Enoteca Vespaio

Great food and service. Had meatballs appetizer. Fantastic. Also delicious prosciutto pizza. Nice vibe.

They are frequently busy but for good reason. The lunch and pastries are flavorful and classic. The coffee is amazing and great atmosphere, so it’s a great place to take a load off after a busy day walking around.

This was the worst Italian restaurant I have ever been to. We started off with the Suppli which you couldn’t taste the risotto. All I could taste was batter and melted cheese. I ordered the gnocchi arrabbiata and that was the worst gnocchi I have ever tasted. It was over cooked and mushy. The seasoning was not there. There was no spice or heat to it. I took three bites and couldn’t eat anymore of it. When I asked the waiter about it, he said that’s how it’s suppose to be. I’ve cooked and eaten gnocchi over 20 times and I can tell you that the gnocchi served was not cooked properly. It was obvious that I did not eat my food or enjoyed it but he didn’t seem to care. Horrible server.
My friend ordered the spaghetti carbonara and she said there was too much sauce and it was overly seasoned.
Regardless I still paid for it. $ 14 for three bites of gnocchi. Wow. Oh and we waited for almost an hour for our food. We never complained because I hate being those people who complain about everything. It was horrible. Don’t even bother going here. It’s not worth to ruin your taste buds. Olive Garden is even better than here.
I’m now sick to my stomach after eating here.

Enoteca has been a good staple in the past but tonight it fell flat. It’s also been a few years since we have been. Ordered the daily special stuffed Berkshire pork chop and spaghetti carbonara to share with my husband. Carbonara was bland and they committed the ultimate cardinal sin by using angel hair pasta. Furthermore, the pasta was over cooked and mushy. Pork chop had well executed succotash and fried potatoes as the side dish. The pork chop itself was not well seared, lacked texture and was also very bland. Likely won’t return again.

Ok. So you pay $ 12 for a meatball sandwich. The sandwich is half the size of what you get in other higher end Italian restaurants. And it does not come with any sides. I think it’s fine to charge more for better quality food but this is ridiculous. The owners should take a trip to Café Milano, Carmelo’s, Frank and Angie’s and then ask themselves if their prices make sense.

Delicious, eclectic, great service. A must for foodies. Spaghetti Carbonara and the manicotti are a must!
Waiter gave me a list of other great restaurants, coffee, and things to do in Austin. It always Paris to talk to the locals and get recommendations.

Portion sizes are plentiful. You definitely get what you pay for. Service was amazing! The food was delicious. Atmosphere was really nice as well. All around solid restaurant. Just a tad bit on the expensive side but well worth the money.

A cozy place to visit for dinner, with some good lobster ravioli and margherita. Girlfriend loves this place, and we frequent it every month.
Outside seating is the deal! Might help to reserve since it’s a pretty small place with a limited number of tables.
Service is a 10/​10, in all my visits — the waitresses were extremely nice and warm.

This is probably the longest time I waited for me to get a sandwich! Not a wonderful sandwich no only a prosciutto sandwich with arugula inside. The waiter was just waiting for his tips and wasn’t doing anything to help us. He told us at the beginning it will take between 20 – 25 minutes to come. After 40 minutes I am still waiting and writing this note for
You to make sure that you are well prepared to wait for your food.

Try Enoteca Vespaio, little brother to next door upscale Vespaio. A group of 6 of us initially tried to go to the latter on a Friday night but were disappointed to learn of the 45 minute wait. We tried Enoteca next door and were immediately able to be seated on the outdoor side patio. I split a chopped salad with my wife and had the veal ravioli and both were nice. Service was very knowledgeable and accommodating; we had several custom orders in our group and a glass of wine that wasn’t to our liking and our server handled it well.
According to our waiter, the only difference between this place and next-​door Vespaio is the wood-​fired oven in the back. Both restaurants order food items together for a bulk discount and the kitchens are connected. However, only Vespaio gets the giant oven so if you’re craving a wood-​fired pizza or steak you know where to go. Enoteca still has pizzas, but they aren’t wood-​fired.
The other notable thing about Enoteca is the contrast between the inside and outside. Inside the restaurant it’s dark, sparsely occupied, and rather plain. Outside was a completely full and well-​lit patio. On a soft summer night I challenge you to find a better spot to take in South Congress. Dogs are allowed on the patio (whatever). Two areas for improvement would some ivy on the patio wall and some soft Italian mood music.

Really cute, super Italian place. Friendly service and a decent amount of choices on the menu. I had the pizza, of course, but my friends had the pasta with mushrooms (forgot what it was called) and it looked delicious. Their coffee is wonderful, too, and you have to try the Italian wedding cookies!!!
They have indoor seating, which can get a little cramped, but also offer patio seating which is really nice.

4 Star Breakdown:
+1 Star for the service, ambiance, and all other food items
+3 Stars for the Suppli appetizer

Love love love this place! We were visiting from New York and I thought this was some of the best Italian food I’ve had. Right next door is vespaio which is a little fancier than this place and the menu is slightly different. This place is pretty casual, but very charming and family friendly. The staff is super nice. If you just want dessert to go, they have a counter for to go dessert and coffee.
We started with the supplis which are fried balls of risotto with fontina cheese in marinara sauce. INCREDIBLE. It is served with four balls. These are perfectly done and so delicious. Next I got a margarita pizza, also very good and enough to take some home. And we got the pappardelle bolognese (the homemade pasta was awesome!!!). The bolognese was beef and veal.
I would recommend this place a million times over. Loved it! Also, they have a private parking lot so no need to worry about street parking.

