La Villa Bistro & Pizzeria

Great find — good service — delicious food — especially the brussel sprouts side (fabulous tasting) — gracious chef and hostess

A-​OK might be just about right. The food was good, though I had linguine and meatballs and you’d have to be hard pressed to screw that up. I wouldn’t call it kid friendly unless you consider giving a kid some crayon stubs to draw on the paper they put down over the table cloth kid friendly. They didn’t even bring the kid’s food out early which probably points to the service.
My waitress was friendly but busy. Halfway through the meal I realized I probably couldn’t have picked her out of a lineup because I only saw her once and forgot what she looked like. Food came slow but it was Saturday at 6:30. Service picked up closer to 7:45 when I presumed they needed the table again.
Overall, it’s not a bad place. I might go back minus kids but then again, I have a pretty good lineup of minus kids places to eat and I’m not sure this place cracks the list.

I am a long time customer at La Villa (going on almost 15 years). It is very clear that the overall care given to this restaurant by its owners and staff has significantly decreased over the years, and that the downhill slide had accelerated over the past 5 – 6 years. The quality of the food is a crapshoot (sometimes quite good, sometimes awful, often in between, but bordering on «ok» at best).
On the plus side, t’s amusing to sit at the bar and listen to the staff wonder where the head chef /​owner is while they crash and burn (hint: he’s probably out looking at buying a boat during the dinner rush). They also frequently have a dog tied up in their kitchen, which you can see from certain angles, and I cannot imagine that comes anywhere near meeting health code regulations. However, I would suggest that you do not sit at the bar unless you want to look at a decade’s accumulation of grease, dirt and grime crusted on the kitchen vents and ceiling panels, while trying not to imagine any of it falling into your food. You’ll also have the questionable benefit of listening to the kitchen staff yell at each other in foreign languages, throw things, and slam pots and pans around in a mad frenzy, while still delivering sub-​par entrees at a snail’s pace.
If you eat in the restaurant rather than getting take-​out, you should expect to go home smelling like pizza and grease, as they frequently don’t run their kitchen hood system, and even when they do, it doesn’t work properly (see above regarding the amount of accumulation on the vent pipes and ceiling tiles — hard to believe this isn’t related).
Despite all the negatives above, I must say that the staff is very friendly, and they seem to be trying very hard to do the best they can with the support and leadership they are given from management. Additionally, the home-​made gelato is quite good compared to La Villa’s other entrée and dessert offerings.
If you live in Shelburne and are willing to pay a significant convenience premium for over-​priced bar drinks ($ 17 for a cider + bourbon, $ 10 for a Jack Daniel’s + ginger ale), soggy pizza and middle-​of-​the-​road pasta and other entrees, then it’s not the worst place you could choose — but if you compare it to the overall restaurant scene in Chittenden County, you will leave feeling like someone picked your pocket.

Love the menu; traditiinal Italien and great ‘non-​pasta’ choices. The chef was responsive to requests. Each of us enjoyed our meal.

AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL! I can’t even express how gross their food is! We got pasta with sausage and meat sauce and a pasta with bolognase sauce which is supposed to be creamy and was dryer than popcorn. The meat and sausage sauce was skimpy and nothing to it. My boyfriend looked at me and said «is this from a gas station!!!» It was THAT bad. We also got the special flatbread of the day and it was lacking flavor terribly. It was basil, tomato and mozz. Hardly any cheese and all dough. Boy was I disappointed. I tried contacting management THREE times the next day to get a partial refund because it was seriously un edible and for $ 60+ it better be a good meal but it was not. Out of all three times trying to contact management NO ONE HAS GOTTEN BACK TO ME. So management, if you’re reading this, you lost a valuable customer and many others who read this review. Unilocalers, it is not worth the hassle and your time and money — please go to the Chinese restaurant across the street.

It’s been a couple of years and some nice menu changes, expanded wine selections and well-​trained staff. I guess I’m a creature of habit as I ordered the house pizza AGAIN and it was excellent! A real nice place to dine in Shelburne. The salads were prepared fresh and served as a nice portion as well, for $ 5.

Consistently delighted by the service, value for the money, and attention to local handcrafted food. Many Italian restaurants in VT have boxed pasta and garbage sauces. You can taste the love in La Villa dishes. The Provençal Pizza is divine! Perfect pizza crust. The seafood is not frozen. And they score points with the best calamari in New England. It’s breaded with fresh heirloom tomato and a light aioli and balsamic that’s a joy and must have! Risotto was perfect on three separate occasions, and the wine pairings are flawless. Go! It’s hidden in a little shopping center off route 7 — but gives anything downtown a run for their money. Bravo La Villa!

Nice atmosphere and pretty good food. Some quality Italian entrees and appetizers are well prepared. Service can be a little uneven at times however. Once I had dinner dropped while still working on the app, and tonight our waitress got busy with a huge party, so I ate my dinner without a drink or water. Not much communication between service staff, it appeared.
But nonetheless, good presentation and taste for the food likely won’t disappoint. Menu could use a little more seafood on it.
All in all, worth a stop, even though there’s some room for improvement.

