ITAVIE New York Grill & Bakery — Restaurant in Virginia

I have been anxiously waiting for this place to open up. I think it’s a fantastic spot that has been plagued by poorly named restaurants which lacked personality. The Spotsylvania Courthouse Village is a growing community and I’m excited to see new businesses opening. Especially restaurants. Over the past 10 years, Fredericksburg has really upped its game in regards to good food. And as I’ve said before, getting good food has become easy, so restaurants are now competing not only with good food but a nice dining experience as well.

My wife I went to Itavie on it’s opening night. It’s the first official dinner service. I expected some hiccups. The first thing that struck me was that the door below the “Open” sign was locked. So, like many people after us, we walked up to a locked door. No sign directing us to another door. But a nice young girl popped her head out of another door and invited us in. We were greeted pleasantly and seated immediately. It was about 6:00 and the dining room was about half full. By the time we finished, I was happy to see the dining room was almost full, and people were waiting to be seated, and some people were sitting outside enjoying gelato. Very good for a 1st night!

Itavie is a bright, booth style restaurant. The desert case features a wide variety of in-house-made deserts. All reasonably priced at about $5. There is also about 12 different flavors of gelato. All made in house as well. Honestly, the desert case is amazing. I was shocked that there weren’t any dessert items listed on the menu.

When our server came to take our order, I asked what the chef is most proud of and was told the Gnocchi Nonna Rosa. I was leaning toward the gnocchi anyway for two reasons. Gnocchi is a good test of Italian cuisine. It is not too complicated but does require precision. Good gnocchi should be a light potato dumpling. Silky smooth. The wrong type of potato, too much flour, undercooking; any of those mistakes leave you with tough, chewy gnocchi. A minute too long in the water and they turn to mush. Another reason I wanted to try this dish is that it had chicken on it. Not that I’m crazy about chicken, but because it reveals how well the kitchen is running. A well-prepared chicken breast can be the star of the dish. But it’s also such a common protein that it will get ignored, taken for granted, overcooked and served dry. The Gnocchi Nonna Rosa ($12.95) is homemade gnocchi, with sautéed spinach, oven-roasted tomatoes, and cream sauce, topped with grilled chicken and a blend of shaved Italian cheeses. That is what I ordered. My wife ordered the Grilled Salmon Salad.

I write a fair amount of reviews. I do not like writing negative reviews. And I’m not going to bash a restaurant on it’s opening night. The people were pleasant and attentive. The pizza and deserts looked amazing, and I will be back to try them. But I have to be honest and say that both of our dishes were disappointing. The gnocchi was overcooked and mushy, drowned in sauce, and the chicken was dry. I do not complain in restaurants, but if asked, I will be honest. Our server asked, and I was politely honest. I don’t know if my response was relayed to anyone, but we did not get a visit in response.

But I have to say, the most disappointing moment came when I approached the dessert counter and asked if the cannoli’s were filled to order, or pre-filled. I was politely told they are pre-filled once a day. This is a cardinal sin. The girl even responded to me, ”I think I saw your heart break a little bit.” Yes, Karen, it did. You don’t pre-fill the cannoli’s.

I’m looking forward to returning. Pizza, sandwiches, desserts, gelato is what I will be looking for next. And I hope my review gets drowned out by a ton of fantastic reviews. I want Itavie to be successful. And I think with some adjustments in the...

Tonight a group of us went to Itavie New York Grill & Bakery.

Originally we made a reservation was made since it was a group over 10. It was explained to us that over 10 must have a reservation, it's all one check and 20% gratuity is added.

That's no problem at all. Everyone is told this.

Well the reservation was then canceled, within the same day. The group dropped to 8. So money of the above applies anymore.

The restaurant is called again today, just to make sure if it's only 8, we no longer need a reservation and the above no longer applies.

8 of us show up, one of us gets there early and didn't know the reservation was canceled. So when she said who the reservation was for she was EVEN TOLD THERE WAS NO RESERVATION UNDER THAT NAME.

We all sit down, half of us have cash, half don't. We tell the server we need separate checks. She needs to go check. We are told no. We ask why and she said because of the reservation. We then say it was canceled over a week ago. We don't all have cash and need separate checks. Again, no. We ask to talk to the manager.

