Bella Vita — Restaurant in Enterprise

The "new" Bella Vita has been open for some time and the kinks should have been ironed out by now but they are not. My review of the "Old" Bella Vita was glowing and deserved high praise. The new Bella Vita not so much. I had the happy hour meal tonight and I really wanted to have this restaurant succeed. It did not in so many ways. The ambience and furniture is the same but no updates and the seat actually had large cracks and was very uncomfortable to sit in. I asked the very friendly hostess what time happy hour was and she said it ended at 6 PM. The official Bella Vita website says 5:30 PM and 5 PM respectively??? I asked the owner. Flavio which is it? he said "6 PM." and disregarded the website as if it was nothing. Strange.

There is no dedicated Server to my table and at one point I had 4 different people stopping by. One gentleman spoke very little english and misunderstood every request of mine. I asked another server why this man was waiting on tables and he said, "he is the busboy" with no further explanation. ANY fine dining restaurant has a dedicated Server for a station. The willingness to help out was apparent but led to nothing more than utter confusion. I asked the Busboy turned waiter for some soft butter. he of course returned with hard as brick butter. I asked another "Waiter" if he could oblige and he took the hard butter and had the kitchen staff microwave it. Disgusting restaurant practice. The bread and dipping sauce was served by yet another server and the dipping sauce was a deep puddle of oil with a few dots of balsamic vinegar. Have you ever tried dipping bread in that? Well. you get nothing but oil, big fail. The bread was razor thin and somewhat stale, another fail.

Ok, so I ordered the happy hour Fettuccine Bolognese and separate meatballs, (3.) I asked the Server when the "Homemade" pasta was made and he said "sometime last night." Hummm. The bolognese was uninspired and rather bland. The meatballs were very undercooked and mushy inside. I sent them back and didn't want a 2nd try. I also had the traditional Caesar salad. Nothing remarkable except the lack of crisp lettuce. Also, I asked my Server if the portion size is smaller on the happy hour menu and he said; "yes" but it is ok. Note: *Most restaurants will have a small note on the happy hour menu stating a smaller portion is served. the owner said "That is normal." I disagreed with him and used one of many examples where the portion size remains the same but the price is less at happy hour, (Yard house comes to mind.)

I sat down with the owner, Flavio and gave him the opportunity to respond to the criticism and he simply said "many customers come back and our wine list is extensive." Wasted opportunity to address glaring concerns. Hummm again. No mention of the worn out seats remarks, no mention of the horrible dipping sauce, etc. I understand that running and owning a restaurant is one of the hardest things to do in life, but if you are going to assume ownership of a restaurant with previously great street reviews then you need to up your game. Sadly Bella Vita is a fail this time around, a shell of the former establishment. Some reviews you will see are all 5 stars but some of those glowing reviews have a sense of normalcy when it comes to mediocre food and service. I can only hope Flavio and his team can make the improvements which are drastically need. I cannot recommend dining...

They might have bought the name, but they DID NOT buy the recipes 🤯 The rathing is because of the old reviews from the previous owner. My husband ordered Shrimp Scampi. Which came out like the shrimp was boiled like shrimp cocktail and steamed with big, huge chunks of broccoli that were semi raw... NOT Scampi at all.. there was no garlic in the dish. It was Not sautéed like traditional scampi is... it did not have any brown marks. It had a faint lemon taste that seemed like it was a generic piccata jar sauce. Scampi has a distinctive lemon garlic and flavor. If this is what the previous owner used to serve, it's horrendous... it's like they took some cocktail shrimp dumped in a plate poured some bake pecotticesauce without papers on it and no lemon taste and garlic... I said to my husband I can guarantee you that your piccata sauce is going to come out with this same generic sauce, probably no capers. It came out exactly as I thought, except it had five peppercorn size capers in the dish. Check out the picture.. the other two capers were hiding in the mashed potatoes. Really??? The dish is known for capers. We love carpers. That's why we get this dish. Extremely disappointing. The chicken piccata came out with the huge chunks of broccoli and carrots & zucchini... reminded me of cafeteria food.... the same as with the chicken marsala, which had a faint, marsala taste, again no real flavor nor garlic. The only thing I could say that was good about it was that it had fresh mushrooms. Big chunks of broccoli that were semi rough. The mashed potatoes that were on both dishes were good, but this is not typical of an italian restaurant to give mashed potatoes instead of pasta. I know the previous owner. Did the same thing? It's kinda like cheaping out... This did not seem like an authentic italian restaurant that Bella Vita was known for. I anticipate that if there's not enough local americans that don't understand true italian to continue to go here, this restaurant will be out of business. Growing up in New York, cooking authentic Italian taught by my italian mother and grandmother, traveling to Italy, we know good food. Sorry for the harsh review, but spending $126 for one drink each, one bland appetizer, and fake italian food is bad business. Music is very loud, that's why I gave three stars for the atmosphere. However, the atmosphere with the big marble bar and decorations is very nice. The gifted dessert, panacotta, was very good. Maybe they have good pizza... that's if they have authentic recipes and use good ingredients. We won't be going back. There are so many other good authentic italian restaurants...

I rarely leave reviews for anything, good or bad, but after my experience here I simply have to rave about how wonderful this restaurant is. This is a long one, but it really qualifies what sets a good restaurant apart from an excellent dining experience. I came here with my girlfriend after driving past the restaurant literally dozens of times and thinking the tagline "obsessive Italian cuisine" was a little silly, we had to try! We came in, were sat immediately at a nice booth in the back and before long our server, Adam, made his way over and asked our drink orders. I asked if he had a cocktail or beer recommendation and certainly he did. I had the "La fin du monde" and was already pleased with the experience. Adam came back to take our orders and I had the chicken parmigiana while my girlfriend had the fettuccine alfredo. It didn't take long at all for the food to come out and it was excellent! Chicken was perfectly cooked and delicious while the breading was crispy and sauce was one of the best I've ever had! Tried a small bite of the Alfredo as well; creamy, silky, buttery and the pasta was perfectly cooked. After dinner we had a dessert menu and Adam asked if anything had caught our eye. I expressed interest in the tiramisu, but girlfriend wanted to try the chocolate mousse cake and since we had only planned on splitting one dessert we got the mousse cake and I ordered a cappuccino. Well, a few minutes later Adam returned with my coffee, our chocolate cake and a "surprise", he brought the tiramisu, as I had had my eye on it originally! I spilled my cappuccino a bit and, even though it was 100% my fault, Adam was so apologetic and accomodating. We had dessert which was, needless to say, flawless. Adam left our check, but before we left he offered us a shot to round out the night. He brought back the Huckleberry vodka and we toasted and man that vodka might have been the best thing I had all night, seriously try it. The only regret I have is that I didn't have a few extra bucks in my wallet to leave Adam an even bigger tip.

Sorry for the long review, summary: Food: 10/10 Atmosphere: 10/10 Service: 12/10

If I could leave more than 5 stars, I would. I'm already planning my next night out to Bella Vita, thank you so much for the evening Adam and...