La Spezia — Restaurant in Hawaii

Disappointed. My local friends said that the food was very good here without the qualifier "for Kauai." We must have had an off night, or more specifically, an off waiter. I had an oxtail pappardelle that had, as per the waiter, house-made pasta. I suppose it could have been, but the cuts of the noodles were completely even, and the texture, to me, was more like store pasta than that toothsome-but-soft texture of home-made, and, normally, the individual flavors of the ingredients are more pronounced in freshly-made noodles. Whatever. I have to give the the benefit of the doubt here, so lets assume they were home-made, cut by virgos, at some previous time and stored dried. The oxtail was intensively flavorful, with a tangy meat flavor that I have never achieved when cooking this dish. It was mouth-permeating even if not exactly pleasant. Maybe the cook added too much bouillon to the sauce, or they have some sort of mega-demi-glace. The meat did have that cooked-for-hours softness, but also a bit of dryness that seemed strange. Had it been frozen at some point? My friends both ordered the Vongole, which was served in a large bowl with so much liquid it should have been called a soup. They both liked it, sort of, but the broth looked more like a beef broth than seafood stock. The worst aspect of dinner was the waiter. While not unfriendly, he seemed reluctant to do more than hurry our selections than to describe their renditions of the food. I asked him about the pappardelle, and whether he recommended it or something else and his response was something like "it's popular," or "it's good." We ordered an Italian red that cost north of $100 that we had selected because it, as a 2016, I think, had a couple more years of bottle age, and was from a very good year for wines from that region. He asked who would taste it and showed me the bottle, which was 3 years younger than the year indicated on the wine list. I asked him "for the same price?" "yes." I looked at my friends and they just shrugged, and the waiter clearly was unapologetic about bringing a different wine than we had ordered, he didn't roll his eyes or look at his watch, but we got that kind of vibe, and going back over the wine list seemed like a hassle. I blame myself for the wine, which took a lot of air time too blow off its astringency. A less astringent waiter would have been nice...

NO QUALITY CONTROL AT ALL! It's hard to know where to start. Our server Tim was very friendly and super nice. After that I suggest you understand that I almost always only give 4 and 5 star reviews. Everything was just so sub par that I can't even believe it was a bad night. We started with a bottle of white wine that came out hot but we can fix that pretty quickly with ice bucket efforts. The focaccia we got was dense, oily and looked like the dregs. Some going to other tables looked decent.... We ordered 2 appetizers and 2 pastas. None of them were even remotely decent. The lack of seasoning on the appetizers and one of the 2 pastas was very evident and the other pasta was so salty that my wife was repulsed. I can say that the papardel was home made but frankly the meat sauce was close to flavorless. We tried to solve our unhappiness by ordering a bottle of red wine which also came out very very warm. That's when we decided to go look at the wine cellar and noticed it was 83ﾟF. I asked a passing server who was wearing an apron if he was the chef or owner or manager. He replied that he wasn't and that neither the owner nor a manager was present. He did say that the owner's son-in-law was at the bar working but when I went to speak to him he was hanging out with friends. So we decided to politely mention to the only person who looked like they were in charge that if they could fix one thing it might be to turn off the lights in the wine cellar so that the temperature wasn't so hot as they are effectively just cooking their wine. When I approached her she asked quite abruptly what's wrong and I said not to worry about all of the things that can't be fixed now but maybe they might want to turn off the light in the wine cellar. I was quickly and rudely discarded and we left soon thereafter. If you really are desperate for Italian food I hate to say this but 25 years ago when I was poor and young I had better food at Olive Garden. I have no idea what all these other 5 star reviews are referring to because even the people we spoke to at the table next to us told us their gnocchi and lasagna were not good. We spent over $200 and left a very nice tip for Tim but I can't even begin to tell you the level of disappointment in this very overrated restaurant. Nona needs to come back and...

It was our last day on Kauai, and we wanted to go out for a special dinner with our group of 8 people, and to celebrate our friend’s birthday. We made reservation the beginning of the week for a Friday night at La Spezia. We arrived about 15 minutes early before our reservation to a packed house, and spent time on the patio waiting for our table, which took very little time. We were directed to our own area by the front window, to a long elevated table that would have seated 10 people, perfect for our group of 8.

We were fortunate enough to have Jimmy as our waiter for the evening. Jimmy was awesome, hands down the best service we received on the island. Jimmy was passionate about the restaurant, the menu, the food, and providing above and beyond service to our table, and others. Ask for Jimmy when making reservations, you won’t regret it.

Jimmy explained the menu to all of us, detailed the appetizers, told stories of the history of the restaurant, the detailing of the bar area, and woodwork. He helped make the dining an experience. We ordered appetizers for the table, and a couple bottle of wine. Our glasses were kept full, and the food was brought out as though we were the only group in the restaurant, but the place was packed. La Spezia was run like a fine tuned watch.

The appetizers were over the top – Piping hot, handmade fresh, and great tasting. We all ordered our dinner entrée and before you knew it, the food was served to our table of 8 all at once. I had the Fettuccine Calabrese, which was Italian Sausage, Mushrooms, fettuccine, and truffle cream, which was probably the best tasting dish I ever had! The portion was enormous, but I couldn’t stop eating it, it was awesome. Everyone in our group raved about their dishes, and everyone left satisfied, full, and satisfied.

Jimmy, knowing it was out friend’s birthday, even brought out a birthday cake for her, which then peaked others interest in deserts. Several deserts were served, and dinner was complete.

La Spezia Restaurant & Wine Bar is a hand down MUST go to on Kauai. There is a reason this place was rated #1 on the island. Professional, courteous, and friendly employees, along with outstanding food and service make this a 5 star winner! Thank you for the best...