ALAVITA — Restaurant in Idaho

The moment I walked in, I was impressed. Definitely gave relaxing and chill with ambient lighting. Then….the door guy happened…he was really stiff and didn’t respond or even crack a smile when I tried to make small talk and thank him…odd.

Once at our table the waiter came out quickly, he was SO nice, personable, and extremely knowledgeable about the food’s flavor profiles. So far…I’m thinking we are about to eat good!!

We ordered the pear salad, and bread for appetizers. The salad was extremely bitter, all of us took 2 bites and could not even keep it down. The bread was ok, but it was overly crusty and hard to eat. The waiter noticed we did not eat the salad and offered to bring out another salad, we chose the caesar salad, because who can mess that up…them. It had these crunchy pieces of what I believe were oven cooked cheese - but whatever it was tasted like armpit.

Next….The entrees we ordered were scallops, polenta, the beef stroganoff type recipe, and mashed sweet potatoes. The polenta tasted weird, but the texture was spot on. The Scallops were hardly cooked. The smaller one was delicious, but when I cut into the large scallop it made me sick…it was very undercooked, almost cold in the middle - and the texture was that of flan…like I could smash the scallop in my mouth with my tongue and it turned to warm mush…I could not finish it. The beef dish was also just “ok”. The sweet potato mash tho…is one of the grossest things I’ve ever eaten. It’s made with white yams, and is very thick, pasty, and overly salty.

For dessert we ordered the tiramisu and the caramel custard dish…the tiramisu was “ok” but it tasted like they put chocolate pudding in it, and I couldn’t get past the squishy consistency after the squishy scallop. The Caramel custard was also “ok” but the custard served warm was also not a good choice. It feels like they just took normal dishes, threw in some weird spices and named it something fancy. I would never recommend...

My wife and I are new to Boise. We stumbled upon ÀLAVITA 2 weeks ago after searching yelp while downtown.

We walked in on a Friday night and as expected it was very busy. No tables available due to reservation but the staff was very friendly about letting us use the full service bar.

The inside of the restaurant is literally perfect. It’s small maybe 30 tables, but the atmosphere was perfect. Buzzing full of chatter. The open kitchen is a nice touch as you can see the kitchen staff at work pumping out some amazing food.

The highlight of our food-

The Burrata. The creamy burrata is served on a apricot jam that mixes perfectly with the salty burrata. Toasted bread to accompanying it.

My wife and I ordered Tagliatelle and Squid Ink Bucatini.

The Tagliatelle was a pure experience. The Chicken Sugo was creamy and had an depth of flavor that you can only achieve with long roasted the chicken and a delicious tomato sauce. It was topped with more Burrata and a drizzle of olive oil.

Squid Ink Bucatini was such a beautiful dish. You have this beautiful black pasta that is coated in a slightly spicy tomato sauce, breadcrumbs, capers, shrimp and calamari. The calamari was so soft and not like rubber bands. I can’t wait to order this again.

The desserts we shared were the Chocolate olive oil cake with peppered toasted marshmallow and the salt caramel gelato. This dish you have to us both to make marriage. The cake is soft and moist and not sweet, adding the peppered marshmallow and the sweet gelato is a perfect blend.

The Poached Pear. Where do you start? The pear perfect. It’s slightly firm sitting in a pool of zabaione, if you don’t know what is, it’s what dreams are made of. This is a perfect finish to the night.

The Staff. Knowledgeable, friendly and professional. The staff knew everything about the dishes and explained everything when we had questions.

In closing the chef and staff understand balance, flavor and restraint. We cannot wait...

Our first time in Idaho, Boise and this restaurant. We will not be back. I’m not sure if it was the day of the week or time of day, but from the customer service to the food it was not good and extremely expensive. We walked in at 8:30 pm and we were sat immediately. They stop seating at 8:45 and close at 10pm. The restaurant was empty and only had about 5 tables seated. We waited almost 15 minutes before the server took our order. We can see everyone in the restaurant cleaning and closing down. Mind you, it was an hour and half before closing. We had to flag someone down to signal them that we were ready to order. We ordered two cocktails an appetizer and two pasta entrees. They forgot our appetizer and bread is not offered, only brought upon request. The pasta is supposed to be homemade. Not only did it not taste homemade. My raviolis were crunchy- not al dente, fully crunchy. My fork could not cut through them. Both of our dishes had watery sauce and the lemon in both dishes fully overpowered all other flavors- even the truffle that was in the rigatoni. We definitely felt like an afterthought and a nuisance. Our bill was $99 for two drinks and two pasta dishes. I was actually glad they forgot to bring our appetizer because it was not worth it. A waste of money. We left hungry and disappointed. The one good thing from the whole experience was that our server was very nice and pleasant. However, the other server on the floor who came to take our dishes asked us how our food was. When we said it was just okay she responded with “oh bummer,” grabbed our dishes and walked away. We walked out in disbelief that the restaurant was rated one of the best...