Dino - Northern Italian restaurant in Brooklyn - 222 Dekalb Ave, USA

My fiancé and I went here for dinner on a Saturday night. They have plenty of outdoor seating to accommodate diners when it gets busy. Our server was very friendly and attentive to us. The food was good quality and flavor, at a very good price for the neighborhood. Overall, we had a positive first experience here :-)

Incredible place! I'm new in the neighborhood and wanted to find a spot to have brunch, and I came across Dino. The service was amazing! Luciana was very sweet and brought water for my dog because it was a hot day. The food was incredible, I ordered some French toast and a super refreshing lemonade. I'll definitely be going back!!

I wanted to give this place more stars, however, there were a handful of hiccups during the duration of my dinner experience there. For starters, my date and I got to the entrance, and the petite, dark haired middle aged white hostess lady was hurriedly exiting with take out orders in hand. After almost trying to rush past me, she pauses, looks up and says “Hi?” So I say “Kenya…8pm for 2 people.” She says, “okay you can either sit here between these two tables or outside.” I spotted an empty round table in the rear of the restaurant with a few chairs and asked her if we could sit there instead for more privacy. In frustration, she repeated “No. You can either sit between these two tables, at the bar, or outside.” When I finally said outside, she said great and quickly walked away from me to give the delivery guys the takeout orders. I am not a difficult person. If anything, I’m super understanding. However, as someone who is going to be dining at the restaurant (and her being a hostess) it would have been much appreciated if she would have given us a brief explanation of why we couldn’t have sat at the table in the back. We are paying diners. An outright no is for disobedient children. We are grown adults. A quick “it’s a reserved table for a party who hasn’t arrived as yet” or “I wish I could but it’s unavailable at the moment” would have been just fine. As the night progressed and I was sitting outside enjoying the night, I began to notice that this same woman would become very hostile and nasty with the delivery guys who were coming into the restaurant to pick up the food. She’d yell at them and say “you can’t be in here!” or “you have to move from here. You can’t stand inside!” At this point, she was giving MAJOR ‘Karen’ vibes because most of these men were of Hispanic, African and Asian descent and a few were not English speaking. When they would not move right away, she’d practically shoo them away from the door while they’d be trying to show her their cell phones with the order they were picking up. It was a sad sight to see! I wish I’d gotten her name so y’all could know exactly who to stay away from (if at all possible). The mean hostess is the woman in the striped t-shirt, hair pulled back, pointing her finger in the photo I took of the exterior of the restaurant. But let me get into the real reason why we read these reviews in the first place: food and drinks. I had the Dolce Vita drink which was a bloody orange, gin, a little seltzer and Campari. It was delicious! I loved it. I had two! That good! My date had two different beers. He said they were both okay. I don’t remember the names of ‘em. For the appetizer, we had the grilled calamari. It smelled better than it tasted. It didn’t taste that flavorful. Wish it would have been cooked in the seasoning for longer. I had the Limon spaghetti which has Parmesan, lemon and oil. It was good. Nothing to write home about. My date has the Ragu pasta with meatballs and mozzarella. When we first tried his dish, the pasta was hard and super undercooked. He had to send it back to be cooked thoroughly. For dessert, we had the olive oil cake. That was the highlight of the night for me. All in all, it was a lackluster experience. I wouldn’t recommend. Especially not because of that rude hostess’ behavior. The food was just okay. The ambiance was cute. But everything else was just meh.

Restaurant was a tad bit cold but temperature aside, great atmosphere and great food. Servers were very attentive. French Toast was delicious and loved that they kept topping off the tea. Even the honey was tasty. Only qualm is that there's only one restroom.

I had a grilled artichoke salad with blood orange margarita. The salad was great with lots of parmesan cheese and the cocktail was amazing! Generous amount of alcohol, i loved it! Great staff. Also all the other restaurants around were closed till 5pm and getting prepared to serve dinner so Dino saved us!

Dino is a classy Italian spot that offers a good variety of menu options for newcomers. The calamari and cocktails were very good, and the server seemed really knowledgeable of the menu. My roasted chicken seemed a little less flavorful than I was expecting, as it took an extra 30 minutes apart from the other items to prepare, but it was decent and the skin was very crispy. The parmesan grits were a great complement. The garlic bread here is different than your standard garlic bread, it is more of slightly raw tasting garlic paste heavily applied to toast. All in all a decent experience, not one I may try again though.

I’ve always been a big fan of this authentic Italian restaurant in Brooklyn. The pasta is fantastic and fresh while the atmosphere is welcoming and intimate. Great spot for a dinner date night! I would highly recommend making a reservation in advance as there are only a few tables.

We went to Dino for brunch. Our experience was good, the food could've been better. I ordered the Florentine which tasted ok. Unfortunately the egg was a little to long cooked so the egg yolk was hardening already. Besides that they have a nice quiet outdoor seating. It was super comfortable. We went with our dog and they brought him water too. 😊The staff was friendly. I still want to come again to check out their dinner menu, I'm confident that my food experience will be better with on of their pastas.