Dolce Osteria

This is my second visit to this location in a month, which speaks to how much I enjoy the food here. Tonight was just as exceptional as my first experience, with amazing, genuine, and personable service, along with great food.

We've been here a bunch and keep coming back. FOOD: All yum! Pay the extra $4 for fresh pasta. Apps: The Prosciutto and Burrata is a yum appetizer. We also like the little dish of beans that come with the complimentary bread. You get one complimentary refill of bread, then they charge you. Entrees: Our favorite dish is the Buttara. Amatriciana is another favorite of mine. Hubs also likes Penne Alla Vodka with Shrimp. My dad likes the Chicken Parmesan (note it doesn't come with pasta, thats another ~$9 for a side of (out of the box) pasta). There is no kids menu, they can sell you a "kids pasta" which is sauce and out of the box noodles. Drinks: Everything is good. Dessert: Save a few bucks by getting Duck Donuts next door or TCBY across the parking lot.

Make sure you verify an inside table when booking. Hoping for a romantic evening with my wife. When we arrived we were ushered to the outside patio with floor heaters. Felt like we were the Black sheep at a family picnic. If you're okay with that type of atmosphere then continue booking. If it wasn't 7:00 p.m. on a Friday night in downtown Charlotte, I would have made other arrangements. Our first and last time at this restaurant.

This review is so close to a 4, and I feel like if I'd visited at another time (not during Restaurant Week) it would have met that rating easily.I made reservations online for Friday at 7 pm for 4 people. I love how easy they make it for me to do this, but you do have to book with a credit card. They tell you that if everyone in your party doesn't show, you'll owe $25 a place. I'm not sure if they'd follow through with that, but it is worth mentioning. Not a big deal for me as I am pretty anal about schedule, so would update accordingly. Turns out, one in my party had a family emergency a few days before our reservation, and I needed to modify to 3 people. I couldn't do it online, as it said no tables were available, but I was able to call the restaurant and they were able to easily and cheerfully make the change.We arrived and were seated quickly, and given only the menu for Restaurant Week. I get it, LOTS of customers, you need to make it as streamlined as possible. I will also add that the RW dinners in general range from $35 to $50 a plate. Dolce was at $50 a plate. I had high expectations.The choices on the RW menu were plentiful. We three chose different appetizers, entrees, and desserts and tried each other's. For my appetizer, I chose Eggplant parmesan. I'm so glad I did. It was surprisingly light and so delicious. The presentation of mine was not great, but the taste more than made up for that. The entree I selected, upon waitress's recommendation, was Lobster gnocchi. It came with spinach in a creamy red sauce. The sauce had a good flavor, but the gnocchi were very mushy and doughy. I wish they'd been pan-fried for a minute in a skillet to give them some texture. The worst part was the lobster's texture was off and tasted like fake crab. After picking it apart carefully, I'm 100% convinced I was eating fake lobster. So disappointing. Surely this is not what they do for their regular customers? But to charge the max price for restaurant week, I was disappointed. And kind of felt duped that I wasn't told it was fake lobster being billed as real lobster. I'd have most certainly chosen something different if I'd known. My friend had pasta fagioli with mussels or clams (out of the shells) and she let me try it. The clams tasted straight out of a can, almost like those smoked oysters that are small but whole. It was disgusting. My friend saw my face and said she felt the same way and ate around them as best she could.Dessert was wonderful. I got the cheesecake, my friends had tiramisu and limoncello cake. All were wonderful but we all agreed that the cheesecake was the best. Creamy, rich and homemade. Normally, I would give a restaurant another try after Restaurant week, but the switcheroo with the lobster really left a bad impression on me. It was a dirty trick. Next time I'll just go to Aria.

We celebrated my bonus Mom (a.k.a. soul sister) birthday at Dolce Sunday. As you would expect, service was incredible and the food amazing. I'm sorry we didn't get to introduce her to Rita - this was her first visit- but the staff took great care of us, and brought her a fabulous slice of chocolate cheesecake! Stuffed mushrooms and grilled (not fried) fresh, tender calamari for an appetizer. AMAZING crisp, fresh bread with cannellini beans, and robust olive oil and balsamic. Fresh seafood pasta dish with Rita handmade fettuccine (she has been wanting to have that forever), lightly breaded cutlet with arugula in light lemon sauce and broccoli in garlic (like my grandfather used to make), chicken parm again with homemade pasta, and ravioli in bolognese.We tried each other's dishes, I just can't get enough of the chicken cutlet. The breading is so light and crisp, the chicken thin, and tender. Perfectly cooked!The chicken Parmesan cutlet was a little thicker, but just as tender and so flavorful. Can I tell you? The only thing we had leftover to take home was a little bit of broccoli! They said this was the first time they cleaned their plates off, lol! The homemade bread was wonderful, especially dipping it in the creamy sauce from the stuffed mushrooms. Everyone tasted the chocolate cheesecake, it was perfect and I'm picky with my cheesecake because believe it or not, I don't like a dense/heavy cheesecake. This chocolate cheesecake literally melted in your mouth and I want to say the texture was whipped, so light? Just wonderful seriously. Not sure if that was done by Rita's pastry chef, but if so? I think I found my new, annual birthday cake, lol! Cannot wait to go back again and after seeing all the pictures from the pasta making classes? That's on our to do list too! Thank you, Rita and thank you to the wonderful staff at Dolce, we appreciate you so much - you made her first visit, and her birthday, unforgettable (her words, not mine)!

