What a pleasant surprise! Coming to 7 mile island since 1963 and last night was our first visit. Service by Joya was excellent! Food was outstanding!!! Recommend the mussels app. They even have gluten free pasta! Love this place! read more

La Vecchia Fontana - Chicken Piccata - Italian Near Me - Avalon, New Jersey

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Great Italian food, but absolutely THE WORST customer service I have ever seen at any restaurant in my entire life. They do not have a receptionist, so even if you are on time for a reservation, they may not seat you for a good 15-30 minutes. We ordered takeout one time and they told us it would be a 30-40 minute wait for our food. It ended up being an hour and 30 minutes. Do not recommend ever going here unless you like waiting extended periods of time for any type of normal customer service. read more

We had a reservation for 11 people on Sat Sept 22. They were so understaffed and overwhelmed with the crowd. It took two hours to get our meals! My chicken piccata was definitely missing something. It was quite bland. The room is so overcrowded with the tables that no one can even move around! Not sure where the management was but the lack of service and employees was so evident. Will not go back. read more

We saw an add that they have 20% off your meal if you sit before 5:30pm and mention it so we did that. I saw the bill cause I took my coworkers out to eat they did not honor the add when I mentioned it and just to add I took the server somewhere private and I was calm but he did not like that got offensive and told me to lower my voice. I took my friends and we left tried to speak to the manager the next day and he hangs up on me twice so now we are on a dispute with my bank. When you offer you should honor it and respect your elders never going back. This place is over rated their service was horrible food is over priced for being box pasta and frozen sea food no side dishes like salad or soup we had to ask for everything had a man called mike not sure if his name is right and he acted like a snob came to our table reading the specials from a phone when asked prices he just ignored my friends and kept reading so fast we had to ask him to repeat it and slow down. My friend that I took to dinner was between 70 and the oldest was 91 years old and it was six, and me make it seven so he was already getting annoyed no patience for the elderly. We spilt the table so I had a check and the other couple insisted in paying their check so they did not honor the 20% discount on both bills. This is not about the price of the bill when the house I'm staying cost $3500.00 for just one week so 170.00 dollar check is nothing this is about offering a service and not respecting your guest or honoring your discounts. When we got to the house we just laughed it off and made jokes about it playing sequence the board game so we did not let ruin our day. read more

Food is expensive and the service is pretty overrated. Came in last night to find three people working a total of thirty tables with no manager in sight. The staff was overworked and it showed. Our waiter was hosting, serving, and busing. For all I know, he was cooking as well. The interior was not following health department guidelines for seating. read more

Don't ever go to this restaurant. While their food is good they run a terrible business. Over the last two summers I've had three reservations there and I've had to wait up to an hour with two of them and never got seated on the third. We had an 8:30 reservation and gave up at 9:40, still in the lobby with many others. They play the same game at la Fontana Coastal in Sea Isle City. STAY AWAY FROM BOTH! read more

EVERYTHING IS WRONG WITH THIS PLACE!!!!! where do I start?! There are no soft drinks, and the water tasted and smelled strange. The waitress argued with us and tried to defend herself after messing up our order. The place was tiny and insanely loud. It was also strangely in a condo complex. The bread was cold, the risotto was microwave, and the pasta had randome chili peppers in it. The service was awful. We walked in and we were asked "what type of water, tap or sparkling", because that was the only choice of drinks. If you chose to ask for bread or water, the staff would give you a dirty look. It was also WILDLY overpriced. Don't even waste you time here. GO ELSEWHERE! If I could put negative amounts of stars, I would. read more

As always, a really nice meal- couple of nice salads, shared a fantastic capellini positano, couple of veal chops, salmon etc. everything is great but their pasta is really superb. They set up n the parking lot which gave us plenty of room and fresh air. Good service like having dinner at friends except those friends can cook! read more

We had a wonderful meal there this evening. The service was very attentive. I had the special crab and shrimp ravioli and my husband had the veal rolitini with shrimp and pea risotto. We finished with pistachio gelato and a cannoli. We shall return! read more

Went here for their fixed price New Years Eve dinner. What a stellar find. Not only was the food absolutely delicious (every course better than the last) the service was excellent as well. The whole family was stuffed (in a good way) by the time we left. Favorites included the smoked salmon salad, and the butternut squash ravioli. With each course there were wine pairings, and the whole placed was packed with families and friends. Not much is open in Avalon in the winter, but you would not have known by this place. The chef came out to greet EVERY table as well. I had only heard good things about the quality of the food here, but actually experiencing it is a whole different story. If you are looking for a restaurant with QUALITY food, go here, the atmosphere/decor is so so, and it is BYO (like most establishments in AV), but it's north end location is great for those who want to walk to dinner instead of drive south to where most of the restaurants are located. read more

La Vecchia Fontana continues the tradition of its restaurants in Strathmere, Sea Isle & Philadelphia. Great decor. Excellent food.

