Bravo! Italian Kitchen — Restaurant in Livonia

I frequently find myself in the area where this location lives, but had never been until the other day. Honestly, it didn't take more than a few minutes for me to figure out why I had never bothered dining here. If you're not familiar with this area, to put to lightly, it's a very busy area, so parking especially can become a bit of a challenge here. It's also set up strangely. There is a row of parking that runs in front of the building by the main entrance and pretty much all the rest is located behind the building much further from the entrance.

To be completely honest, I try my best to stay away from chain-style Italian restaurants because the food is almost always sub-par and since covid pretty much killed the hospitality/service industry, so is the actual service you get. It's just not even worth it any more.

I finally wound up here because it was my mother-in-law's birthday, and this is one of the places she chose because they allow you to make reservations. To me, that was awesome because I love Italian food, and had never been here.

When you walk in you realize just how massive the dining area is here. It's all wide open, so it really accentuates the size of the actual area where folks are eating. Something I didn't really care for was the weird Roman ruin style décor. It just seemed like whomever designed the interior of this place (along with probably all the separate locations because it's a chain) put very little effort into whatever theme they were going for. It seems like there could be potential there as far as the décor goes, but as is, it kind of just looks like a dining hall that has been poorly decorated in a Romanesque theme.

Our service was okay at best, and our waitress seemed very, very discombobulated and disconnected from what was going on. She explained that they were very short handed and apologized profusely at more than one occasion. Every one of us had to ask for another drink, or a refill of something that we already had, and during the time when we were ordering our food she forgot to get everyone's order at the table. I had to remind her that she had skipped me. It took quite a while to get our food, and it was moderately busy at times, but for the most part a majority of the dining area remained pretty empty. We chalked this up to them all being short handed like she had explained initially, so it really wasn't that big of a deal, until everyone's food came out, but mine. I had perhaps one of the most simple dishes of them all too (Spaghetti & Meatballs). See because she had initially forgot my order to begin with, this resulted in her having to flip her pad over to write my order on the back, which if I had to bet on, led to her forgetting to put it in when putting all the other orders in. It is what it is, and she acted like she had no idea what happened, so who knows. She did remove my meal from our final bill which was a nice touch on her part.

The food overall was pretty good, but not worth the price tag that they think it's worth (in my opinion). My spaghetti and meatballs were pretty tasty, but not worth the $18 or whatever they charge.

Beyond that, I took a stroll to the bathroom at one point and happened to venture through a very empty part of the restaurant near the kitchen. Everything just seemed very disheveled, for lack of a better term. There were supplies, food, un-bussed tables, etc. what seemed like everywhere. It just struck me as odd, and things felt a bit off. When I finally got to the bathroom, things were somewhat clean beyond the pee all over the floor by the urinals, and the complete lack of paper towels for drying my hands. I actually enjoy huffing and puffing on my hands until they're dry, so it worked out...kidding...kind of.

When all was said and done, while we were leaving my wife turned to me as said "I don't think this place will be open another 6 months.", and honestly I think she...

Never hold an event here in their banquet room. I had my rehearsal dinner here this spring and it was awful. I had this event booked for months and the restaurant was not staffed properly. My event came second to the entire restaurant. Upon arrival, the banquet room was extremely cold. Everyone immediately put their coats back on or didn't take it off at all. We were at the space 3 hours prior to drop off some candles and the room was comfortable. When we arrived it felt like the room was 55 degrees. The tables were missing waters at each of the place settings, we had to ask for more, that didn't come out until 30 meetings later There were not any napkins or silverware set at the table, we had to ask for them. The menu we confirmed was printed incorrectly, it had pork chops instead of salmon There were no high chairs or kids menus set up, that we confirmed in our final emails prior to the event. We had to go find them ourselves and carry them to the room We didn't get any plates with the bread, we had to ask for them, and waited several more minutes before anyone could eat When the dessert was served, I was hoping that they would be able to plate the dessert we brought like we were told and serve them to each table, but they just plopped the boxes on the table with some plates and ran away and we had to serve our guest our selves. We had to then wait by the kitchen to get some tongs to serve them with. It's particularly disappointing because I spoke to someone while I was physically in the restaurant at 3pm setting up candles that we had the room rented out, I called again at 5pm to make sure they could light the candles before we got there, and then I called a 3rd time when we were on our way to the restaurant from the church and it seemed like nobody checked to make sure the room was set up and staffed properly.

My husband and I couldn't enjoy our dinner because we were constantly having to get up and go find someone to bring us something as simple as napkins and silverware so our guests could eat. This was supposed to be a kick off for a great wedding weekend, and honestly the dinner was quite embarrassing and put us in a bad mood.

We have eaten at Bravo several times before, and came to this location prior to the rehearsal dinner to try the menu selections and it was delicious and we were excited, but the rehearsal dinner did not meet our expectations. I do understand that times are hard with staffing and our servers did work really hard, but they were also serving other tables. I have had this event planned for months and it seemed as though our event came second to the rest of the restaurant. My husband and I had to keep track of what everyone asked for and needed to make sure they actually got it, or that it arrived at the right person. Never again. After hundreds of dollars here, I’ve tried to work with the restaurant to understand what happened and they have said nothing to us or have...

The atmosphere was great, very fancy. It is a big restaurant. I could see the kitchen while I sat at my table, and I could see it was very clean and well managed. The tables were great, also very clean and every table had a new tablecloth and fresh silverware. However the server was not good. He was very slow, not too friendly and barely even spoke to us. He wasn't rude, but just not enthusiastic at all and very quiet. He also took a lot of time coming back to our table every time he left. It was frustrating. For the food I got the chicken parmesan, Italian wedding soup, and for dessert a cannoli. I also got a blueberry lemonade. The chicken parmesan was not all that. It wasn't bad but it wasn't really something I'd call good. It had too much cheese, making it very salty and was hard to finish. However it was very crispy and cooked well. The pasta underneath the chicken was ok, the noodles were a bit dried out and there was not enough sauce at all. I found myself finishing the pasta long before I finished the chicken, as it was a nice break from the chicken's saltiness. Overall it needed less cheese, and more noodles and sauce. But it was ok, the sauce it did had gave it a nice flavor. The wedding soup was also alright. Still not good. Just average. I disliked it more than the chicken parm, and ended up not finishing it. It had a taste that I wasn't fond of. The meatballs in it were rubbery, and the broth was salty. It barely had any noodles. But it was on the lower end of ok. The blueberry lemonade was great. It wasn't overly sweet like most lemonades are, and the blueberry flavor was such a nice addition. It was so refreshing and yummy, I drank almost all of it. I overheard a server telling another lady that they served strawberry lemonade, which is what I would've gotten, as that is usually my favorite, but didn't see it on the menu. However, I am not disappointed at all that I decided on the blueberry one. Amazing. But the thing that stood out to me the most was the cannoli. Originally, I wanted the crème brûlée which they told me they were out of. I was bummed, but decided to try the cannoli anyway. This cannoli was so delicious. It had the perfect amount of vanilla sweetness in the filling, and it was so crispy on the outside. It was sweeter than the average cannoli which I personally liked. It was so fresh and the chocolate chips were such a perfect addition. It was everything I wanted. I am so glad I got the cannoli. Overall, it was decent. I think I'd come back. If I did, I'd try a simple pasta dish with a tomato or alfredo sauce since I didn't like the chicken. And I would 100% get the lemonade...