Cindy and I had decided to go back up to historic downtown Galena at some point in the summertime after our visit there over her birthday back in December. While the downtown was all lit up and festive for the Christmas holiday, we decided we'd like to go back up some Saturday afternoon when the weather was warm, walk the streets, then have dinner at one of the restaurants the town has to offer. I'd known about Vinny Vanucchi's from reviews and talking to people who had eaten there in the past. While most of the people I'd talked to and from the reviews I read tabbed the restaurant as very good, I still had a little bit of trepidation about going there. Something just kept telling me it was more of a tourist trap than anything. But Cindy wanted to go there, so we ended up dining there one night earlier this summer.
Vinny Vanucchi's is part of the CoCo Enterprises group of restaurants that are owned by Jack and Deb Coulter. In addition to Vinny Vanucchi's, the Coulters also run One Eleven Main in downtown Galena, and Frank O'Dowd's Irish Pub which is connected to The Irish Cottage boutique hotel they own and run with Jack's cousin Basil Conroy on the east side of Galena. Vinny Vanucchi's opened in 1992 in historic downtown Galena. A second Vinny's restaurant is scheduled to open this month in Dubuque, IA.
Many of Vinny Vanucchi's recipes are family recipes from Deb Coulter's side of the family which was part Italian. Deb's grandmother Lucille LaCorte Finnen was a second-generation Sicilian who was born in Chicago in the mid-20's. Deb's family lived below "Nana Lu" and she remembers the great smells of Italian/Sicilian food that her grandmother would cook when Deb was a little girl. Deb took many of those handed-down family recipes and turned them into the basics of the main menu at Vinny Vanucchi's today.
Chef Robin Fleetwood is the executive chef at Vinny Vanucchi's bringing years of experience to the kitchen at Vinny's. Fleetwood grew up in the Midwest and learned how to cook at an early age from his mother. As a couple stints in the Navy as a cook aboard a naval vessel, Fleetwood traveled the world learning about different types of cuisine. Upon his discharge from the Navy, Fleetwood went to cooking school and became a full-fledged chef. Fleetwood makes the food at Vinny's from scratch, using only the freshest ingredients in his food. He features a series of "seasonal items" on his menu, procuring locally grown items during the course of the year.
Vinny Vanucchi's is located on Main Street in downtown Galena, situated on a hillside with steps that go up to the restaurant (see map). Actually, the back of Vinny's abuts up to S. Bench Street and parking is more readily available on that street than on Main Street. We parked up on Bench Street and took the steps down to Vinny's hostess stand. They feature outdoor seating at Vinny's, but the tables were full that nice evening. Our hostess took us to the upper level of Vinny Vanucchi's and we were seated at a table against a brick wall in a small dining area that featured three four-person booths and three two-person tables.
The dining room was uncomfortably warm. Our waiter came around with a basket of Vinny's signature Italian bread with infused garlic oil and Cindy told him that she thought the room was awfully warm. For Cindy to say that - she's perpetually cold even when it's 72 degrees outside - the room was almost unbearable for me. He said, "Yes, it does seem to be a little warm up here. I believe it was getting too cold for some patrons earlier and we may have shut down the air conditioning. Let me go check on that."
As we sweated while we looked through the menu, Cindy took a piece of the Italian bread with the infused garlic oil. She said, "Oh, my God! This is great bread!" And it was. We made short work of the basket of bread - there were only like four pieces in the basket. But we were careful not to order any more right away so it wouldn't fill us up before the main entree hit the table.
I looked through the wine list which wasn't extensive and was sort of mediocre. We both decided we were going to get something with a tomato sauce for the evening's meal and I ordered up a bottle of the Chateau St. Jean Cabernet, a medium-priced wine out of the Sonoma Valley vineyards.
Actually, the dinner menu at Vinny's was far from pedestrian with a number of Italian dishes to choose from. The menu featured eight different types of fettuccine dishes, baked and stuffed pasta dishes, different types of chicken and veal entrees and a handful of house specialties such as Seafood Italiano - a "Nana Lu" inspired dish that featured shrimp, scallops, lobster and Surimi crabmeat in a cream sauce and topped with three cheeses. There was also something called Pollo Compomare - boneless chicken breast sautéed with broccoli, mushrooms and tomatoes in a cream sauce with wine, lemon, garlic and a hot sauce, then served over a bed of pasta. Cindy almost got that until she realized it had mushrooms in it and the sauce may have resembled cream of mushroom soup - a big no-no in her diet (tracing back to her days of growing up with all different types of meals featuring cream of mushroom soup).
One thing that caught my eye on the feature menu was the baked sausage ragu - penne pasta, spicy Italian sausage, green peppers and mushrooms that is slowly cooked in Vinny's homemade marinara sauce, then topped with mozzarella and parmesan and baked in the oven. That's what I ended up getting.
Cindy was in a quandary because the descriptions of the food on the menu all sounded very good to her. She ended up opting for the Chicken Vinito - a boneless chicken breast sautéed with a combination of artichoke hearts, tomatoes, and fresh basil, then served with a tomato-cream sauce over linguini. A family style Italian salad came with the meal, as well.
By the time we'd ordered, we felt the cool breeze of the air conditioner kick in. It had begun to get more comfortable in the dining room and it was fine within 15 minutes.
Our salad came to the table, served in a large bowl and topped with a homemade vinaigrette. It was OK, at best. The vinaigrette really didn't knock my socks off with its taste sensation. But the greens and chopped veggies they had were fresh and flavorful. It was an average salad.
Our main entrees showed up soon after we finished our salads and I was sort of astounded at the large portion of the baked sausage ragu that landed in front of me. There was going to be no way that I would be able to finish even half of the entree. So I decided to concentrate on the sausage, veggies and the cheese in the dish and have a few bites of the penne pasta along the way. I will say the entree was pretty good - surprisingly good, considering that I had some preconceived notions about Vinny's before I sat down. The sausage tasted like it was home made and had a nice kick in taste, the mushrooms were fresh and I really liked the sweet and tangy marinara sauce that Vinny Vanucchi's makes.
Cindy said that her Chicken Vinito was "very good." It wasn't over-cooked and the sauce didn't detract from the overall taste. The chicken breast was large and there were ample helpings of the artichoke hearts along with it. The basil was very fresh and I could easily smell it from across the table.
We ate what we could, but decided not to take any of what we had left home. Cindy always said, "Italian food never tastes as good after it's been boxed up and reheated." And with pasta dishes, she's usually right. I had made a huge dent in my dinner, leaving only about half the dish full of penne pasta. It wasn't worth boxing up penne pasta.
OK, so I was pleasantly surprised with Vinny Vanucchi's. It didn't quite have the tourist-trap ring to the place once we got in there. The service was adequate, the food was above average and we liked the ambiance of the place. There's some other places in Galena that I'd like to try, but if you're hungry for family style Italian food, Vinny Vanucchi's would be a place to try.
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