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| - I went to Villa Dolce last night with my mom and brother. I will start this review on a negative note and say that I found our experience to be unfortunate.
We chose Villa Dolce for dinner for four reasons:
1. It's within walking distance from my home
2. My mom likes Italian food a lot
3. I've never been there
4. People rave about Villa Dolce to me all the time--it's like the Betty White of restaurants in downtown Middleton
The restaurant's interior appearance was a bit "meh". The decorations are little tacky, and overall, the place felt a bit like an airport bar that is trying to be swanky. It was still kind of cute though.
I felt the menu lacked variety, unless you like pizza, in which case, there were about 20 types to choose from. This could be where we went wrong, but none of us is crazy about pizza, so we all ordered pasta dishes. We also had the Antipasto appetizer and some drinks.
The appetizer was nice, and certainly big enough for three people to share. I am going to upload the picture I took of it, because I thought it was attractive. It included a variety of Italian cheeses, olives, pesto, olive tapenade, and some basil/tomatoes. It also came with crostini toasts. It might have been my favorite part of the meal because it was pretty free form and you could come up with some yummy combos--my favorite was tomato, pesto, and fresh mozzarella on top of a toast. It was like a mini caprese salad! Yum.
My entree was the Wild Mushroom Ravioli, which according to Yelp, is their best pasta dish. It was ok. I wasn't blown away, but it was tasty. The marsala sauce it came with was really flavorful, but needed to be thickened a bit more, because it was really watery and I had to sop it up with a piece of bread.
My brother had a squash ravioli with a hazelnut, orange liqueur, and brown butter sauce. It was good, but it was very sweet. Almost too sweet for an entree. It needed more "savory", maybe some dry wine or lemon juice or something. Again, it was ok, but not mind blowing.
My mom had a pasta dish with farfalle, lots of vegetables, and a lemon-mascarpone sauce. Her entree was probably the worst (I tried all three) because it was very bland. However, the vegetables and pasta were cooked well.
Another annoying thing: I asked the waitress for fresh black pepper once my dish was served, assuming she would grind it on top of our dishes for us, as they do at nearly every Italian restaurant I've ever been too (including the Olive Garden, for Pete's sake) and instead was given a small and rather beat up plastic pepper grinder to use for myself. Maybe that's ok for some, but when I am paying close to $20 per (meatless) entree in a restaurant that is attempting to be fancy, well, they're going to need to step it up.
Overall, if Villa Dolce had more reasonable prices, I would rate it higher. The experience was acceptable, but not for the price. We did have drinks and an appetizer, which drove up the grand total of the bill, but for some perspective, just our three pasta dishes, none of which contained meat or any especially exotic ingredients, ran close to $60.
I am not cheap, and I am willing to pay inflated rates for an excellent dining experience, but Villa Dolce was not an excellent dining experience. The food and service was on par with a place like the Olive Garden, and the prices were on par with a place like Graze. It's not a good combination.
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