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Mon-Sun. 11:30 a.m. - 11:00 p.m.
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I love their food.
The patio is quaint.
Nice Wine Selection.
When friends and family come from out of town, this is where we eat!
We have been patrons of Vieni Vai for 8+ years- satisfying food + stellar ambiance make this one of our favorites.
Great wood fired pizzas, homemade tasting pastas, and awesome tiramisu are all of note. Yes, the service is not awesome, but seriously, this makes it even more authentically Italian!
Buon aprovecho!
I have been eating at Vieni Vai ever since I moved into town. It has always been a great experience. The food is amazing and the ambiance is great.
Only when its gets really busy is the service not as great but you can expect that anywhere. It is my favorite place in town. You must try the Meat Lasagna and Tieramisu.
The food was okay, it took a little long to arrive but not too late. I had the calzone with prosciutto and mushrooms and it was tasty and decently proportioned. The other members of my party had various plates of pasta. Those who elected the dinner had the soup with their meal which no one had complaints about. Service wasn't the greatest but was acceptable. The price was a little more than I think it should have been given the quality/quantity of the food. The restaurant ambiance was nice, clean and well maintained.
Overall it wasn't a particularly impressive experience, but it wasn't a bad one by any mark either. I don't know that I would recommend it, but I wouldn't talk anyone out of coming either.
We were in SLO visiting friends and decided to go to a restaurant downtown for the evening. The one we wanted to go to wasn't seating anymore (McLintocks), so we went next door to Vieni Vai.
We should have just gone back home.
First, when we came in, the hostess was sitting at the bar watching TV. That is so unprofessional. Then, she seated us at the only table that had something wet all over it - there were probably 4 or 5 tables with people at them so there were plenty of choices, and she wiped it down while we were seated and it was awkward.
As I was about to ask for my drink, the waiter walked away. Once the drinks were made, they sat over by the bar for quite a while. We were just staring at them. My lemon drop martini didn't have sugar on the rim. My friend's wine glass was TINY. Drinks were definitely not worth the price.
Then our food came out. My pasta with tiny shrimp was okay, but not spectacular. It was very oily. My spouse's pesto pasta was bland. Definitely not worth the price.
Our friends had problems with their food too. And when they asked for them to fix it, the manager said sorry but the kitchen is closed so there's nothing we can do about it. He then only took off $6 from the bill - $6? See, we should have gone to the grocery store and made our own food.
What a lame experience for my first time in SLO.
Kinda odd to see three 5-star reviews for this place within an hour of each other on a Friday at 10 in the morning.
Methinks odd things are afoot in the "whoops, my restaurant is not so good" goings-on of late, when other ratings have been terrible to marginal...
I'm not going to draw the conclusion (or play "who's the shill?) but judge for yourself, my fellow restauranteurs!
Upon the recommendation of a local, we decided to stop in to Vieni Vai for dinner. The menu looked promising and the front open area had a nice feel. When they offered indoor or outdoor seating, I chose outdoor to see if the back patio area would be even nicer. And it was! The back area is along side the creekside area and is decorated quite nicely.
The bread was warm and quite delicious.
However, the charming experience ended here. We ordered a lasagne and one of the pizzas the server recommended, Quattro something. It basically had artichoke, mushrooms and prosciutto I think.
The pizza was like cardboard. I ended up eating the artichokes and mushrooms off the top and leaving the rest of it for the trash can. The lasagne was a bit better as the meat sauce was rather tasty. However, when the lasagne noodles are chewy, then that sort of kills the whole lasagne experience.
Vieni Vai Trattoria has a money location. Smack in the middle of downtown and closed a bit later than the rest of the restaurants in the area.
Decor/Ambiance [5 stars]:
+ Awesome designs, set up is spacious
+ Clean establishment
+ Sweet patio in the back
Food [4 stars]:
+ Complementary bread is warm with crispy edges, NICE!
+ Fresh ingredients, well cooked
Service [-1 star]:
+ Our waitress, Hannah is the shiz so this review isn't about her. She got us everything we wanted and was cordial.
