Dolce Vita

This place is a hidden treasure. I stumbled upon it by searching for BYOB’s in the King of Prussia area and thought I would give it a try. I now have a new favorite restaurant! I had the shrimp enchiladas from the Mexican menu. My husband had the lemon chicken with a side of pasta from the Italian menu. We both loved our entrees. We also had the cheesecake and the canollis for desert. Both were excellent. The staff is very friendly, we even met the chef. I can’t say enough nice things about the service and the food. Give this place a try, you won’t be sorry!

One of the Great Challenges of being married to the Rev. Dr. Steak is that he is not a fan of Italian food. I, of course, being of Italian and Irish descent, was raised on pasta. He was raised by good Southern and Pennsylvania Dutch folks on such alien dishes as swiss steak, chicken & dumplings and country ham.
So, whenever we decide to investigate a new place, Italian isn’t on the top of his list. He and I both are lovers of Mexican food. He, because he was raised mostly in the Southwest. I met him out there and also developed a love for Sonoran style Mexican which we have come to accept we will never find here in PA.
Enter La Dolce Vita. This is a somewhat nondescript place, a converted single family home, along a stretch of DeKalb Pike in Bridgeport/​KoP. As the name suggests, the top billing here goes to Italian cuisine. Not as publicized is that they also serve Mexican dishes on weekends. Their main chef, Yolanda, is from the Acapulco region of Mexico.
Could it be? A place we’d both love? Do we dare hope?
This truly is a gem. The restaurant as I mentioned previously is a converted home, and they’ve set it up to be homey. There are multiple rooms for dining, so if you walk into an empty dining room, it doesn’t mean they’re closed. In the former kitchen they left the cabinets and such so it looks like a real kitchen complete with a large round table where you can sit and enjoy meals as if you were in Mamma’s kitchen. It’s actually pretty cool. It is NOT upscale. Chairs are banquet chairs and the décor is straight out of the home design section at TJMAXX. Music was the soundtrack to my youth, softly piping songs sung by Frank, Dino and the rest of the rat pack.
We were seated promptly in the empty front dining room, which was lovely because it was quiet. Noises from the other rooms drifted in and out. I ordered the chicken parmesan, my ‘barometer’ meal, with a house salad. The Rev. had the steak chilaquiles. We were promptly served both bread with peppers AND tortillas with pico de gallo. The pico was especially wonderful, definitely fresh and with the punch of lime that so many others miss. An auspicious beginning!
After a short while the salad arrives. This is the one true off note. It was, in a word, meh. Fresh, but very bland and very thrown together. It felt like an afterthought or an obligatory item.
Food service is not quick, it took a while for our main dishes to come out. It was worth the wait. The chicken parmesan was delicious, flattened chicken breast but still juicy and full of flavor, with pasta done nicely al dente and a lovely red gravy that provided the right amount of acid without being overly sweet or demanding of attention. The chilaquiles was all kinds of yum, lovely smokey chipotle sauce over fried tortillas with a perfectly seasoned piece of meat on top. Bonus: perfectly caramelized large scallion halves on top. YUM. The chipotle was well balanced and combined with the savory beef made a mexican love poem to the carnivore.
To be clear: It’s not Sonoran style Mexican. It’s also not tex-​mex or chimi which is what you normally find here. Her flavor profile is from southern Mexico, and she clearly has learned her craft well. More use of smoke flavors mixed with chile, fresh vegetables, salts and infused oils.
Only one other off note, and between this and the salad combines the one star off: the chicken parmesan with pasta was first served in a pool of water from incompletely drained pasta. One of my pet peeves. I pointed this out and it was immediately, graciously, removed then re-​plated without the water.
The Rev. and I did something we rarely do: We ate until we felt our stomachs were going to pop. It was that good. «I can’t eat another bite.» «Ok, just a small one.» «Oh, dear, I shouldn’t have done that.» «What’s one more tiny bite?»
Oh, a couple of final things. BYOB. Almost criminally inexpensive. Two of us stuffed to the gills with high quality product for $ 40.
La Dolce Vita, we’ll definitely be back. You would do well to check them out, too!

