Stelline

Back in the day (like 15 years ago), this place was fantastic! The best Italian food in San Francisco. Sadly, something severe happened (the proliferation of microwave ovens in restaurants, maybe?). I gave it a try a few nights ago. The food is definately off and no longer genuine. I wish I knew what happened, cause it’s such a charming place. Charm is all they got. Maybe they should stop serving food and call themselves a wine bar. Two stars for charm.

Closed. Went by last night for an early dinner, and they are no longer there. The taqueria next door, «Estrellita», is also gone. Hoodline says they are closed for 3 months for remodeling, but that it’s not written in stone.

A friendly Italian restaurant! The food is good! Trustworthy! I have been there several times and love their osso bucco. (If I remember the spelling right.) The portion is huge for this dish. I am always stuffed after having it. And their pastas are very good quality as well.

We stopped by with a large group and had dinner before a night at the symphony. Walkable from Bart and close the symphony this was a great and inexpensive Italian option.
The food was pretty good and the wine options were not any that I recognized but they were definitely good options.
The reason it was 4 and not 5 stars for me is that several of us had to choose our item choice number 2 because they had run out of certain items on the menu. Granted it was a Monday evening which was probably less busy, but that was kind of disappointing.
I would DEFINITELY go back for a reasonably priced Italian meal, but I would warn the folks I am with about the limited menu options.

Cozy Italian restaurant with a home-​y feel and friendly service. The fusili pasta was a little too peppery for my taste, but I’d definitely recommend the tomato soup and the chicken piccata. The complimentary garlic bread is also a plus. My boyfriend and I both agreed that we need to come back again soon!

We came here for dinner after seeing the Nutcracker! It’s in a great location, on a nice street with good nightlife. Unfortunately, we didn’t find the food as nice…
It was a cute little homey restaurant, and the staff was very nice! The garlic bread was amazing! So fluffy and flavorful, I loved it. I didn’t enjoy the entrée though (mine or my mom’s). I had the spaghetti and meatballs… ok taste, but the meatballs were a little dense. My mom had a wine-​lemon-​garlic shrimp spaghetti, and it was a bit bland. I wish I liked this place more! But the food was just ok.

We were in town to see The Nutcracker tonight and a good friend of mine (local) recommended this place. She was so excited to have us eat at Stelline. We walked over and I fell in love the minute I walked in the door with the heady smell of cooking garlic hit me like a Mack truck full of love.
Alas, we were not to taste the sumptuousness that could have been ours to experience. It was 5:10 pm tonight (Monday, 15 December). The place had maybe 3 – 4 tables with guests and everything else was empty. One of the friendly bus boys came to see us and told us to wait a minute while he fetched the host.
That’s when it all went pear shaped. The host gave us a good look up and down the way catty women do. He then asked if we had a reservations. I said «no». When I looked at Stelline on Unilocal it said «Takes reservations: yes», but on a Monday night at 5pm with an empty house, it didn’t seem necessary. I also didn’t see anything that cited what we were told next. After another visual once-​over he said «sorry, no seats without a reservation.» Normally I would have pressed on and my husband who is a better person than me said «it must be booked he wouldn’t turn away money». I had my gut feeling on the matter, but decided to let it go.
We left and walked down the street to Café Delle Stelle where we were promptly greeted in a friendly manner then seated (review on that shortly). We enjoyed our meal there.
However, me being Italian and testa-​tora (bull-​headed as my mother called me) I decided I needed to see what was doing down at Stelline. We finished (around 6:20 pm) and walked by to see if they had filled up. I should have taken a photo for proof, but only ²⁄₃ of the restaurant was full at 6:20pm. They most certainly could have seated us and I say this with confidence as one of our local favorites tucked us between reservations last week.
***** TO THE OWNER/​MANAGER *****
I HIGHLY recommend you ensure your front house is representative of good customer service. Do you have a «reservations required policy»? I didn’t see it listed anywhere and I believe we were subject to the whims of a power-​drunk host who, for whatever reason, didn’t like the look of us. We were perfectly friendly and polite when we arrived.
It’s such a shame this employee was allowed to ruin your business potential and because of my experience my friend who recommended us to you, a local regular, is not returning. Now that I look at the reviews maybe it’s better we were turned away.
Buona fortuna.

We used to LOVE this place. It was our standard for pre-​performance dinner. However, we are never coming again. While eating dinner, the waiter walked by and a HUGE COCKROACH was on the back of his shirt. Now I know no SF restaurant is 100% clean, but if you can’t even keep them off yourself, how are you keeping them out of my food?! Top that off with terrible service and mediocre food and it’s not worth your time and money especially when there are dozens of better places nearby.

Came here during my lunch to satisfy my pasta craving, and were the first ones for the lunch. What a cute little restaurant! Loved the décor and warm, friendly personalities of the staff! We were immediately seated and served waters.
While I loved the ambiance of the restaurant, I was a bit disappointed in the food. I settled for the fusili pasta with arugula, pine nuts and sundried tomatoes. While it was a hearty portion and appealing to the eye, the flavors came up short and was lacking salt IMO. Although our waiter was very accommodating, service was pretty slow; after we sat down the lunch rush came in and after finishing our meals we had to flag someone down to get our bill. May come back to try the pesto spaghetti.

