Dolce Vita Italian Bistro and Pizzeria — Restaurant in South Carolina

This was our first visit and I'm sure it will be a date night staple from now on. We attended as a couple of two and dined on a Saturday night around 7pm. Surprisingly, it was not crowded... considering the amount of cars in the parking lot. They were well staffed and our server was D. She did an amazing job and was very knowledgeable about everything on the menu. She informed us of the specials, offered recommendations (as I am a vegetarian and can be picky!) and was helpful with all of our questions/requests. Since it was our first visit we wanted to sample many things on the menu. We love Italian food and we ordered A LOT! Bread is complimentary and is served with a tasty seasoned Italian butter. First we enjoyed the bruschetta (my fav) and caprese salad. Both were yummy but the caprese was better after asking for a little more balsamic reduction. It was beautifully plated but most of the balsamic drizzle was for decoration and not actually on the food - except for the top layer. My suggestion would be to automatically serve this with a side of balsamic. Still, it was tasty! Next came our salads, which were included with our entree. Their house Italian dressing is very well seasoned and tasted so much better than store bought flavors served at other restaurants. For our main course he ordered a chicken caprese pasta and I had eggplant parmigiano. Both were good choices. For dessert we shared a slice of housemade strawberry cheesecake. So good!! Oh yeah, did I mention the portions are HUGE! We left with 7 boxes of leftovers - which D was kind enough to box as we went so the table stayed nice and tidy. She seemed to have her hands in everything so i assume that she was a type of leader or supervisor. If she's not a member of management, then she should be! Our overall visit was just under 2 hours, with no wait. The bill was cheaper than we expected considering all that we ordered. We'll...

This was our first visit to this restaurant. I want to start by saying our food was delicious! Everything was fresh and hot. The pasta was made from scratch. I had the Shrimp Scampi. My shrimp were cooked to perfection. My husband had lasagna. It was also hot and so good. The Greek salad was delicious and the vegetable meatball soup was so good.

Our waiter left something to be desired. We read the entire menu before he came to take our drink orders. The restaurant wasn't busy and we saw the waitress go to the next table twice before our waiter came to get our drink order. We finally got our tea and ordered our food. The food came out just fine but he saw our empty glasses and said he was coming back with more tea after he sat the plates down. Not only did he not return to fill our glasses, he never returned to see if everything was ok. We finished our meals with nothing to drink and sat for about 10 minutes before he returned. My husband asked him what happened and he didn't have an answer. I don't think it would have bothered me if I hadn't seen the other waitresses come back to their tables several times, so I know they have good service (which is why I didn't give them a very low score on the service). I can count on one hand the number of times I have not tipped the waiter or waitress at a full-service restaurant. The fact that it took so long to start, he knew we were out of drink and didn't return, I ate my entire meal with nothing to drink and the restaurant was not busy and he had no excuse why he never returned is what made me rethink my decision to eat here tonight. The manager did come to the table and apologize. I can't give them a bad review based on my bad experience since the food was very good and everyone but us seemed to have good service. We will go back but probably not anytime soon. Our meal was almost $50, so I'd prefer to go somewhere with a better experience for...

Went for lunch with our neighbors today and the whole experience was mediocre at best. There was only one waitress to serve the entire lunch crowd, and she was doing her very best, but seemed very overwhelmed at the amount of table she was responsible for. The bread and salad was the best part of the meal. However, the salads had no cheese or croutons, and were basically just lettuce, tomato and olives with your choice of dressings. All of us had something different for lunch, I had shrimp scampi. My husband had chicken Alfredo and my neighbors had chicken marsala, and Angel hair pasta with marinara sauce. The consensus at our table was that our food was pretty bland and lacked seasoning and flavor. I’ve never had shrimp scampi that didn’t have vegetables and came in a soup of a sauce (it was very thick with a strong lemon flavor that lacked any other seasonings). My husband‘s chicken Alfredo left a lot to be desired. The chicken breast was probably the best tasting part of the dish, the “Alfredo sauce” tasted bland and was extremely thick. My neighbors, chicken marsala was kind of like a brick of pasta covered under some sort of gravy? My neighbor who ordered Angel hair pasta with marinara sauce, was disappointed as the noodles appeared to be spaghetti noodles, and the marinara sauce, like the other dishes, lacked flavor. We had read where they make their own pasta, but the pasta that was served to us seemed old and left over. All dishes had a very odd presentation and left a lot to be desired. We even asked for red pepper flakes to add some seasoning to our dishes to help them become more edible. Overall, I hate knocking a local business however, the food was just bad, so we went to Biscuitville after we left the restaurant because we were still hungry. I guess next time we want Italian, we’ll just go to Olive Garden instead because it is way better...