La Dolce Vita Ristorante Italiano — Restaurant in Provo

We live nearby and have been curious about this place. It advertised authentic Italian so we decided to check it out. First, the service was extremely slow. We waited almost half an hour for our order to be taken, and this was with only 2 other groups in the entire place. All of us had already finished our glasses of water by this time, and we were not given any more water the entire visit until the waiter finally came to bring us the check. The bread brought to the table did not look or taste homemade. It had an odd aftertaste. There was a tiny bit of some sort of butter spread and zero garlic or other seasoning, and it was lightly toasted and a little soggy. Not terrible tasting, but nothing great. Our salads were romaine ends and a few carrot shavings with 2 slices of cucumber on top and approximately a teaspoon of dressing exactly in the middle. Tasted like bottled Kraft, if I had to guess. The food came out less than 5 minutes after ordering. I ordered a combination plate and one of the dishes was supposed to have Alfredo sauce. I myself make an amazing Alfredo sauce and this was not in any way Alfredo. It tasted like a cream gravy, very flour-y, a little peppery, zero Parmesan or garlic flavor whatsoever. It either came from a packet or a jar, and like I said, not Alfredo in the least. There was supposed to be sausage in this dish, but zero meat present. The pasta itself was overcooked. Possibly pre-cooked and frozen, then reheated. Not terrible tasting, but no flavor and no authenticity. The other dish in the combo was supposed to be a pasta shell stuffed with ricotta, Parmesan, and meat. There was no meat and it was lukewarm at best which tells me it definitely came from frozen. My husband ordered the lasagna. $24 for a small square. No meat to be found in that either and the watery sauce smelled like chef boyardi. Cold in the middle. My 3 year old ordered a kids cheese pizza and liked it but finished it in less than 5 minutes and was still hungry. My other two ordered pasta dishes. One the chicken fettuccine Alfredo which was overcooked and came with the same odd gravy that my food came with. The other ordered plain (emphasis on plain) spaghetti with red sauce on the side. The spaghetti came tossed in a liberal amount of parsley that was stuck to every noodle, and unfortunately this made my picky eater very unhappy though she ate a few bites. After about 15 minutes of sitting around waiting for the bill we finally managed to flag down the waiter and ask for it. This is also when we were finally given a pitcher of water for the table after nothing the whole meal. After paying and leaving we looked at the receipt and realized that we had been charged an extra $5 to have the spaghetti sauce served on the side. Ridiculous. If I had known that, we would have just skipped it. $97 after tip for a very disappointing evening. Needless to say, we'll be skipping La Dolce Vita in the future. Olive Garden has its own problems, but at least I know there we will get enough food to feed us all, it will be piping hot and seasoned, and we'll get out for...

The food here is pretty dang awesome—I have been recommending this place to people since I ate here on July 3rd. We went here on a whim following our visit to Provo Freedom Festival because we saw a sign on the building that said “DINNER FOR TWO-$29”, I am glad we did! Here are the reasons why it was a 3-star experience for us.

First, let’s talk the good—our meals were easily some of the best Italian food we have ever tasted. They were also very filling. We could talk that they were made with quality ingredients and not just warmed up in a microwave in the back (if you think Olive Garden is good Italian good you ought to wake up, it’s tastes okay, but it is average at best and all that is worth getting there is unlimited breadsticks with their soup/salad). I got the Chicken Alfredo and asked them to double the chicken so I could get more protein (it was great) and a Caesar Salad. I believe my wife got the Pasta Combo with Pasta A Grate & Gnocchi. Also delicious! My 7-year old got a spinach calzone—it was good but I’ll talk a bit more about it in the improvements section. The cost is also incredibly affordable (in terms of cost to give a baseline—you pay the same amount of joy more at Olive Garden for way crappier food).

Here is where this place needs to improve: their bread that they serve pre-meal was crazy bland and honestly a bit greasy, they serve the bread with balsamic vinegar and oil, the balsamic vinegar and oil is fine but the bread is meh. The dinner for two deal that was advertised on the side of the building for $29 we found once we were seated in the restaurant that the meal deal had been changed to $37–they said it they changed it a long time ago, we felt a little bait-and-switched—after we left we looked at the sign outside and it looked like they tried to spray paint out the $29. Lame sauce. Another 3-star thing that happened was we were seated right near the entrance of the restaurant (which is fine with us) but it felt like we were somewhat forgotten by the staff—our waters never got refilled and it took forever for us to have our orders taken and our food delivered (not exactly what you want with 4 hungry kids). The final 3-star item was that we were given the menu to look at, which was fantastic but there were no kids options—after waiting forever to order we said we wanted to get pizza for our 3 year old and 5 year old—they essentially said, “do you want the kids pizza? We have a kids menu you can order from for them.” The answer to this question was of course yes, but it would’ve been nice to look over the kids menu before we had already been waiting around for 20 minutes. All of this really dropped our star rating from a 5 down to a 3.

In summary, this is a fantastic tasting restaurant, 10/10 for the food (minus the pre-meal bread, so maybe 9/10)! The cost is very affordable! I would quickly and happily go here again despite the slightly slow service and poor communication on...

I had seen this driving by and have been curious. It finally got the best of me and my wife made an impromptu visit for date night. We checked Google and thought the 4.3 stars was descent, but checked no further as we were already out front. The Authentic Italian tagline hooked us in!

My wife ordered the Spinazi Calzóne and I ordered the Chef's Plate. Food comes with Soup or Salad and Garlic Bread. The minestrone tasted premade, which wasn't awful, but it was obvious the vegetables were frozen. I was worried at this point about the main dishes. The salad had no green in it, as it was a collection of all the ends from romain heads of lettuce, with store bought Caesar squirted on top. My wife was worried to.

I've read they claim the bread is fresh, but it is commercially made, and may be delivered daily, but it absolutely has dough enhancers you wouldn't expect from anything homemade. Not bad, but lacking.

Then the food came... and my Chef's Plate with Chicken Parm and 3 pastas looked like a blob of food, but if it was good, not a deal breaker. The calzone was swimming in sauce, and topped with what looked like store bought Mexican blend cheese from Costco, not Mozzarella. Not anything you'd post on Instagram, but food is meant to taste good.

My first bite was the the Rigatoni in meat sauce, and the sauce was lacking. More like marinara with consistency of enchilada sauce. The noodle was very overcooked. It was bland.

I looked at my wife, and with a little guilt for choosing the restaurant, told her, "we made a big mistake." She was not impressed with her 1 bite and was ready to go. The dough was not cooked well, and was soggy from all the meatless meat sauce resembling enchilada sauce.

I took one bite of my tortellini, and was put off by what seemed like jarred bechamel and overcooked pasta.

We like supporting local, and trying new places. We're not snobs, but do expect good food. At this point I would have preferred a basic cheeseburger from McDonalds.

My wife discretely went to talk the waitress in Spanish, to not spoil others meal. Her response was we couldn't leave without paying. She said the restaurant had been serving the same food for 40 years and nothing was wrong with it. Nothing was seasoned.

She came back to table and we snapped a few pics and looking at reviews in preparation to write a scathing review. After a short minute the waitress said we could go, and hopefully we wouldn't leave a review.

That was 4 days ago, and I'm still in shock. The community shouldn't be fooled by the 4.3 star Google score... it is wrong.

Every bad review on the food I've read are spot on accurate.

We sadly have been joking about it, morbid humor... coping with the experience. Quite possibly the worst food at a restaurant I've had outside a Filipino buffet in vegas.

The food makes hospital...