La Dolce Vita — Restaurant in Beverly Hills

Arrived for dinner after recommendations from our concierge. Beautiful LA weather outside dark, dingy and extremely loud as you enter. Clearly ran out of budget, no acoustic specialist was included in the project team! The noise is way too unpleasant and certainly requires two choices: shouting or silence. Given that my wife always shouts at me we chose silence - unlike the rest of the diners. Taken to our table for two but designed for a person and a half. Now for the best part - the waitrons. All under instruction to disgorge as much alcohol as quickly as possible, whilst pushing us through our meal. No Olympic sprinter would have had to endure such anxiety before a race let alone a meal! “Could we get some toothpicks?” “Sorry, we don’t have.” “Do you know why?” “I don’t know, I don’t make them!” CLASSIC!

The bill.

Besides the extortionate US tipping habits that patrons have been groomed to accept as the norm, we were gaslit and guilted with an additional fixed charge of 2% for which we were assured ONLY went to the kitchen staff who were so deserving for preparing such an average meal! Of course, on payment, you are presented with tipping choices starting at 20% then 30% and yes, you guessed correctly, 40%!

Does the US public not rebel against a system that protects poor service and simultaneously lays-off its fixed costs to the diners. Win-win but not for the diners! This “protection” of the waitrons has completely disincentivized waiters from offering quality service. This affects the reputation of the establishment but the owners are petrified to address this as they do not want to forfeit their fixed cost contribution generously funded by the submissive public. The malaise of wokeness!

Let’s deal with the woke but bring on the robots!

Over...

We were warmly greeted by Nicole and an old friend Ashley when my wife and I first walked in acknowledging that it was my sweetheart’s birthday. This was our very FIRST visit to this restaurant. It was however all down hill from there. Bread was brought to the table and unfortunately the busboy knocked over the table lamp which crashed and broke my water glass saturating the entire table in front of me. Accidents do happen but instead of changing the table cloth they put two napkins over the saturated area which remained soaked throughout dinner. The table side Caesar salad was delicious. When my wife’s pasta dish came to the table I had to wait 10 minutes for my entree (a $96 bone in veal chop parmigiana) to come. The server we had was very nice and had warned me of how big the veal dish was. He said I would have another dinner tomorrow. He was right. The veal was excellent and I ate only half. We asked to take home the leftover pasta and veal. A doggy bag was brought to our table before dessert. When the dessert was delivered I truly thought at least a candle would accompany the chocolate tart to celebrate my wife’s birthday(acknowledging the event when we checked in)but sadly it was not the case. We paid the bill and left somewhat disappointed. What then made the entire situation even worse is when walking to the car I realized that the half of my veal dish was missing from the bag. I quickly went back and after searching was told it was probably given to someone else. (Nice surprise) The manager offered to “fire up” another one while I wait but I declined to wait around. He then said he would make a note in the system so that on the next visit I would get the replacement. Based on the evening’s experience I am truly not sure there will be...

I have known about La Dolce Vita for quite some time given that it was a former frequent stop for Frank Sinatra and many other Golden Age of Hollywood celebrities. I work very close to the unassuming building so I have been driving by it for many months but finally got the opportunity on Saturday to stop in for dinner. As mentioned the restaurant is very unassuming from the outside, I didn’t even know it was a restaurant until I paid attention to the small sign out front. Inside is a different story though, it has old world charm and is filled with dark red booths, low lighting, and is complete with a classic East Coast style bar in the front corner. Our server and the rest of the staff we encountered were very polite and all of our items arrived quickly from the kitchen. They don’t have a dedicated parking lot, however street parking is easy to find in this part of Beverly Hills or at worst there are a few expensive parking garages close by as well.

All of our dishes were fantastic. We started off with the Shrimp Fra Diavolo, which is prawns cooked in a delicious marinara, and the Clams Oreganata, which are Littleneck clams baked with bread crumbs on top. The clams were warm and tasty and although not many in number, the flavors were truly great. For our entrees we chose the Branzino Piccata, this was my favorite dish of the night mainly because of the piccata sauce and how well the fish was cooked, and the Lemon Bucatini, which was light and packed with lemon flavor. It was a great summer dish.

Overall a wonderful classic Italian dinner in a beautiful part of town. We both had a great experience and would recommend to anyone for any occasion although it would be especially a great call for a date or business...