About Our Family

We have been serving the San Diego County area for over four decades and have been located at the current location for over 20 years. For those of you who have never joined us for a meal, we hope you stop by. For those of you who sit down with us regularly, we thank you and we hope to see you again soon.

Ciao Ristorante Italiano

Ciao Ristorante Italiano features delectable Italian cuisine served in a casual yet refined atmosphere. Serving San Diego County for more than two decades, Ciao prides itself on embodying the Trattoria tradition. This means friendly, home-town service, a traditional Italian atmosphere, and a menu made to order with the only the freshest ingredients.

Ciao Ristorante Italiano aims to please, whether you are looking to have a casual dinner for two or are planning a gathering with 20 of your closest friends. Our dining room is split into two rooms, each capable of holding up to 50 people. If you are planning a gathering with more than 25 guests, we suggest booking one of our on-site banquet rooms.

We do not currently deliver but you may order from our menu or Pick-Up Trays for pickup at the restaurant.

The bread that is served with many meals at the restaurant also has a history that is a marriage of two tastes.  When Guissepe Di Giovanni from Italy married Gloria Di Giovanni from Chile, the recipe for the bread was created.  Typically European loaves of bread are very hard and crusty, yet Chilean bread is softer.  When the Di Giovannis married, they merged the two tastes and backgrounds together to create what we now know today as the Ciao bread.  It’s a recipe that features bread that is harder on the outside and softer on the inside.  Take home a loaf today or enjoy it while dining at the restaurant.

Many of the Ciao dishes stand out thanks to the wonderful tomato and marina sauces.  Our sauce is made fresh every morning starting at 5 am.  Two or three people start prepping the ingredients before our restaurant opens.  The sauce is made with real onions, basil, and garlic.  We prepare both marina and tomato at the crack of dawn and use them in all of our dishes.  Plus you can buy the sauces in our marketplace and make your own Italian dishes at home as well.  Our owner created the recipes when he first started the business more than 50 years ago and has been using them at Ciao for more than 20 years now.

At the end of the day, the old sauce is discarded.  We never refrigerate or reuse the sauces.