- Food took over 40 minutes to come out when the place had only 3-4 tables to serve
-- A taller gentleman (curly brown hair) seated us before Hannah worked with our table. He's going to ruin this place with his service.
- He was walking away in the middle of our questions
- He passed menu over our heads to another coworker, manners
man, manners!
Final Call:
I feel bad because Hannah was an awesome waitress and the food wasn't bad. The wait plus the douche-of-another-waiter totally ruined the experience.
-----------------------------------------------
Munchies:
1. Sorrento Pizza
+ Thin crusted, light tomato sauce, huge chunks of veggies
- Kinda soggy in the middle
2. Pasta with spinach n' chicken
+ Pasta was delicious and retained the flavor of the rosemary and
mushrooms
+ Chicken had the light tomato sauce flair
I've been here twice and it is a great price for a good dinner or a date (about $12-14 for the standard types of pasta). This place has had great service both times that I have been here, with a humorous staff. I can't remember his name, but he remembered a lot of random little things from our order, was great at conversation, and good at his work.
I really like the seating in the front which is open almost like a balcony onto the main street. I recommend the Tortellini in which you have the option for either meat or cheese filling...you can request BOTH. The food was delicious. I really liked it and will be back.
don't. do. it. just. don't.
if that doesn't convince-
the service was nice, but the food was awful and terribly overpriced. they basically dumped a watery can of tomato sauce (not even a name brand i'll bet!) on some noodles and put a piece of cheese on a chicken patty and called it chicken parm. and all that for 20 dollars! who are they kidding. my boyfriend hated his food as well. i've blocked out what he had, although i think it was roughly tuna covered in a tub of butter, and the wine was probably from a box.
I have been using yelp as a guide to eating out since my girlfriend and I moved to SLO about 2 weeks ago. Every review has been helpful in one way or another.
In any case, I chose this place because I was looking for an Italian place with good ambiance for a date. I was a little skeptical due to reviews on this site. Some were great, others were horrible. I decided to venture outside of our normal guidelines going to places with good reviews) and try this place out.
We were not disappointed. We loved the atmosphere, especially since we ate outside. Our server was good, nothing special but his service was fine. The Merlot and Cabernet were pretty good. The bread was delicious, though in small loaves and the salads were both prompt and tasty. She ordered cheese-stuffed tortellini and I had gnocchi, both in a tomato basil sauce. The dinner were good and filling. I wouldn't say that this place is spectacular, but it was just what we were looking for in a casual nice Italian dinner.
The seating and service were nice -- no complaints there. The food, however, is awful and horribly overpriced.
Both of our salads were just lettuce with soggy croutons and watery dressing. My girlfriend's pasta was essentially canned tomato paste slathered on plain noodles. There was ten times more liquid than pasta or meat in her dish. My salmon and fettuccine were swimming in pastey, buttery alfredo sauce that, again, could have come from a can.
This is diner food and not a touch better. Save your money and make the same thing at home for much less.
I got the seafood risotto special. It came with a red sauce, which threw me off at first. But it had a good amount of seafood and once I put some parmesan on it, it was delish! IT was a ton of food, and I couldn't finish it. If I wasn't traveling I would have taken it home for lunch.
I got the red wine that was from the Owners Home Town (on the bottom of the list, I can't remember what it was) and I was not happy with it, on it's own or with the food.
Still, a decent little Italian place with a cute atmosphere. Boyfriend got a pizza that was very tasty too.
Had an excellent experience at Vieni Vai. Sat at the bar and the bartender was as friendly as can be. Very attentive to my needs. I ordered the calamari...excellent. Marinara sauce included with some red pepper sprinkles..nice touch. Main course was the fettuccine al pesto (picture here) very tasty and pretty big portion. I couldn't finish it. Looking forward to returning to try their other dishes.
my girlfriend and i usually drop in for caprese and a couple glasses of wine, but that's usually as far as i would like to take it. i'm not a big fan of their food and sometimes the service can be terrible.
Discovered this nice Trattoria after a movie one evening. The minestrone is from the south-central part of Italy, as the owner says, and is beans, potato and vegetables. Once I got over my preconceived notions, it was nice. The fettucine carbonara is excellent. Among the best I have had. The service was OK and could be better. Overall, a very nice Italian Restaurant that is worth visiting. I am going back next time we are in SLO.
