was in the dish as I assumed it would be a breast. Our friendly, yet unknowledgeable server, neglected to inform me it was a bone-​in thigh and leg (the cheapest part of the chicken.) At the end of our meal, we were completely aghast when the owner made us pay for the dish anyway. What restaurant makes you pay for a $ 20 dish that you did not even touch? Completely unprofessional and unseemly. My spouse, having worked in the restaurant industry for more than 15 years in East Coast fine dining, where the food is actually edible and interesting, unlike most local offerings, has never seen an establishment make a customer pay for an untouched dish that was returned. NEVER. It just simply does not happen.
Our family will never dine here again as the owner haggled over a $ 20 dish, therefore losing hundreds in the future if we were to continue dining here. Absolutely unbelievable. For three dishes eaten (and one sent back to the kitchen), including two children’s meals, our bill came to $ 80 before tip.
My husband’s spaghetti carbonara was bland, oily and under seasoned, and the grated Italian cheese that was so heavily used in attempt to compensate for the lack of flavor could not save this dish, which certainly was not worth the $ 20. Two small dishes of spaghetti and meatballs for the kids were $ 10 a piece, also not worth the price for such pedestrian plates.
When we first began dining at La Trattoria, we were pleased with the restaurant and its simple and peasant-​like approach to its food offerings. However, after each subsequent visit the food has become less interesting, and it became clear that the food is overall lacking in flavor and proper execution. Message to the chef: Your insecurities behind the line are apparent in your overuse of olive oil and whatever hard Italian grated cheese with which you suffocate all of your dishes.
And to the male counterpart of the husband and wife proprietors: Your possum-​like demeanor and cheapness is beyond pathetic, and for any restaurateur worth his salt (which apparently you don’t use!) to do what you did is absolutely repugnant. Even though we took the diplomatic route and paid for the untouched plate, which we left at the restaurant in the hopes you would feed it to your staff or your dog, on another day my husband would have had you wearing that «chicken gypsy style» dish.

We have been to this locally owned and operated restaurant numerous times. The food is vibrant and freshly sourced from nearby farms/​suppliers. The menu changes based upon supply. You will not find the overloaded and obscured flavors of westernized chain «Italian» restaurants. Instead you will find provincial treatments to high quality ingredients, much like going to an Italian home for dinner. We love this restaurant and the owners are wonderful people. La Trattoria reminds me of the food we had in Italy.

This is our favorite restaurant in Arcata.
Fresh authentic Italian food with local ingredients — better than Abruzzi and Mazzotis combined.
Great service, romantic setting, and a great selection of Italian wines.
Oh and always order the dessert — always mouth-​watering.
We make sure to eat here about once a month.

Always fresh and delicious every time.

Great local food, with no set menu, that varies from week to week and with the seasons. Fresh is the word. Limited dinner hours (5:30−9) and only Thursday through Sunday. Reservations are a must on the weekend. Small but excellent wine list with local vintners available, and byob.
There are only about a dozen tables, mostly two tops, so space is a premium. Service is nor-​cal at its finest, very laid back and very relaxed, so you can not be in a hurry.
This is home cooking Italian style at its best. Simple and delicious food, that is fresh as it gets prepared with local seasonal ingredients.
This past saturday night, our reservations were at 6pm — the restaurant filled quickly within about 45 minutes of us arriving it was packed. Service is slow, but focused once they get to you, you can tell these guys are not professional waiters. Which is cool, you just can not be in a hurry and why would you, the food is awesome!
So, take your time drink a bottle of wine and enjoy some of the best local ingredient, seasonal Italian food in Humboldt county. This is not fine dining, it is great home style cooking. Wine served in a glass tumbler, olive oil on plate with bread, guys running around in tee shirts and blue jeans, its like eating at your neighbors house who is an awesome Italian cook!
My wife had potato raviolli with tomato, egg plant, capers and a sweet pepper sauce and I had Carmela’s chicken (slow roasted in white wine and onions) with polenta and the most amazing sauce.
Both plates were equally different and simply delicious and well worth the wait. The two house salads were simple and as fresh as it gets. A nice bottle of local cabernet and a yummy bread pudding with pear sauce that we split for dessert. It was a great meal and we left comfortably full and satisfied. Dinner for two with a bottle of wine, split dessert and a nice tip $ 100.
10

I was very stoked about going here based on the reviews I’ve read; however, I feel rather disappointed walking away from my evening there.
First off, the food. It was decent. Aside from the most lack-​luster polenta I’ve ever had in my life, the rest of the dish was fine. My issue with the food was that it wasn’t $ 22-​a-​dish good. I know that their menu changes often, so perhaps I was there on an off-​night.
The service was… pretty dang slow. Our waters were constantly empty for long periods of time and we were never asked if we wanted a second beer. After we finished dessert, we waited for quite some time before we had to wave down a waiter and ask for the check. They were slightly busy, not packed to the gills. Not busy enough to warrant waiting fifteen minutes for them to take our card, run it, and bring it back.
Overall, the food feels over-​priced for what we got. If you like supporting local farmers and whatnot, go for it, but I’ve had much better food elsewhere for this price range. The friend who went with me was equally displeased with the item they ordered. I doubt we’ll be returning.