The manager comes over after about 20 minutes of us already being there, already drinking wine because we were told under 10 the no split checks rule does NOT apply. There's 8 of us!!

Well instead of talking to us, the manager becomes argumentative and says it doesn't matter that we canceled the reservation. It matters that we made one. He says there's 10 in the reservation, we again say it was canceled. If you look we have 2 tables, 4 people each. 4+4=8, right?

None of us have attitudes, none of us are yelling being rude or disrespectful. We are genuinely curious why when the reservation was canceled this is happening.

2 of the ladies we are with even said to the manager that they come there all the time and have NEVER had issues having their checks spilt.

Another mentioned how her child and a large group of his friends came for dinner on homecoming. Group over 10 and they got split checks.

He basically gets nasty with us, tells us it doesn't matter we canceled the reservation over a week ago. He's going to still treat us as a group of over 10. We again explain not everyone has cash. He is now being loud and rude that it's not his problem that we canceled the reservation, he does care and he said we are to still be treated as a table of over 10. But why, is asked and he continues to yell and be rude to 8 women.

I finally said it seems like you don't want our business and we could just leave. He screams g8ne get out. Tells the server to cash out us and gets us the "hell outta there!"

3 separate employees, one of them being our server apologies to us. One of them even said she told the manager we did NOT have a reservation. None of that mattered. He claimed taxes on his server for big parties was his reason. And the fact that even though we canceled the reservation, at one point we had one and thats what he's going by.

Absolutely terrible customer service on his end. Our waitress was still tipped as if we ate there and since he said for us to get the hell out we left and had a better time across the way at Cider labs.

Restaurants shouldn't tell people one thing and then do something completely different once you're there.

Managers should NOT yell at there customers when they don't understand why they were told over the phone the 10 and over rule doesn't matter. Then once we're there tell us we are being held to something that was canceled. He was absolutely ride, nasty and his attitude was...

I will start by saying that the food at Itavie New York Grill & Bakery is actually really good overall, most of the time. However, while some dishes really hit the mark, others are just okay. If I were to rate this restaurant solely on food they would get 4 stars. Rated solely on their desserts they would get 5 stars. However, an arguably integral part of the restaurant experience is the service and this is where Itavie recently fell short for us.

We arrived to find a dining room with only about a fourth of the tables occupied. We were told it would be about a 25 minute wait which is not unreasonable if they are short staffed. We ended up waiting 80 minutes before being seated. The excuse we were gven by the person who was seating everyone was that the kitchen had told him not to seat anyone because they were backed up. To reiterate, only a fourth of the dining room was occupied when we arrived.

I completely admit that I do not understand all of the intricacies of running a restaurant but what we observed as we waited left us confused. The restaurant seemed to only have two servers for the entire dining room but they had four other people working the counter. Despite being told that the kitchen was backed up, the people at the counter continued to take and fulfill phone and walk-in take out orders in front of customers who had been waiting an hour to be seated at tables that were empty and waiting for them. The people at the counter continued to tell everyone that came in that it was a 20-35 minute wait, making those of us who had been there for an hour wonder if anyone actually knew what was going on. Occasionally, we were treated to an odd show where the greeter would storm into the kitchen to "see" if he could seat us only to return with what turned out to be an unrealistic "it will be another 5 minutes." We watched so many take out orders leave that they could have sat everyone that was waiting and fed them twice over, at one point the greeter even told us we'd be "more than welcome" to order take out. Perhaps they are still stuck in pandemic protocols?

When we finally sat, we watched several take out orders come and go before we even got our first course. The server did not regularly check on us and my water glass sat empty for half the meal. One of the items we asked for, never even made it out to us. When we reminded our server 15 minutes later, she indicated that she didn't have a chance to put the order in. She hadn't been on the floor for most of that time, I was looking. Overall, her demeanor could have been better.

While my understanding of the restaurant business is limited, I have always been under the impression that the patrons that come in to the restaurant and sit at the table are typically a better revenue stream and should be valued. The food is good but we live far enough that the time it would take to get it home would likely take it down a notch. Being a dine in patron is our best option. The food is enough to lure us back but I did not feel like a valued patron on my last visit to Itavie and I truly hope this will not be the case the next...