1. chiefbrody2001 on Sunday, December 05, 2010
Food Quality
Two of us had Spag Bol, another had a burger, and our fourth guest had a steak.
I tucked into my spag bol with earnest and found it to be bland, lacking flavour and spice, and appearing unsalted. I have never had to season a spag bol on my plate with salt, that should be done in cooking. My sister, another on the spag bol, also found it to be rather tasteless. I shouldn't call it spaghetti bolognese anyway - it's linguini, this Italian restaurant doesn't have any spaghetti!
Now to the disgusting burger. It arrived hardly cooked - red raw in the middle. It was left uneaten and after telling the waiter when he was clearing up the plates that it was not satisfactory he replied: "Oh well."
Menu Choice
Bruschetta is a nice starter to share at an Italian restaurant. It wasn't on the menu so we politely asked. "Nope!" was the curt reply, the maitre d' answering in passing without much of a passing glance at our table. Remember, he's hardly busy, the restaurant is half full at best.
So we passed on the starters.
To give the restaurant credit - the menu is varied, with a good range and some excellent prices. But when the food is this bad it really doesn't matter.
It also has to be said - for an Italian restaurant to not have spaghetti on the menu is rather alarming. Linguini is a nice substitute but spag bol didn't get its name for nothing.
Service
We booked a table at short notice (we were seated within 30mins of ringing) which is good but a indication the restaurant isn't getting a huge number of visitors given that the time of our booking was at 7.45pm on a Saturday night. Unsurprisingly, the restaurant was quiet when we got there.
We were greeted by a maitre d, who mixed a faux Italian accent with broad Barnsley. He seemed oddly quizzical over the absence of our fourth guest (he'd popped to the toilet by the way - no big deal we thought).
When we mentioned how uncooked the burger was - we were met with a "so what" shrug and the answer "Oh well!".
Facilities
Toilets are down some stairs which could be difficult for some people. You also have to almost step back down the top step to open the door when re-entering the restaurant. Otherwise, the toilets and clean and modern.
Overall:
THE GOOD: nice interior decor and good prices
THE BAD: poor service (could be seen as rude), limited wine menu, and very poor food.
We will not be returning to La Dolce Vita until they replace the chef with someone who knows how to cook, and the maitre d' with someone who values the customer's experience.