Good thin crust pizza and salad selection. Kid friendly.
I’ve had the pizza to go and it holds up as takeout. It’s just not downtown which is fine if you are in s. Burlington or shelburne.
Service was good too.

Not baby friendly — no changing table.
Food and service were ok — truffle fries were excellent. Restaurant needs updating and some minor repairs completed that seem to have been started some time ago. Booths are painted plywood.
This is not what I would call 4 stars — average food and service — would not return.

I love the food here. It has quite a selection of everything, gluten-​free options, and can accomodate large parties of people (many times, at a really short notice).
The service is friendly and staff is informed.
I have several favorites, but I recommend the julienned vegetables as a replacement to the pasta. and you can’t leave without trying the Artichoke dip… woah!
Ita

All six of us enjoyed our food very much, but what I really want to compliment first is the service. This was a surprise birthday dinner and from the moment I made the reservation until we left the place, the hosting and wait staff were INTO helping make the surprise (and then the whole experience) a success. Really nice, fun folks! I loved my flank steak «bruscetta,» and the little side salad I ordered was high quality, not just some prefab iceberg toss off. When I’m back in Burlington, I’ll come again, both because there are MANY more delicious looking items on the menu, AND because the service was so friendly and accommodating.

We found this place through
and were very happy with it. It was one of the best date spots we’ve found in the Burlington area (think Leunig’s ambiance — quiet, nice light, good service). We’ll definitely be repeat customers. Just wish it was a little closer.

Suburban restaurant to a T.
I had the Smoked Alfredo, and though the portion and amount of meat was sizable, I was quite displeased. The spinach alfredo was a strange neon green, cut extremely thin, and over-​cooked. The sauce might have been acceptable if it wasn’t ridiculously watery.
Another in my party had the chicken piccata and she actually really enjoyed it. It had a light flavor too it.
We also split a pizza, which was another letdown. It is thin crust, which is usually my preference, but the crust was very floppy and soft. It was basically mush.
I’d give the place a 2.5, but the server was nice so I’m rounding up. I would not go back here though.

Very nice restaurant. Very nice cheese pizza, smoked Alfredo, butternut squash soup and pear & Gorgonzola salad. While they try to be kid friendly, service is too slow for kids. (there were very few families, mostly couples dining with other couples.)

A group of ten of us (including two children) enjoyed a birthday dinner for my mom at La Villa a few nights ago — what a great place! The food was really quite good (I especially LOVED the brussels sprouts with aioli dipping sauce) and the service was good and fast despite us being a large party. They allowed us to do separate checks, but didn’t allow us to use our coupons that we had on each check. If they had allowed us to do that (our server told us she wasn’t authorized) I would have given them 5 stars!
We will be back… with our other coupons! But also for the awesome food!

La Villa is our casual fine-​dining sweet spot on our top 5 list. Whether it’s just the two of us, us and friends, or us and family, my fiancée and I have always been more than satisfied with our experience. The pizza is fantastic but don’t deem this a pizza joint – the small plates and entrees are always fresh, delicious, and very reasonably priced. The wine list is always evolving which we like. The staff have always received at least 20% for being that good.
Despite living in Burlington, we choose La Villa as one of our few go-​to spots for dining that never fails!

Sometimes you have something so delicious at a restaurant, you can’t stop thinking about how good it was until to go back to have it again. That’s what I think of the Veggie Puttanesca here. It’s going to be difficult to have again soon because I was visiting from Maine.
The dish has baby portobello mushrooms, artichokes, kalamata olives, capers, sliced almonds, spicy marinara sauce over penne pasta. You’ll have to like a spicy sauce. What really makes this unique is the almonds. They really have something there.
I asked if I could get a half or smaller portion of a pasta dish and the waitstaff was nice enough to offer me a lunch sized portion for the lunch price. It was still more than enough for one person, but so good I did finish it.
The place was full on a Thursday night with happy diners. Try LaVilla when you’re in the area.

I’m from Brooklyn, NY. We don’t like malls. Well, I guess there was a time when King’s Plaza was cool — but we’re not into the mall scene.
Strip malls? Keep that stuff on Long Island.
Strip mall food? No way.
Strip mall Italian food? Blasphemy!
Turns out that I can make an exception. We pulled up to La Villa and I sighed because of my aforementioned attitude about this sort of place. Upon entering, we were greeted and sat within seconds. A nice bottle of wine arrived at our table a minute or two later and we looked over the menu. I ordered the flank steak bruschetta — which was flawlessly cooked and just delicious. My date (whose idea this was) had a mussels special, which she loved. After dinner, we shared a slice of chocolate gorgonzola cheesecake, which was absolutely delightful.
The service was swift and unobtrusive, and the owner proved to be quite approachable — I made a point of finding Jill to compliment the entire experience and she was more than happy to hear such a rave. Price was really fair, too.
My dad would think I’ve gone a bit nuts, but I am now a huge fan of an Italian restaurant that’s in a suburban strip mall! Eh — waddayagonnado?

Sybil’s right. This place, in an unassuming shopping center, has food that rivals nearly every downtown Italian eatery (and is better than most of them). Their duck confit salad is heavenly, and can make a rich opener (or with soup, a meal). Prices, for the quality and quantity, are very reasonable. Wine list’s good. What’s not to love?