A rare date night occurred this weekend for my wife and I while child free on the Saturday night and an opportunity to celebrate Valentines Day early. We decided to visit our local Italian restaurant “La Dolce Tavola” in Rugby.
I lasted visited them just over a year ago in January 2024 and wrote a review at the time expressing how much I enjoyed it (here). Would things still be as good and would there be any changes/improvements?
Prior to visiting, I checked out their website. From what I recall, the website appears to have been improved, and I checked out possible menu choices in advance.
On arrival, the outside looked very appealing and attractive and had been improved with the outside seating now being covered with a canopy. A particularly handy addition as the restaurant inside is quite small and provides extra capacity to accommodate bookings during the warmer months, and I guess somewhere for smokers to sit when no food is being served.
As we booked at short notice, the only table reservations available were at either 17:15 or 21:00. As two of us were dining, the reservation takes a £5 per head deposit that is deductible from your bill and is non-refundable (for cancellations within 72 hours). The limited reservation times were in part due to the huge success of this restaurant. To get the times you want, you do need to book as far in advance as you can, so not an issue in our case as it was last minute.
On entry, the place was absolutely packed with a good, lively atmosphere. More so than we ever expected.
Once seated, drinks orders were taken quickly, though we did have a slightly extended wait before our food order was taken. However, my wife and I were able to chat and make menu choices.
The food quality was nothing but excellent, and we opted for the pane al ago e Romario with cheese (garlic bread) for our starter. Very tasty and large enough to share. Portion sizes are nothing but generous, and our mains were equally impressive. While waiting for the mains, we watched all the amazing food leaving the open kitchen, which was interesting to view. This is a menu where there are too many excellent choices. The menu being varied with meat, fish/seafood, pastas, and pizzas.
I opted for the panini bisteca, which is a lovely steak on ciabatta sandwich. It also includes a side portion of what I believe you would describe as amazing salted fried chips made of vegetable peel. Very tasty.
My wife then had her favourite seafood dish, Linguine alla Scotliera. It looked good, and I have had a non-seafood linguine in the past, which was very tasty. My wife also advised that the portion was massive and had perhaps gotten even larger. As both full, we opted for teas and coffees to finish off the night. When settling our bill, the deposits were deducted. I note on the online reviews that the deposits are still a contentious issue, but in all honesty, I don’t see the issue as it is stated at the time of booking what the conditions are and the requirement to pay a deposit. As a popular restaurant that has overheads and staff to pay, they need to fill tables. Why agree to the terms and then have an issue? The non-refundable part does only apply to last-minute cancellations within the last 72 hours to encourage giving notice. And yes, I do sympathise if caught out needing to cancel, but it could potentially be a table that they do not have enough time to gain a new booking for.
Deposits are non refundable if cancelation/date amendment is made less then 72 hours before the booking, this includes a change to number of guests (as deposit is paid per person). If you need to cancel your booking more than 72 hours in advance please contact us as refunds are processed manually.
It has to be said, the service as always was excellent with lovely and knowledgeable staff. We did not recognise any of the faces this time, but all are very well trained. We have been there quite a lot, and my wife has visited many times with friends. We have never had any issues.
Overall, we really enjoyed our visit to this restaurant, and it definitely retains its 5 stars that I also awarded last time. It should also be noted that they have now won a Traveller’s Choice Award 2024 from Trip Advisor and have, at the time of writing, a 4.5 score with 125 reviews.
***** 5/5
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