Good food, European service. Not bad service, they are there if you ask and are very friendly. But they certainly will not rush you.
Almost every entrée is $ 15.
Wine is barely beyond «red or white» with all the selections being simply the type, like «Chardonnay «and «Merlot». The selections are all set at $ 7 for a decent sized glass.
The dishes were all good — risotto, salmon and fusilli alike. We also tried the potato and polenta apps which were okay.
Overall the meal was good. I felt 3 ½ stars would be an adequate review — 3 being a little low. What can I say — I liked my risotto. Not the best ever, but I was satisfied.
The rating is dropped due to the table being ready to order for a while and having to flag someone down, slow service after dishes were even cleared — we were never offered dessert. I’m not sure if we were asked earlier if we would have ordered dessert — but we finally just flagged someone down for our check. Entrees were good. The wine selection was poor.
With every dish about the same price I couldn’t help but think some dishes the restaurant was making bank on while others they might be just barely in the black.

Just bad… garlic bread dry tasteless, pizza I’ve had better out of a microwave. Fettuccine Alfredo nothing special.

This place has so much potential but they’re destroying it. The food is way below a microwave meal that you (hopefully don’t) buy from a supermarket. I’m paying for stuff that I can’t buy from the supermarket or make myself.
I had the most disgusting tomato soup ever tonight. I instantly remembered the kitchen nightmares show on tv. It was so sour that i thought I was having lemon juice! What was that seriously?
This is the third time I’m coming here just to try different things. Every experience is worse than others.
It’s in a nice location and the place has a cute texture to it but the chef is a disaster. Would not recommend this place to anyone.

A sit down place with good service and decent menu options. I came here with friends for lunch on a weekday. Restaurant was mostly empty. Service was good. A basket of bread was served along with Minestrone soup. I had ordered salad which was very fresh and flavorful. A good option for a sit down place in the neighborhood. Prices were reasonable.
I would give it a try once in a while when my lunch mates want to try it out.

Was meeting friends there but happen to be there early. They had no issues with me holding a table until my friends showed up. Wine was great and good was incredible. I will definitely come back to try more!
Service was also good. No issues here. Check it out for great authentic casual Italian dining.

This was a great easy affordable option right near the SF Jazz Center where we love to hang out. We finished our show and wanted something simple and accessible and this fit the bill perfectly.
Great friendly service, super crack-​tasty garlic bread and my chicken salad w/​pine nuts & raisins was *perfect* — not heavy, just the right amount of heartiness. The hubs’ spaghetti and meatballs met the quality test, as did the light beer. And def affordable — a great mainstay if you want to avoid the price inflation that comes with being fairly close to the Opera/​Symphony/​Jazz Center, etc.

I really wanted to like this place so much more. It seemed like it could be a surprise hit but really let me down. The meal started off with a decent polenta but quickly went downhill from there. Two of us had the cannelloni which was filled with spinach that would ooze out as you cut into it, while preserving its blockish shape. It just didn’t look natural at all and to make it worse, the dish was way too bland. The osso buco was just OK but the accompanying vegetables were rubbery and tasteless. If the food had been halfway decent, I would think that serving wine in a glass cup meant for water is cute. As it was, it just added to a very underwhelming experience.

A hair below «run of the mill.» It just didn’t do it for me.
Came here for dinner before an evening ballet performance. I marveled at the fact that even in Hayes Valley, one of the big dining hot spots in San Francisco, a value-​oriented, neighborhood italian joint could still survive. More on this train of thought in a moment.
Our table started with two appetizers, a palatine and the scampi. The palentine was nothing to write home about, pretty run of the mill. The aioli was pretty bland too. The scapi was well-​flavored, but the spicy marinara sauce had too much heat.
There was also complimentary garlic bread, which was tasty.
For an entrée, I ordered the spaghetti gamberetti. The bay shrimp was over done, the spaghetti was under cooked, and it definitely needed more salt to taste. The white wine sauce was very lemon-​y and not that tasty. I would not get it again.
However, the rest of the table reported that their various entrees were OK to tasty. Maybe I just ordered the wrong items. Maybe it was an off day.
Service was attentive, but somewhat hurried. Seemed like they were short staffed.
I really wanted Stelline’s to be stellar. I was really hoping it would become my secret go-​to restaurant in this overpriced, yet fine dining oriented, neighborhood. But it just didn’t win me over. «Meh» is the strongest opinion I could muster.
Given the pricing, I’m willing to give this place another try. I’ll be sure to write an updated review when I do. But in the meantime, if you decide to visit this place, keep your expectations in check.

The words I kept hearing my table to use to describe the food were, bland, healthy not too salty, and i shouldve ordered something else. I don’t think ordering anything else would have solved the problem. Everything smelled mouth watering, but when it reached my mouth it was all but disappointment. Even the garlic bread, time after time my nose would trick me to pick up a piece and then my taste buds would ask me «why are you doing this again»?!
Service was nice, I’m pretty sure the waiter mixed up my left over salad with another coworkers so I didn’t eat it when I got home.

Stelline is a gem hidden in the side hip holster of that Crazy Old San Franciscan dame herself, Hayes Valley.
Garlic bread was en gratis and so so so delicious.
Shrimp gamborini was hearty. It was light and flavorful with a sufficient number of scramps.
Red snapper with fresh veggies came with an over abundance of capers. Slightly oily but still so so good. The integrity of the searedness of the snapper stayed strong. The fresh veggies were only green beans and carrots, so that was ehhhh
I would definitely come back!!!

How did I not know about this place?! With all the well known restaurants in the Hayes, one can easily overlook the small businesses. Stelline’s décor and food represents authentic Italian culture.
Started off with endless garlic bread. It could’ve been more garlic-​y and buttery but I can’t really complain about complimentary dishes.
The Petto (Stuffed Chicken Breast over Spaghetti) was so buono! Not too saucy, chicken cooked perfectly, and very light. The entrees also come with a choice of soup or salad.
Big portions, great service.