VIVO ristorante....

Tuesday, May 27, 2014


We met up with some friends for dinner a while back, we were looking for something on Edmontons west side since we were dropping Jet off with my parents. Lately there are so many great places popping up in central Edmonton, and I haven't had a chance to check out many restaurants elsewhere. Ryan was in charge of picking a place and was having a hard time, so I suggested VIVO, I went threre with Dinner Club in late November of last year and remembered we all really enjoyed the food....

Ryan called and made a reservation, we had to wait until 8:30, but I think that was lucky, as the place was still packed when we left at just after 11:00PM. It is no surprise either, this family style restaurant is recognized as the best Italian restaurant in Edmonton (or so their website notes) and proved to be a great experience on both my visits.

We arrived at VIVO about an hour early and shared some drinks at the bar, the restaurant is dimly lit and the decor intigrates an art deco vibe with the use of reds, blacks, silvers and dark greys as a colour palette. Both the bar and the kitchen open into the restaurant allowing patrons a front row view of the cooks preparing the evenings treats!!

When you are choosing your meal at VIVO you need to keep in mind most meals are meant to be shared ("family-style"), the menu has 4 courses to choose from, and most things have an option for 1/2 sizes (for smaller parties) making mixing and matching to try a few things a little easier. On this particular evening we opted for both the half order caesar salad and half order Caprese Salad. Both salads were excellent and I couldn't tell you which one I like better! The Caprese salad is nice and light, the fresh tomatoes and olive oil were done just right. The Caesar had just the right amount of garlic (a lot), and is served on a platter with 2 full romaine bulbs stuffed with dressing, parmesan cheese, and triangles of polenta accompaning it as the croutons. In terms of presentation this caesar salad is like no other Caesar salad I had had, and was also very delicious!


VIA

Dinner was a Rigatoni Pasta and Gnochi with fresh herbs, the server mentioned that all pasta are made in house, you can taste the quality and passion that was put into creating these dishes, I had no complaints about either of these plates.

Pasta was followed by Beef Tenderloin (which looked delicious but I don't eat beef) and a mixture of carrots and beets. The Beef Tenderloin was meant for all 4 of us, however the peice I left behind did not go to waste, it was happily devoured by the others, I had no problem with that! The vegtables were roasted perfectly  and I really can't think of one thing that wasn't perfect about the evening!!!

Dinner was pretty filling so we opted out of dessert, however last time I visited with dinner club, we tried the fresh baked cookies dessert and were quite happy with them. The dessert does take 30 minutes to be prepared, only because they bake a full batch of cookies on the spot, but are worth the wait when you take your first bite!

If you are thinking of dining at VIVO make sure to book a reservation ahead of time, and give yourself a few hours to enjoy the experience. It is definetly not a quick dinner, eating at VIVO is a more drawn out experience, allowing you to enjoy the tastes smells and company you are with!

Have you tried VIVO? What did you think??

...xo...CS

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