La Vita E Bella — Restaurant in Seattle

I would not recommend this place!

Our family of four are big fans of Italian food. One of my best friends is Italian. We frequent many Italian restaurants in the Seattle area. For the most part we always have had great experiences with the food and the service in these great establishments.

Until tonight.

This was our first time here. We were served by a waitress with pink hair. I only say the color of her hair because she did not give her name.

The food was not as good as other Italian restaurants in Seattle. And the service was definitely poor in comparison as well.

We ordered meatballs as an appetizer along with mussels. We found several strands of spaghetti in the sauce with the meatballs. This led us to believe that these meatballs may have been picked out of leftovers from other peoples' meals. God forbid! We were too shy to bring this up thinking maybe it was just a mistake.

After taking our order, the waitress came by only once. We had to flag down a man dressed in a white shirt a couple of times since the waitress completely ignored us.

We asked for the dessert menu. After we finally got it, one of the bus ladies took our order since I think she could tell we were waiting so long to get served.

There was a group of six people that sat behind us that came towards the tail end of our meal. Our pink haired waitress waited on them three times before we left. We noticed that she introduce herself by name and carried a conversation with them and laughing and was very friendly towards them as well.

When I tried to flag down someone to get take the check, the same white man who is very unfriendly to us, seemed annoyed by my request.

While I was trying to hand him the check with my credit card, i did not notice he had is hands full of dishes. He responded by looking down at his hands and looked at me with an annoyed "my hands are full" look of disdain.

After he came back for the check, I said "you guys must be short handed." We understand this situation that Seattle businesses are often short handed and we greatly emphasized with this since we have been small business owners in the past ourselves.

He replied with a condescending gesture with both of his hands palms down and said " Relax..."

I replied, "Did you just say to me to relax? The waitress came by once to check on us and then forgot about us. And you are telling me to relax when we simply wanted to order dessert and get our check?"

He gave a very condescending apology.

I told him I will tell our dissatisfaction on Yelp. He said go ahead and write whether you want. He did not care.

The above only describes briefly what happened to us but does not convey the complete rudeness that we have experienced from the wait staff. It was highly disappointing evening.

From the onset, we felt the pink haired waitress was not very friendly to us. And certainly the host, the older man in the white shirt, was rude and condescending.

We are Asian. We do not use the word racism lightly. But the only conclusion we can come to is that these people were racist against Asians.

We believe the rude man in the white shirt was maybe the...

I'm not sure why the manager wanted me to write a review so badly, but here goes...

I went here last night after an exhausting day hauling boxes from a move. The day before I had driven nearly 15 hours and the day before that I hauled boxes (bear with me, this is relevant).

I went to this restaurant partially because I could see that over half their outdoor seating was empty and I saw the 4.3 star ratings on here. I checked their menu. I honestly wasn't exceptionally excited about anything, but I thought I could be seated quickly and could get off my feet and have a decent meal. I asked to be seated.

The manager told me it would be a minute. I waited, at first patiently, then less so as I saw absolutely no activity toward preparing a table. I waited...longer. People came in and out, giving me no update, making no eye contact even, to explain the delay. Ten minutes later, I left.

Later, I went back to talk to the manager about how they made me felt. Of course, as a solo diner, this was certainly not the first time I'd been snubbed, but I still wanted to talk to them. I told him that I was annoyed that they left me standing despite having many empty tables. The manger, having no idea what life I live or what day I may have had, then vents about having been on his feet for 10 hours. He then informs me that he was violating his boss' rules by even preparing a table for me, because he had offered a table indoors and I refused. He told me that he was supposed to send me away.

Umm...wait! I'm not permitted to protect my health by wanting to sit outdoors? That's an interesting rule.

So, in the end, the manager made a snide comment about my writing a negative review because of the incident. I had not said anything about a review nor did I intend to bother to write one until his comment. However, here we are. I also find it interesting that he was more concerned with my review than the fact that I am moving into a 24 story high-rise one block away and I will sharing my experience with my neighbors (plus, obviously not...

Our experience here was wonderful. We got a reservation somewhat short notice (3 days) for 5pm on a Friday. We arrived early and several other couples were waiting outside for it to open. The vibe is nice, very relaxed and comfortable with a homey small town Italian feel to it.

I started with the soup, which was lentil, and it was very good. It just melted in your mouth. I don’t even like lentils and I thoroughly enjoyed this. My finance got the bresaola which looked amazing and he said it was very good.

We had several drinks, each of which were good too.

I had the penne pesto which was great. I’m very picky about pesto and this was one of the best restaurant pestos I’ve had - it was fresh, made with pine nuts, and the cream added a lot. It was very smooth, which is not my preference (I like a chunkier pesto) but the flavor was definitely there. It was rich but not too heavy. The portion was very big, enough to share.

My fiancée got the seafood of the day which was a salmon with fresh vegetables. He’s picky about fish quality and said this was a pretty good cut, though quite hearty. The sides looked great. It was well prepared.

For dessert I got the profiteroles which were amazing. I was so full from the first two amazing courses that I could barely finish. The profiteroles were enveloped in silky layers of vanilla and chocolate mouse. The texture was perfect.

The only downside was how cramped it was in the back room. I had to pass through to go to the bathroom and I had to turn sideways to squeeze behind people and I brushed against one woman’s back on my way, which was very awkward for me and must have been uncomfortable for her. I would ask to be seated in the front room. Also, we were by the front door and it was very cold, as the door was kept propped open and it was about 50 degrees outside. This should be fixed.

Overall, I was thrilled by how good this dinner was. Our service was good, drinks were great, and food was outstanding. We will be happy to go back next time we’re in Belltown and want a homey...