We stumbled upon this great Italian place while walking around the town for lunch. The service was friendly, and the decor was fun. They started us with warm bread, and we ordered a liter of house wine for the four of us.
We tried the grilled eggplant and roasted red pepper panini, and the scallop linguine. The waitress let us add mozzarella to the panini, since we wanted it to be more hearty. Both dishes was delicious, and I'd definitely go again.
I remember this place to be a lot more tasty. I recently went back and was not very impressed with what I had. The service has gone down alittle bit.
I had the lasagna which was decent, a safe bet. The SO had a ravioli with pesto sauce, it was not flavorful enough. It had a nice light basily aroma to it, but that was about it. Seemed to have been watered down.
We were orignially going to go to Firestone restaurant but they insisted we go to Vieni Vai Tratorria because the food was apparently really good. I decided to order swordfish off their special menu and was extremely disappointed. The fish was bland, tough on the outside and almost raw on the inside. Yech! :P Terrible! Maybe the Bay Area has spoiled me. Never again will I go to a fancy San Luis Obispo restaurant. I'd rather stick to fast food in that neck of the woods.
LAME! :P
My boyfriend and I visited here on Labor Day weekend. Despite the somewhat negative reviews on yelp, we thought "how bad can Italian be?" Our mistake.
There is a patio in the back that has potential - it backs up to a creek and has some degree of ambiance. We ordered an an antipasto plate with prosciutto and provolone. That was fine - rolled up cold cuts. Off to a solid start.
I asked our waiter what his favorite pasta dishes were. This should be a relatively simple question for a waiter to answer, and I also use it as a litmus test to see what kind of service we're dealing with. I'm sure the guy is in college and needs the cash for a keg party (or tuition, it doesn't really matter to me) and he almost too predictably pointed me toward the more expensive specials (including the swordfish, which wasn't even a pasta). If he had just pointed out a single special, and had done so with any authenticity, perhaps I would have tried it. $17 vs. $12? Who cares - let's splurge. It was the fact that he just sort of mumbled a few names of the specials and then went on to list off the lasagna, the fettuccine alfredo, and eventually half the menu, that gave me the impression he 1) wasn't very good at his job; and 2) didn't really care for the food himself.
I can see why he didn't. We made our own selections. Here is what we were expecting, and our best guess at how to recreate these beauties at home:
Linguini Gamberetti - linguini with baby shrimp and cream sauce.
In reality: linguini, canned shrimp, a ton of olive oil, a splash of butter or cream, basil, and something sweet. The whole dish tasted sickly sweet, perhaps because the sauce was deglazed with a dessert wine, or perhaps because there was actually SUGAR in the sauce.
Penne Arrabiata ("Angry Penne") - penne with a spicy tomato sauce.
In reality: about 5 cups of penne and a sauce made of tomato paste, pepper flakes, and absolutely no creativity or talent in the kitchen. It certainly left me angry. Typically a red sauce has to be cooked down so that the flavors meld. I think this might have been tossed together and zapped in the microwave for a few minutes. Honestly the worst pasta sauce I've ever had in a restaurant.
The only reason we gave 2 stars was for potential due to the uniqueness of the space. This restaurant is a great candidate for Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares.
I've gone here since freshman year as a means to escape dorm food.
Vieni Vai is an amazing place if you're looking for traditional Italian food. And it's even better if your parents are in town & funding the lunch/dinner.
First, the bread. I'm not sure if they bake it or not, but it's always hot and steamy and extremely good. This is a good way to ensure leftovers.
The side salads are pretty basic, but good. The other side is Minestrone Soup - it's not the typical Campbell's style, more potato-y, but it's yummy.
I usually don't get appetizers, but the bruschetta is very good, as well as the Mozzarella in Carrozza, the fried mozzarella.
Over the years, my favorite dishes have been Rigatoni Della Nonna (baked rigatoni) and Fettuccine Alfredo. The lasagna is also delicious, as well as the pizzas, which are baked in the very cool pizza oven behind the main seating area.