Another fantastic meal with the family. Best restaurant in Avalon. The chicken and veal parm are very good and flounder was excellent. BYOB and great food! read more

If I could rate this restaurant -10 I would. We had a reservation and arrived to start a nice meal. A few members of the party went to use the bathroom. It was "out of order!" Everything went downhill from there...including the conversation that took place with the manager. I believe the quote was "If you don't want your food I'll call you an uber." To the disrespectful boy/"manager"...Get it together! You have no bathroom and you should be accommodating and more forthright. End of story. read more

Food was great, I ordered the shrimp scampi and my boyfriend got the risotto. We shared clams and fried calamari for an appetizer. However, the service was not great. We ate on Memorial Day and they were extremely understaffed, especially for the holiday. There were only four other tables in there (none of them big). We waited at the hostess stand for ten minutes before walking over and asking if we should seat ourselves. We saw another couple experience the same issue. Our server did not come over for another ten minutes, and we did not receive menus until we asked for them. We also had to ask for rolls and waters. Pretty disappointing experience, given the food was so great. For the price and the service, I would not go back. read more

Very nice but ran out of delicious bread the service was adequate I would go again in the future if someone wanted to gi

We had a lovely dinner here last night. My husband had the gnocchi which was freshly homemade, light, delicious. I had the penne with shrimp, seasoned very well, sauce not too heavy. Both were served piping hot. We enjoyed house salads and the olive oil served with the bread was noticeably tasty. Make reservations as this place fills up fast. A welcome addition to Avalon dining! read more

Worst dining experience ever. No one was posted at the hostess station and when I walked in to ask how to check in, a waiter rudely told us to wait in the lobby. We waited with others in the lobby and were ignored for 15 min. Waiters only stopped to close the restaurant door which stayed open when people left and they kept closing it with annoyance. We waited 50 min to get sodas. We couldn't stop laughing over how bad the service was. It was that or get mad and we preferred to make it a game. The waitress admitted she forgot the drinks and promised to bring them. After 3 or 4 times, we finally asked a bus girl to bring the drinks and she did. Our waitress was very chatty with most tables except us. She seemed to go out of her way to ignore us, only stopping by when we flagged her down to make excuses about how she couldn't wait for the night to be over because they were so crazy busy and understaffed. To be fair, they only had 3 servers and a bus girl waiting on a packed restaurant. But she was staying far away from us. My friend actually tried to ask her if we offended her somehow. The entrees came 65 min after we were seated. The food was overpriced for what we were served but the manager took my friends meal off the bill after I asked since, she didn't eat it. The waitress asked what was wrong with it and left it on the bill. The manager was nice. If I'd known he was the manager I would have spoken to him earlier. Never going back. Food wasn't good enough for the wait. read more

We had a reservation for dinner last evening (Sat.). We arrived on time. We waited 1 1/2 hours before getting to out table. Very disappointed. Further disappointed that no Management was evident. Wait staff did the best they could. No waiting area other than a dark lobby. Many other people like us. Will never go back again and will discourage anyone from going there read more

I wish I could give ZERO stars We dined here on August 25, 2018... probably the worst restaurant experience I have ever had... we made the 8:00 pm reservation 10 days advance for 6 and arrive 5 minutes early.. they sat us at a table that would have been cramped for 4, clearly not capable of handling 6... Waiter "Fiz" opened our wine and broke the cork... he just left the wine on the table... when we asked him to work on the cork/wine he became annoyed and stomped into the kitchen...returning with wine in a carafe (but who knows if it was our wine?) We ordered at 8:15 and then our waiter "Fiz" disappeared... 70 minutes later we flagged down another server and asked about our meals... all the other tables around us had been served, even those who arrived 30 minutes after us... the servers claimed we were next.. "Fiz" then reappeared and barked that he was now call king our meals.. no apology he seemed aggravated that we were asking... they then delivered our meals one at a time over the next 10-15 minutes.. the meals were thrown on the plates and seemed sparse and small (almost last me they did not have enough food)... my order was chicken Milanese and was 4 fried chicken strips with dry arugula salad thrown on top.. they delivered the bill, made no excuses and did not stay to hear anything we might say... they did not offer any discount (they did not even offer us a dessert menu or dessert option). The meals were expensive and the experience was remarkably bad! This restaurant is poorly run and they do not care about customers, customer reviews nor satisfaction of a visit... they don't care and diners should beware!! read more