The ambiance is lovely here- perfect for a special date but comfortable & family friendly. In fact, one waiter was seen walking the aisles jostling a customer's baby for her so she could read the menu. Our waiter was Ferdinand & he was a true delight. He was full of helpful information about the menu & good humor to keep us laughing. We were celebrating our son's 26th birthday & he certainly made the occasion memorable for Michael & the rest of us.I almost forgot the amazing food- the reason for our visit! We all got the same thing- a special- so that wasn't smart in terms of sampling & sharing but it was delicious, every bite. Appetizers & salad & wine & bread were all spot-on. We will definitely come back when we are next in town.

I'd never eaten at Dolce before. They used to be just Dolce and have since added "Osteria"...not sure why. I placed a pick up order through the restaurant tonight (Mon, 5/13) for the chicken cutlet dinner. You can see from the photo I posted what it looked like when I got it. NOTHING like the picture on the website. Just a slab of dry chicken cutlet, no garnish, butter sauce on the side - which I'm not sure why it was packaged this way because I did not ask for anything "on the side". And the chicken was so tough I was unable to eat it. I drove 7 miles/20 minutes through heavy Charlotte rush hour traffic - I was so disappointed to find that once I got the meal home, I found the chicken too tough to eat. I even tried different sections of the chicken cutlet, thinking maybe I'd just gotten a particularly tough section. None of it was edible. I called the restaurant and asked to speak with a manager. The woman who answered the phone, I believe her name was Marguerite...? Not sure - I know she had a spanish accent and I believe that was the name. She said she wasn't the manager but she was "the one in charge". She also proceeded to tell me that I would need to bring the meal back TONIGHT in order to get a refund. Here are some other things that she said during my call: "We can't refund a meal unless it's brought back", "We can only refund your money if you bring it back tonight", "You won't be able to speak to the owner/manager because she is Italian and does not speak English" (I'm sorry but this place has been around for 8+ years...I'm not sure I believe the owner doesn't speak enough English to at least chat with me), "We have never gotten any complaints about our food before", and when I challenged her on this she edited her comment to "We have never gotten complaints about this dish". Everything she said to me sounded like a lie. In complete disbelief that this woman was refusing to refund my money based on what I was describing to her, I asked again, politely, if she would just refund the $28 - especially since it was going to be impossible for me to get back in the car and get back there this evening - and she refused - again, insisting that I would need to drive the 20 minutes back to the restaurant tonight in order for her to "decide" whether or not she would refund my meal. I asked if I could come back tomorrow - and she said no, because they were closed on Tuesday - and she said by Wednesday would be too late to get a refund. It was bring the meal back tonight, or nothing. What a scam. I feel utterly shocked and ripped off. In all my years of dining out and getting take out, I can honestly say I have NEVER received this kind of horrific treatment. The fact that this place is still operating with "management" and food like this is beyond belief. I fully expect to hear that this place is closed within the next 6 months. I genuinely hope that the owner does the right thing and reaches out to me - and I hope that the woman that I spoke to on the phone is held accountable. Most restaurants train their personnel on how to handle complaints - and I will say that most places do it very, very well. It would NEVER suit a restaurant to treat a customer in this way - because especially in this climate of super inflated prices - people expect to at least get good food and great service for the high prices they're paying. AND dissatisfied customers can just do what I'm doing now - go online and leave a very bad review. What restaurant would ever want to risk that for $28?

We had a great experience! We visited for restaurant week this year as we haven't visited Dolce before. And honestly for restaurant week it was a fabulous experience! The portion sizes were great, there were an array of options, and the flavors were on point.Boyfriend had: lobster bisque, skirt steak, and limoncello cake.I had: dolce salad (orange dressing is so fresh!), ravioli (I brought some home), and the Godiva mousse.The service was great - folks were attentive, waters were filled, and that says a lot for such a busy time. The space was a bit tight so we were bumping up against the table behind us. For restaurant week I think that's totally fine though because it's super busy and when we left there were multiple parties waiting.Would totally try again another time!

I recently was able to dine at Dolce after more than 15 years and was rather impressed. I don't remember being that impressed 15 years ago, hence why I never returned, but glad I did.The atmosphere is quaint, service is on point and they offer a nice variety of Italian options. Once seated we ordered wine, ordered and received a fresh basket of bread. A variety of dishes were ordered and everyone seemed to enjoy. I had the ravioli which was cooked to perfection.I will definitely keep Dolce in mind when looking for Italian food with a nice atmosphere.

Was scoping out Italian cuisine restaurants in my Yelp app & came across this gem. Made reservations for Saturday night. We were greeted at the door by smiling faces & seated promptly. While we looked over the menu we enjoyed a glass of red wine & an Manhattan from the bar.Even the basket of bread they put on the table was delicious! We had 2 baskets, lol!We got the shrimp diavolo appetizer & ate it up so quickly I forgot to snap a pic. The shrimp: so tender & juicy, the sauce: spicy & flavorfulI ordered the chicken Parm with linguine along with a side of broccoli. The chicken was nice & thin, perfectly cooked & the sauce was perfect. My boyfriend got the seafood pasta dish ( I forgot the name) and he cleaned his plate! He said the sauce was also spicy & he enjoyed every bite of it. I think we found our new favorite Italian restaurant!