VIVACE — Restaurant in Beitou

Foreigners stay away. Or stay vigilant.

VERY rude server/lady working at the counter, who rolled her eyes at me and fixed me with an annoyed, borderline disgusted sneer when I asked for clarification on some items on the menu.

For context, Chinese is not my first language, and the menu contains only sparse annotations in English, therefore putting those with allergies at risk if they don't somehow know enough Chinese to read the ingredients list.

I am a small-framed young woman, and I make sure to be soft-spoken in my daily life. In no way, shape, or form was my question phrased or intoned in a combative way. Yet I was treated like bottom-feeding scum, which was horribly dehumanizing, on top of confusing??? It was my first time in the restaurant, so it wasn't like I have a record of pulling stunts.

And to top it off, the food wasn't even THAT good! I got smoked salmon pizza, and it was just fresh lettuce on top of pizza crust with some pieces of salmon thrown inside. The lettuce kept falling everywhere, and the sparse materials meant it really was essentially a lettuce plate, but the plate is pizza crust. Good if you're health-conscious, I guess? But this, on top of the horrid attitude, makes me NEVER want to come back again no matter what the other reviews say.

Service attitude is 1 star for obvious reasons.

Food is 2 stars, because the materials WERE above-average quality, and the taste relatively good. But definitely not worth the price given the construction.

Atmosphere is 2 stars. Environment was clean, albeit small. But the cramped environment, combined with the hostile service attitude, makes what could have been 4 stars...

They make a nice as close enough to a Neopolitan Margherita pizza here. Ask them to drizzle some olive oil for you or just ask for some on the side to drizzle to your taste as they do not finish the margherita pizza with olive oil drizzles and the olive oil adds quite a bit to the pizza. Nice crust with a decent leoparding. I suspect wethe oven isn't hot enough to make a true Neopolitan pizza but that's nitpicking for this small restaurant. They do use mostly local ingredients (like Thai basil and local rice for their risotto) here and that's a good and bad thing depending on how authentic you want your Italian meal. Local ingredients ensures that they are fresh and the freshness tends to enhance dishes more often than not. Would visit again...

WOW!!!!!!!! 10/10 for food AND drinks here. So glad we stumbled in because we have traveled all of Italy and this was some of the best Italian. Very delicious seafood risotto with tomato sauce just like they used the seafood juices to cook with; spaghetti was generous in size and pizza with high quality mozzarella cheese. We ordered their mojitos and they were so strong and fragrant with heavy beautiful glasses and a sustainability focused metal straws. Would highly highly recommend in Beitou and would stop by again....