We live in Monterey about 45 minutes South from Santa Cruz and go there often to eat, watch a show or just to look around. We are experienced travelers and have both lived in Italy for years. We do go out a lot to eat when we travel and found Avanti just great. The food is always fresh, innovative, without heavy sauces, small portions and interesting combinations of food as you might find in a good Italian restaurtant in Italy! My husband and I are both retired educators and go there easily twice a month as we enjoy the food and now the beautiful new location though the other one did not bother us either.
The service is friendly and the prices very reasonable! Wonderful place to go with friends and family as well.

Avanti has been a favorite for years, and their recent move down the street to a larger location continues the theme of delicious Italian-themed dishes in a classy environment -- even better now, because the new place is quieter and there's more space between tables, therefore it's easier to converse with your tablemates; and they have better parking and easier entry/exit from the street. They specialize in seasonal, locally-sourced ingredients, and I've never had anything but a great meal there. I find it a little expensive for every day, but well worth a splurge now and then.

Stale tasteless bread, unresponsive service who could care less about the quality of the food or our experience and food that didn't come close to passing for Italian authentic cuisine. The bruschetta app was nothing more than more stale nasty white bread with--I am NOT kidding--four baguette slices of stale bread, each with a small slice of unripe, rock hard and tasteless tomato slice and sliver of basil on it. No cheese. No anything else. The waitress refused to take return the order, saying we had already sampled it (We each had a piece and had taken bites--and all agreed it was not edible beyond the first bite). The place bills itself as a mostly organic, locally sourced purveyor of the fine ingredients we have in our region but this could not be farther from the truth because there's no way our local farms sell such poor quality ingredients. Try La Posta instead; it's pricey but at least a good value, which this place is not.

Food was very good, portions controlled nicely. Service was excellent and price is right. Group of 11 and our table was ready, service on time and felt full and happy. Had the bruchetta, excellent, and code special - also very good. Everyone loved the food - out of 11 thats pretty good!