Great desserts: cannoli (not available at a lot of Italian places) and gelato. Yum.
Vieni Vai's gone through some impressive renovations over the years. After hot days, they open up the front doors to give more of that open, European-cafe feel. The patio's much nicer in any weather now, too, with heaters and a very large canopy.
My one complaint would be the service. While Giovanni, the owner, is nice and personable, the waiters can be iffy. Don't agree to be far away from everyone else if you don't like feeling a bit ignored. If you want more bread, make sure it's visually obvious.
Improved food and service in the past 6 months!
Vieni Vai Trattoria is a great place to meet a few friends, order an assortment of items from the menu and share. Plus the way the front of the store opens onto the main drag makes for good people watch'n. The patio in the rear is also nice. The thin crust pizza is very good. Service is SLOTown friendly. The bartenders are handsome (the males) or cute (the females) and a little full of themselves in a charming way. I have been here several times and each time everyone I was with enjoyed the atmosphere, food and service.
Ralff sez, "Check 'er out!"
I came here only a handful of times, but I had good experience each time. The service was fine, and they weren't overly helpful. It annoys me whenever other places check on you every two minutes.. that you can't even enjoy a conversation w/o interruption. N-eway love their appetizers and truly liked the ambience each time.
A sweet place to go for a quiet dinner. Service is inconsistent but the place has a lot of charm and a great menu.
Very attractive place, nice location - downtown on the creek. Unfortunately, it is a restaurant. We each ordered minestrone and a "house special" Calzone to share. The soup was a watery broth of mostly white beans, some potato and maybe some overcooked vegetables in there somewhere. The calzone was "mushroom and prosciutto" There were plenty of mushrooms and they were good. There were two (we counted) pieces of some sort of ham (not prosciutto) in the filling. It was served barely warm and covered with an uninspired red sauce. Enough said.
This is the #1 Pizza. House salad and dressing is amazing as well. Get a pizza margarita and a house salad and be amazed!!! the owner is very friendly and takes pride in his business.
Great place to get a bowl of soup and salad with fresh baked bread from the oven in back. The upgrades they did to the back really improved the outdoor seating area in the back so it's a great place to have a good dinner and relax while listening to the fountain in the patio and the creek. Minestrone is HIGHLY recommended!
My wife and I dropped into downtown SLO one evening during a weekend trip to celebrate our anniversary, and figured that we'd find a place to eat. So, we parked the car and started walking. Eventually we stumbled upon this place and after looking at the menu headed in for dinner. We started with some bruschetta and wine, and for dinner my wife had the Cioppino and I had the Pasta Primavera with some langostino added in. Our food was quite good and the service was friendly and attentive. We both also enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere and I found the restaurant to be tastefully decorated. I really enjoyed my dinner and would be happy to come back.
This is my second time here and I won't be returning. This time I ordered the ciopino. The seafood wasn't fresh and the portion was not worth the price I paid. What's with all the flies?! The first time I was here, I ordered the osso busco and I thought it was alright.
Very nice, came here with a small group of friends for dessert and wine on a Saturday night. They had a loungy singer singing Sinatra, and it was dark and hidden. we couldn't even tell it was open from the outside. Exactly what we were looking for!
My Mom loves Eggplant Parmesan, but she'll never order it here again. She wouldn't even take the leftover sandwich half home! My sandwich featured a dry, tough little piece of chicken hiding in the middle of the bread. I do not recommend this restaurant.
i like their bread here. we go through 3-5 baskets of bread alone, cuz it's so good. the pasta isn't half bad, either...i just stick to the basics here. fettucine alfredo is a safe bet. i've had the seafood ravioli and that wasn't spectacular, but it wasn't horrid either.
Pretty dismal food to be found here. Ravioli were limp and bland, and quite expensive for what essentially amounted to premade, store bought pasta served with reheated sauce.
San Luis Obispo, CA
Category: Italian
San Luis Obispo, CA
Category: Italian
San Luis Obispo, CA
Category: Italian
San Luis Obispo, CA
Category: Wineries
San Luis Obispo, CA
Category: American (New)
Best restaurants I've been to, from SLO (college)…