Look– I don’t give these rankings out every day.
This is a little gem. Italian food made bh Mexicans. The only nod to their native cuisine is the ceviche — and it’s WSY good.
Fried calamari — not overdone, generous.
Manicotti– excellent
Mussels fra diablo — large mussels perfectly cooked, great sauce
Seafood fra diablo over homemade nocci– wow; generous potions of mussels, shrimp, squid in z delicious red spicy fresh sauce .
Artichoke salad — outstanding.
The desserts? OMG. Tiramisue, bread pudding, cheesecake. Sinfully delicious .
The only complaint? Get some god bread! Font serve sliced pre-​made crap!
Be advised — BYOB and cash only.
Figure $ 25pp all in.
Otherwise 5 star … Campeche?

AMAZING food… My boyfriend and I get a lot of take out from there and we love it! When we call for take out, they are so nice and ask the appropriate questions for take out. When we go to pick up, we are waited on right away and the place has such a homey like feel! For take out, they make sure you have everything you need to have a successful Italian dinner at home (bread with butter, they even give you silverware). We haven’t eaten there but it’s a BYOB and they provide a place to put your wine or beer. Food always tastes fresh, never frozen, and the restaurant is so clean! Highly recommend for a great Italian dinner!

Out of this world Shrimp Civeche! The Mexican menu was an unexpected treat. I’d go back again just to have that.

this place is litteraly a house with a professional kitchen installed. if i was walking by this place, i probably would walk right by and not give it a second thought. luckily, some friends brought me here and i got to give this place a chance.
the food is excellent. fresh and homemade. we tried items from both the mexican and italian menu, and loved everything. sundays are usually the day you want to skip seafood dishes, but not here. every dish i ordered was seafood, and all of it was so fresh! not a bad bite.
the food was a little slower coming to the table than you might expect in a chain, but that’s because everything is freshly made. the waiter/​owner? was so nice. he even gave us a tour of the place afterwards and introduced us to his wife.
as i said, this place is a house. when you walk in the front door, your’re pretty much dining in a living room. you can also book the table in the kitchen, which is awesome for the BYOB policy because you can store your booze in the fridge. it really feels like a meal at home with the family here. there is also a deck for when the weather is nice. they also cater, host private parties, and offer take-​out.
i have to encourage you to give this place a shot. the food is just too good here to pass over.

Es un restaurant italiano, sin embargo a partir del jueves tienes excelente comida mexicana. por lo pronto disfrute de un excelnte pozole Verde estilo Guerrero con sus tacos, chiles jalapenos rellenos, chicharron y mas. despues un excelnte café con un porcion de cheese cake. ah pero sobre todo una excelente trato, amabilidad y se puede disfrutar. mil gracias.

This is a double review. I am reviewing both the restaurant and the people I was forced to go there with.
The restaurant is in a converted home in Bridgeport so you are eating right in what once was the living room. I felt very comfortable. It seems to be a family run operation from top to bottom which I love. I refuse to eat/​shop at most chains anymore and use all my powers to support small family business. They are our hope against mass, rootless, totalitarianism.
The service is not all that quick since everything is made from scratch, so be patient. Patience. Which brings me to my dinner companions, who I would never have chosen to spend any time with, but was forced to. They were harassing the poor waitress (the owner’s daughter, I think) all night. They wouldn’t stop making rude remarks about her looks, her personality, the service, the whole thing. I felt like spiking their drinks with something myself. The young woman took it like a trooper, though.
It took forever to get our food but when we did, I thought it was very good. I had the ravioli and some meatballs followed by some chocolate cake. My ignorant companions of course weren’t happy and proclaimed their unhappiness with everything from color to temperature. I was hoping they would all choke on some penne pasta.
By the end of the night I really did detect that the waitress was annoyed. I couldn’t have blamed her. I thanked her and left. I can recommend you give the place a try.