Volare Italian Ristorante — Restaurant in Louisville

My husband made reservations for us to have a romantic dinner at Volare for my 40th birthday. We had never eaten at this restaurant before and were really looking forward to a nice night out. When he made the reservation he specifically asked for a larger table, not a 2 top, in a romantic location. He was told we would be seated at a nice table with plenty of room on the balcony. I looked at several pictures of the restaurant online, and told my husband that I didn't see a balcony and asked if he was he sure he called the right place, and he assured me he had. We arrived at the restaurant a little early the day of our reservation, and once the restaurant was open we were promptly taken to our table. The "balcony" we were taken to was just a section of the resturant that was a step higher than the rest with a nice mural on the wall. We passed a location we were told was the main dining area that looked a lot more romantic in my opinion than where we were taken, it had darker lighting, and a red lit wall where it looked like wine was kept, but we didn't say anything. Once we arrived at our table that's when we were disappointed. We were sat at a very small 2 top right next to a partition that felt extremely cramped. We immediately asked to be moved elsewhere, and told them we were assured a table with plenty of room when making our reservation. They very kindly moved us over to a four top across from the 2 top they had originally seated us at. The tables over all seemed to be very close together and caused the atmosphere to feel less like a fine dining establishment and more like a chain resturant. Our server did a great job taking care of us the only down fall there was that he was not informed it was my birthday (not his fault), which was a little off putting being the table right next to us was apparently also a birthday, and was acknowledged as such by their server. We were left to awkwardly tell our server it was my birthday and he kindly offered me a dessert at the end of dinner. The food was good overall, and they let us order some of the bar appetizers as well as things from the dinner menu, which I guess you aren't usually allowed to do unless you sit at the bar, but once we told them we would be ordering several other things off the dinner menu to try as well it wasn't a problem. For my main dish I ordered the Pappardelle Boscaiola, I love fresh made pasta and the pasta itself did not disappoint, but as a personal taste preference it would have been better to me if it were served in a white wine cream sauce, or some sort of light sauce where the pasta could really shine through. I felt like the bacon flavored sauce it came in really took away from the pasta, but it was still a good dish. The only other thing that could have gone better was the boxing up of our leftovers. I understand why nice restaurants want to do this, but if you are not going to scrape them into a box any better than you would the trash then I would rather do it myself. When we got home the garilc bread that came with our dishes was folded into our food and had become a soggy mess. Wrapping it up in paper or separating it all together would have been nice. Overall we may go back and give this place another try, it just really would have been nice if the table and birthday situation would have been handled better, we didn't feel like they were prepared for us like they should have been with a reservation, but more like we just came in off the street to...

Let me first begin by saying that I do not go out of my way to write negative reviews. In fact, I strive to avoid it. Unfortunately, my first and last experience at Volare yesterday evening cannot go unnoticed.

My husband, his family, and I had reservations for 6 individuals. The restaurant was not busy at the time, a few tables occupied but nothing crazy; however, it was still somewhat early. My husband and I arrived at our table last and his seat specifically was uncomfortably close to the table of two behind us. So much so that the hood of his jacket was practically hanging over their table because the back of his chair was right against it. Due to his discomfort and consideration of the couple behind my husband, my party and I took it upon ourselves to slightly move our table to the left, no more than six inches. At that time, there were no guests dining to our left and we took into consideration the pathway of the waiters in addition.

As soon as we quietly adjusted our table, the pepper man came immediately over to condemn us. And I call him the "pepper man" because I do not know his name and know of no other way to describe him. His job is literally to put cracked pepper on your salad. He was extremely out of line and made a scene over our very mild adjustment to their dining area. It was extremely embarrassing and the rest of my party apologized. My aunt even took it upon herself to speak to our waiter about it directly to inform her that we were not trying to inconvenience anyone at all and we apologize. I thought surely the waitress would apologize on behalf of the pepper man and at least somewhat relieve some of the tension, however, much to my surprise, her reaction was quite the opposite. She too, much like the other staff member, made us feel incredibly embarrassed for adjusting our table at all. She never apologized for this man's reaction. The only words of consolation (if one could even call it that) that our waitress provided was "It is what it is. It's already been done, so it is what it is." I really couldn't believe that these two individuals were more concerned for the empty tables to our left than the comfort of the guests sitting directly in front of them.

My husband and I were appalled by the behavior of these two staff members. So much so, that when she came to take our order, my husband respectfully said he would not be ordering a meal. Making a face and scoffing, she turned to me and asked what I would be having, and I, too, let her know that I would not be dining there either. My husband and I left Volare and ate dinner elsewhere, where we were treated extremely kindly, with respect and gratitude for our business.

I cannot speak on Volare's cuisine, as I unfortunately couldn't bring myself to support their business by ordering a meal after the uncomfortable, humiliating experience we encountered. However, I can speak on the customer service of the staff that was scheduled yesterday evening, and I absolutely will not be degraded for something as trivial as slightly adjusting a table's location, and then be expected to dine there after the fact. If you cannot respect my party and I enough to talk to us and treat us like adults, then you absolutely will not be given the opportunity to earn...

From the bottom of my heart I wish I could give them a better review. We made online reservations for our 21st anniversary and when we arrived we were ushered out to the patio, in 90° degree heat, which is across from an automotive shop using "air" tools. Nowhere was I asked if I wanted to be seated outside because if I had the answer would have been no. The manager took our complaint seriously and found us a table indoors. He is on top of everything and you could not ask for a better front of house person. This is true of all the service people we encountered without exception. Our appetizer was a delicious goat cheese bruschetta. Creamy goat cheese mingled with the flavors of slightly charred bread, sweet, tangy peppers and a hint of truffle oil. Each bite was a perfect mouthful. Sadly that is where the culinary delights ended. The salad was heavy on oil, too light on acid, did not have enough goat cheese for a creamy mouthful, not enough bacon to add the much needed salty element and the apples were at the odd place of not being bright, crisp and raw but being cooked just enough to leach out the flavor. My entrée was the capellini and shrimp. I just don't know what happened here. There were two clumps of pasta lumped together among the other stands of angel hair on my plate. So little sauce it was extraordinarily dry, again the seasoning was off, not enough salt, no acid notes to speak of and it lacked color which made for an anemic looking plate. The shrimp, though very small, were cooked perfectly. Hubs had the chicken parm which he said was "ok" but conversely it was swimming in sauce. For dessert we had the cannolis and the presentation was superb but take it from this Brooklyn girl with the Italian Nana, cannoli shells should be crisp when you bite into them and these were so moist they nearly bent. They were either filled too soon, refrigerated or not kept airtight. It takes effort to disappoint me with a cannoli but the citrus flavor overwhelmed the delicate cream inside to the point where you could, disappointingly, taste nothing else. The back of house really failed the front of house here which is a shame because they all were on top of their game. I know you are thinking I should have complained and, especially at this price point, you are right. But I was already the chick who complained about seating and just couldn't bring myself to make more of a fuss after the manager had been so great about it. And truthfully except for the clumped up pasta this was a flavor or lack thereof issue not a poorly cooked or poorly sourced meal. 3 stars because service and atmosphere were 5 star but...