In the mood for Italian food, I headed over to Buona Vita on a Friday night. This restaurant is located in downtown St Pete in what used to be the Local Coffee Shop, which closed down, unfortunately. Upon walking in the doors, I didn't find drastic changes, and it reminded me for the most part of what it looked like when it was Local Coffee. The space was opened up more and there was a bar added that you can sit at and have a drink or eat dinner, but like I said, no huge changes. That is a positive because I liked the looks of the place before and I still like the use of space. Rather than sit at the outside patio, we dined inside. We ordered a bottle of wine and I have to say the wines on the list were reasonably priced. We ordered pizza, pesto gnocchi, and mushroom gnocchi. While we were waiting, our server brought us some warm bread rolls that were served with a tasty olive oil dipping sauce. Now comes the hard part because the food was just not quite what I would like it to have been. The crust of the pizza was slightly undercooked, along with both servings of the gnocchi. The gnocchi was a tad bit doughy and heavy, rather than tender and light like I enjoy. It was really too bad because the sauce that was served on the gnocchi was delicious, but the gnocchi just didn't stand up to the sauce. However, we did end the meal on a good note with dessert when we ordered the tartufo. This was a coffee flavored ice cream covered in nuts and cinnamon with a chocolate filling in the center. I might add that the coffee was also delicious. I also want to add that the service was very good, even if the food wasn't quite what I was hoping for that evening.
As a final note, I want to say that I won't let one experience stop me from trying this restaurant again. I felt there was enough positives to give the place another try because I really do want them to succeed. I want downtown St Pete to have a number of choices for dining options, and I think if this place makes a few small improvements that they could have a winner.
Buona Vita
330 1st Ave South
St Petersburg, FL 33701
727-823-2100
2 comments:
You definitely have to give them another try. I've eaten there almost once a week over the last two months and haven't been disappointed yet. You may just have been there on an 'off' night. Try anything with the bolognese saauce!
Yeah, I definitely will give it a try again. Normally, I like to give a place a few tries to see if it was just a fluke, or if it is really not that great. And in this case, there was enough to make me curious enough to try it again. Thanks for stopping by my blog!
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