Va Bene Italian Eatery — Restaurant in Prairie Village

Located in the former location of Urban Table in the Corinth Square is Whitney VinZant's new resturant Va Bene, an Italian Eatery.

VinZant also owns his own concept, Louie’s Wine Dive, along with two former Bread and Butter concepts, Taco Republic and BRGR, which has a location just 300 feet from Va Bene.

I have always been a fan of Taco Republic so it was a no brainer for my wife and me to try Va Bene. Making reservations is recommended as the resturant is not large and the Prairie Village area tends to be crazy.

When you first walk up to the resturant you will notice a large outdoor seating area that will be great for the area. After entering the front door you will notice a vibrant neon scooter and sprawling white tiles everywhere. It helps makes the space look bigger than it really is. Chef Nathan Deters, formerly executive chef for North Italia, heads up the kitchen at Va Bene which was great to hear because North Italian is one of the only Italian restaurants in the area we like.

Opening during the pandemic is going to be hard for any resturant even if your seasoned like Whitney VinZant is. We were sat at a table for two that I personally think should not be offered. The table was cute and quaint so a new couple could share food and be very adorable, but with two meals we found that the table was extremely full and hard to maneuver. Service was a tad slow, but still attentive. Our bar drinks were very well mixed and came quickly.

I recognize that Italian food is typically easy to love or hate because of your tastes, so please take my thoughts on the food with a grain assault. My wife had the rigatoni bolognese. The dish was easily sharable and very pretty looking. However she felt the dish was under sauced. There was a great deal of meat and while extremely flavorful it lent towards the dry side of dishes. I had the lobster ravioli because I tend to love lobster! The raviolis were large and very full of lobster. My only criticism on the dish would be that it was to one note. The lobster was great and the texture was good. However, it was all mush so to speak. There was nothing else to the dish other than the lobster. We also shared the charcuterie board which was fantastic! Tons of options all expertly displayed.

Overall, we enjoyed our time at Va Bene and will most certainly dine again to see their progress.

Va Bene translates to “all is right” in Italian. I believe with some work that saying can be Va Bene's moto as well. Its hard to own and run a resturant right now. Keep up the good work and it all...

Pretty good overall, I think the recipes could do with some fine tuning. But not a bad experience.

Update @VeBene: We had 3 items, Tuscan Hummus, Chicken Parmesan Sandwich, Avocado Toast. Tuscan Hummus was overall a fine dish, the chili mash was a nice touch but the crostini was a little too hard and we weren't sure about the hummus being placed atop the arugula. A nice change here would have been some thicker cuts of bread that were warm with a bit of a crisp vs a hard crunch. The Avocado toast was a bit of a let down, the avocado mash wasn't very fresh, the wilted arugula was mushy and cold, coupled with a softer toast it was all just a mushy mess. The giardiniera was a nice touch but it could have use a bit more, plus some fresher avocado, fresh arugula, and a heartier toast would have been great. Flavors on the Chicken Parmesan Sandwich were great and the chicken tasted good, however the baguette the chicken was served on was much too think and wasn't toasted very well which made the sandwich a bit of a mess to eat. A better proportioned / toasted baguette would make this a great sandwich. This of course was our first visit, so no notion of the normal preparation of these dishes. We'll be stopping in again to give the Mushroom Arancini, Pappardelle, and Eggplant...

Came for dinner overall an ok experience however there was an issue with my dad’s lasagna there was more cheese than anything and barely meat. We let our waitress Maggie know and she said that the kitchen said they could add a meatball or get something else we were not made aware that it would be an up charge when we asked for them to just add the meatball when the bill came we asked why the extra charge and the manager came and said “honey we are not gonna give you free food” even when we tried to explain the situation she even brought up no free food again she would talk over my mother and was very sarcastic also spoke very loudly that other tables were staring overall humiliating us it was very frustrating when we spent about lot that night we were so upset we told her to just keep the lasagna that was barely touched and said we would not come back and she responded with “that’s to bad the foods is really good” and “I’m sorry but no one can make you feel anything” overall very rude and was smiling tauntingly at us. Worst experience ever

Edit: the order of the remade Lasagna w meatball came out already packed to go because we already were planning on leaving she would only remove the lasagna off the bill if we didn’t take it home my dad didn’t even get to...