La Bella Vita

Location

1759 Empire Boulevard, Penfield, NY, 14580

Hours (as of April 2010 per Website)

Monday-Thursday: 11:00AM to 9:00PM

Friday: 11:00AM to 10:00PM

Saturday: 4:30PM to 10:00PM

Sunday: CLOSED

Phone

585 671 7220

Website

http://www.labellavitabistro.com

La Bella Vita is a restaurant on Empire Boulevard in Penfield. They have a woodburning pizza oven and allow you to bring your own wine.

Comments:

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2008-06-17 14:31:32   Had an amazing pizza here at lunch today. All the pizzas are cooked in a woodburning oven which was installed by the new owner of this place. Fantastic pizza with basil pesto and asiago cheese. Highly recommend this place. —KimBee

2008-09-29 11:49:10   We went with a group of friends. Most of us are not coming back. Bad points - Overpriced for mediocre pasta dishes, overpriced in general. Bad service and on top of that 20% gratuity added as we were more than 8 people. We got our own bottle of wine but the corking charges were $15, as now they have a liquor license. Good points - Good pizza and good desserts (again overpriced). —TanushreeArdis

2008-10-27 19:29:29   Stopped by for lunch. I had great service and a delicious pizza. My friend had the panini which she said was excellent. We will be back! —RocDiner

2008-10-28 10:23:30   I no longer frequent this place because of the prices and the new corkage fee of $20. If they are charging that high for a cork fee, they should at least offer a better wine/beer selection. The person above says the corkage fee is $15 but I was told $20. —KimBee

2008-12-23 07:40:28   Went here for dinner last night. Its a nice little place for a date. The wine selection was good, and the food was excellent. My girlfriend had an eggplant panini which was great and I had an incredible basil pizza with wheat crust from the wood burning oven. I'll be making return trips! —GeorgeBluth

2009-01-03 16:41:01   Had dinner here last night and really enjoyed our meal. My partner and I had soup, salad, the gamberoni pizza (while good, it appeared to have ONE shrimp chopped up into tiny pieces on the whole pie), and the scallop risotto special (delicious). We'll definitely be back. I found the prices to be quite acceptable, especially for the quantity of food you get! —MarcVera

2009-01-13 15:43:41   BUSY on a Friday night. Pizza's good - thin - wood oven. Liked the artichoke pizza; the plain cheese was great.

We ordered one pizza, and they messed up, and we got two. The waitress was embarrassed, the owner took charge and made the pizza and dessert on the house. That's the kind of mistake I like. —ZachSmalt

2009-05-13 02:39:19   I am a very picky person and was very hesitant in trying this new place. However, i would say that my visit to La Bella Vita was great. Service was friendly, atmosphere is nice and cozy, food was great (i had chicken parm and my date had a pizza), price is normal. I will definitely go back to this place again and do recommend people to give it a try. They do have outside seating and the next time i visit the restaurant, i would like to sit outside. I think because of the wood burning oven, the inside of the restaurant was very hot and at first i felt uncomfortable because of the heat; it would great during winter time though :) One other thing that drew my attention was that, some of the tables were too close to one another, didn't like that and it seems that they don't have a website, which is surprising at this day in age. —DennisPtak

2009-09-23 10:06:47   My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed this restaurant We had their special appetizer: chicken wings with a honey/balsamic dressing; they were probably the best chicken wings we've ever had. I had the chicken parm, and the sauce was delicious. My husband ordered the ravioli with Fra Diavolo sauce (spicy). He said this was the first place that he's actually noticed that the sauce was spicier than the regular sauce. The service was friendly, attentive and professional, and the restaurant was very clean. We have already recommended it and will return. —LaurenRogers

2010-03-21 18:47:20   Had a great experience here. The service was a little slow, but it was also a very busy Saturday night when we went. I ordered the eggplant parmigiana that was excellent, and my husband ordered a pesto pizza with chicken. We both enjoyed our meals very much! We highly recommend this place - we will be back! —Acarp

2011-09-05 11:28:41   If you don't know what true Italian food should taste like, then you may think the food here is decent. If you like bland, unoriginal dishes with extremely high prices, then this place is for you. The reason La Bella Vita is receiving customers is because there's not too many Italian restaurants along the Empire Blvd location and most people don't want to drive more than 10 minutes to go out to dinner. When you arrive, the restaurant is quaint, the interior looks new and small with about 9 tables and can get extremely hot with the wood stove. The waitress is eager to seat you and rush you out the door. I ordered the eggplant parmesan which had no cheese and no sauce only the spaghetti had a tiny amount of sauce. In taste, my meal was bland and dried out, but came out hot. My husband ordered the pesto pizza with chicken, which was overdone compared to other customers pizzas, but was still edible. He was unimpressed since there was hardly any pesto sauce and apparently they chopped up one small chicken strip into tiny pieces.We also ordered 2 glasses of house wine which came out to be $9 for each glass. $9 for a cheap house wine? With that being said, now that we tried this place, we won't be back nor recommend it to anyone. Save your hard earned money, there are too many better choices here in Rochester. —dark