What an Experience
So I pick up the Los Angeles Downtown News newspaper. I start looking through it only to find a list of best places to go to in LA. This was perfect I had a hot hot date Tuesday night and I figured why not try something new. I will say that I'm not a kind of person that takes chances especially on a first date. Zita Trattoria & Bar, Italian restaurant my date and I decide on.

We get to the restaurant at about 8pm. There weren’t many people there but we figured we had an hour until closing time 9pm just enough to have us a nice relaxing meal. The setting was quite elegant, first impression was great. Tania the waitress approaches us and welcomes us with a warning that their menu was limited to pasta and appetizers only so we took a minute to decide as she walked away. As Tania sees us debating she approaches us only to tell us that the kitchen would be closing in 10 minutes. We decide to stay and try their "pasta" it was an Italian restaurant after all and not to mention both my date and I were starving. We sit and begin looking at the menu then Tania makes her way to our table offers us something to drink, we proceed to make a little conversation when she tells us that since there weren't many people some of the chefs left early and that was why the menu was so limited. She also found it necessary to tell us that she too wanted to leave early and was hoping that no one else would show up, but then we got there (WHAT, is that an appropriate thing to tell your customer?!?!?!?). We kind of giggled, what else can you really say when the person that will be serving you says that? We order a bottle of wine, Miss Tania brings it over and begins to open the bottle, standing there struggling to pop the cork open, my date even offers to assist her in opening it but she tells him she can handle it, thank you. The cork then breaks in half and she keeps struggling until finally it pops out, by this time I really needed a drink, pinto grigio. We order our food my date orders an appetizer to get him started, as he and I begin to enjoy our date and talk for a little, the food then arrives no appetizer on site. We decided to let it go and not bring it to Tania's attention. As Tania places my plate down I notice the table is a bit unsteady so I tell Miss Tania and her response was "move to this table (table next to me)" WHAT?!?!?!?!? Is this for real??? I looked at Tania in the eyes and said "I'm sorry but I am not moving and my table is wobbly" the busboy I think figured that Tania's comment was a bit upsetting to me so he offered to fix the unsteady table. We begin to eat and our food was delicious, no complaints there. I had the Ricotta Ravioli with a cream sauce and my date had the spiral pasta, which had artichokes, olives, tomatoes and a variety of other ingredients, the food was yummy. As we are enjoying our food and our company Tania approaches the table, but not to refill our glass of wine but rather to ask if we were interested in dessert and if so she would need to know since the kitchen was closing. Lucky for her we were not interested in dessert and Miss Tania seemed quite happy about that. As we are finishing our dinner we get the check and we pay, by this time Tania seemed ecstatic, we walk towards the door to exit the restaurant and who storms out before us......yes you guessed it TANIA was free. Free, Tania rushes out and runs across the street, and there my friends went our service.

All this to conclude that the food at Zita Trattoria & Bar was most definitely good, but the service was not. I've been living in L.A. my whole life and sometimes experience some of the most interesting things, but when I have the Los Angeles Downtown News newspaper and it's recommending a restaurant I would expect excellence in every aspect of the matter. Sorry that I can't agree with this recommendation. Sure the food was delicious but that's merely a small percentage of what I expect from the restaurants I dine at, especially if the Los Angeles Downtown News is recommending it. Next time - Il Sole on Sunset. Also Italian, great food and excellence service; trust me, it's worth the drive.    [28 Jul 2006 18:43:56]

Food:    Service:    Ambiance:    Overall: 
Recommended Dishes: Ravioli

     ­Lola