I've boycotted Ragazzi restaurant in Grand Cayman for a good few years now after a previous attempt to visit it on my wife's birthday resulted in us being ignored and left standing at the entrance for 10 minutes. Anyway, one of my good friends is leaving the island this weekend so I suggested treating her to a meal at her favourite restaurant – she would choose Ragazzi.
As ever the restaurant was busy – as I've been told, but we did get a table after 10 minutes of loitering at the bar without a seat and dodging the waiters and waitresses.
So for starters out of a choice of around 10 items I played safe with the capresse on avery large plate – Fresh mozzarella, vine ripened tomatoes, basil, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, which thankfully you can't really go wrong with, and on this occasion the salad was indeed lovely if slightly diminished by the amount of plate.
Anytime I visit an Italian resturant for the first time I like to try their pizzas to see whether they'll knock Dominos off my "best pizza in cayman" list. Tonight I ordered a Diavola (read spicy pepperoni) pizza which was thin based and around 10" wide. It was nice but nothing to write home about for CI16.
Will I be back? Maybe in a few years.
Total Bill: CI$81
Contact details for Ragazzi Grand Cayman
Buckingham Square
West Bay Road
Grand Cayman
Cayman Islands
Phone: 945 3484
web: http://www.ragazzi.ky
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I'm in two minds about La Dolce Vita Restaurant here in Grand Cayman. On the one hand i think it's simply the best Italian restaurant here in the Cayman Islands, and on the other hand I just can't handle the staff!
For the last three weeks we've driven to La Dolce Vita to be welcomed by closed doors and those outside white drapes/curtains that love to fly with the wind over the balcony – however on this beautiful Thursday evening the restaurant was actually open 
I so love restaurants that ask whether you have a reservation when there's only one table occupied with 4 people in the whole place. So where were we seated? you guessed - the small two seater table next to the toilet.
Now on the plus side the food is delicious.
There's lovely large slices of "homemade bread" offered in a small basket as you're waiting for your starter and the huge bottles of Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar just tempt you to try them.
We had mozzarella, Tomato and Basil salad to start which like most places in Cayman means one tomato (sliced), one buffalo mozzarella "ball" (sliced) and a sprinkling of basil leaves on a HUGE white plate.
For the main I opted for their salami/pepperoni pizza which I consider to be the best "sit-in" pizza on the island – Domino's is the best "take-away". I can tell a homemade/restaurant made pizza by the time it takes to arrive – if Mr frozen pizza was merely thrown into an oven it would have taken less time. Now I'm not saying the pizza took and hour – it took around 20 minutes – and was mouth wateringly tasty ! The whole reason I kept coming back to La Dolce Vita these last weeks was to devour one of these bad boys!
For dessert tonight I was lucky enough to find profiteroles on their "special" menu. Four large Choux Pastry balls stuffed with cream – now that's how to end the night!
Total cost for 2 was CI$52 ( 2 starters, 1 main, 1 dessert & 3 diet cokes)
So what's up with the staff then? Maybe asking "do you have a reservation" when there's an empty restaurant just rubs me up the wrong way; maybe taking 5 minutes to bring a diet coke from the bar when there's one other table occupied tries my patience or maybe it's ignoring me a few times… anyway.
So will I be back? Yes – purely for the lovely pizza. Will I have a reservation next time? no!
Contact Details:
La Dolce Vita Restaurant
147 North Church St
George Town
Grand Cayman
Tel:946-7678
web: www.dolcevita.ky