The food was actually good. My one star rating is related to the service and portion size. My family (5) were the first customers in the restaurant. Our server was very rude and not accommodating to us in the least. We asked for vodka sauce (which is on the menu) on the ravioli instead of red, but were told "there are no substitutions"...yes, on the sauce. We asked for a recommendation between 2 dishes, and were told "it is up to you". We were given 3 small pieces of bread, so we asked for more. We were told "we are running out of bread". At this point, there was 1 other table of people in the restaurant. I asked 2 more times and finally got more bread, but it was clearly an inconvenience. I ordered the spaghetti and the ravioli, and the portion sizes were more proportionate to a children's portion than an adult portion. For the price, they could do way better. So food was good, experience was awful. We will not be dining there again. read more

We went late in the summer, but the service was good. The food is pretty much the same as the Sea Isle restaurant, only a few dollars more. The atmosphere is kind of off as it is a small space located in the lobby of a condo complex. So, our view was overlooking a reception counter with mailboxes behind it. The food was good as the other locations but ypu can't possibly score as high since the prices are higher with a lessor location. read more

Listen I'm going to be brief, would not recommend this place. Service was very slow and food was mediocre. My whole family was crammed in a corner, very claustrophobic and loud. read more

My favorite Italian restaurant, hands down. Have eaten here no less than 10 times since they've opened. Yes, sometimes service is slow, but that is to be expected during prime summer months. Food is impeccable. Never had a bad meal here. Have been here with parties of 2 to parties of 14. Everything is always delicious. If service has been slow, we have been given free desserts or something if the like. I am so surprised to see so many negative reviews. My number one choice in Avalon. read more

We arrived for our 7:45PM reservation on Saturday evening anticipating another outstanding dining experience. We were accompanied by friends from out of town to celebrate my wife's birthday. I noted at the hostess desk that we were the next party of four to be seated with three groups after ours with later reservations. We were told ten minutes while they setup our table. We watch group after group get seated. At 8:15 the host assured us we would be seated next. I note on their schedule they have seated parties of four with reservations after ours. The host does not return until I ask for the manager since he was busy trying to find two chairs for the table which I suppose would have been ours. At 8:30 we decide to leave due to the poor service and lack of responsiveness to our treatment. I inform the manager that we will never return due to the poor service. read more

We dined at La Vecchia Fontana twice while staying two blocks away on the northern edge of Avalon. Terrific chef, both dining experiences were excellent. Last night four of us enjoyed the ravioli special, the flounder with angel hair pasta, and the veal marsala. Will definitely make this a regular dining stop when we vacation again in Avalon. read more

We just had dinner at this restaurant. Some of the entrees were cold & undercooked for our party of 8. The sauce was gelatinous on a chicken dish. The gnocchi was mealy and tasteless. The Brussels sprouts were hard and inedible. We asked the hostess to see the manager, he never came out to our table. The special fish dish of the night was Mahi-Mahi with crabmeat. It was ok but was $42.00 when we got the check when the rest of the entrees on the menu averaged in the mid twenty dollar range. Don't waste your money on this over priced restaurant serving sub par quality food with marginal service. read more

Never order specials nor desserts; ice cream is $11, unpublished. The specials are twice the price of the advertised meals. There is something unsavory about this kind of business practice. It's modest surroundings (they park their refrigerator truck in the street; why do the neighbors tolerate it?) belie the giant bill you will receive. Hardly a recipe for loyal following. read more

Overpriced. Waiter not friendly. Asked for more sauce for my dried out lobster ravioli and he brought me out a side of soup?? BYOB and it still cost us $65pp. Won't be going back read more

the worse restaurant in all of Avalon. they are opening another location in town and all of us living in Avalon should stay away. we received terrible service and the help is rude. I am going to tell everyone I know about our experience at this place. hopefully they will not be in business much longer. read more