What a sweet little place. Loved the ambiance– fantastic service and wonderful food. We had lunch– parsnip soup to die for — a tasty side –beet salad with fennel and a small pizza of the day — lovely crust with interesting and unique toppings.

Decided to have valentines dinner with my husbands siblings this year! So we picked this place hearing that it was good. Service was HORRIBLE! I don’t know if because we were a group of 5 very casually dressed they thought we were unable to afford eating here, but that was beyond the case. We are all in our 30s myself being married and pregnant with my husband and then his two sisters and one of his sisters boyfriend. We had to ask to finally take our order, ask for refills, ask for our checks and then finally after waiting 30mins I walked the checks in myself to pay. You should NEVER judge a group by their looks. We will NEVER BE BACK!!!

This is just my absolute favorite restaurant in Austin. I’ve been there 20+ times for brunch, lunch, and dinner. Only once or twice was the pasta less than perfect (but still pretty good.) Everything is so tasty and made from scratch.
My favorite things to get are the Suppli, the Melanzana & Zucchini, and the Margherita pizza. So good! For brunch I always stick with the Frittella pancakes, eggs, and their caramelized onion-​yukon gold potatoes. Great ambience at all times. I love this place!
Vespaio definitely reminds me of authentic Italian pasta. Once I tried this amazing Pear Ravioli in Florence and I always hope to see it as a special on Vespaio’s menu because I think they are the only restaurant in Austin who could do that dish justice. So if anyone important reads this, please consider my request!

Brought the girlfriend in here for a nice little lunch date, and what a horrible choice it was.
We had the calamari as an appetizer. All I can say is frozen, rubbery, and the breading fell completely off. I know I’m in the middle of Austin TX but the breading could at least been better. For main entrees I had a panini and my girlfriend had the spaghetti. The prosciutto panini’s presentation was abysmal at best, and the taste was adequate but over priced. The spaghetti’s presentation was the only thing going for the dish. The spaghetti was completely over salted with large chunks of uncooked garlic in it and the «garlic bread» or toast or whatever bread came with the dish was over toasted and stale.
As for the service, I would like to give the benefit of the doubt that the servers are busy or in a bad mood. Regardless you don’t toss the check on to a table.
Would I eat here again? Never. Why didn’t I give the place a 1 star? Because the atmosphere was vibrant and lively and partially made up for everything that went wrong.

We had a 5 star experience on our first visit to Enoteca Vespaio — great food, excellent service, all around great experience.
We went in around 9 on a Tuesday night. The restaurant was fairly empty and we were seated immediately. The restaurant is pretty casual and has a nice feel. Definitely not a fancy place. They have a very nice wine Italian wine selection, not huge but a good range of options. I ordered a glass of Barbera wine. It was excellent.
At our waiter’s suggestion, we ordered the rigatoni polpette, melanzane & zucchini, and a pizzeta that was on the specials menu. They were all excellent and interesting dishes. The rigatoni is a large bowl of polpette (meatballs) and rigatoni pasta in a marinara sauce, covered with mozzarella that has been melted by baking the dish. Our waitress, Jessie, called it a ‘man’s dish’ and she was right. It has about 6 meatballs that are very moist and flavorful. The menu says the dish has arrabiata, which refers to an Italian spiced marinara sauce. The sauce on this dish has a slightly spicy flavor that really complements the pork meatballs. Wow, this was a great dish and a lot of food. I ended up taking 3 meatballs and some pasta home with me.
The melanzane & zuchhini was also excellent. The menu describes the dish as ‘crispy eggplant & zucchini w/​arrabiata & melted fresh mozzarella served w/​spaghetti aglio olio’. The ‘crispy’ part comes from a nice coating on the eggplant (melanzane) that is lightly fried. This is not the often overdone, heavy breading that comes on eggplant dishes at many Austin Italian restaurants. The eggplant and zucchini are layered in a pile that’s covered with melted mozzarella. Wow, was it good. The spaghetti agli olio was heavy on the garlic, which was great and really complemented the stack of veggies. Another great dish.
My daughter got the pizza special that had veal sausage, carmelized onions, apples and mozzarella. Another great dish. The crust is Neapolitan style, so thin and crispy, yet still chewy. A really nice combination of sweet and salty.
Even though we were full, we decided we had to try dessert. There is a dessert case at the entrance to the restaurant that draws you in to some amazing options. We decided to go for some lighter options — tira misu, lemon panna cotta and a polenta cookie. The thing I like about Italian desserts is they are not quite so heavy and sweet as other pastries and desserts. The options we chose did not disappoint. All were excellent and we cleaned our plates.
For all this goodness, we spent about $ 75 plus tip. It was so worth it. In addition to all the great food, our waitress, Jessie, was great. All her suggestions were spot on. And the overall service was great. We will definitely go back to Enoteca Vespaio again… and again and again!

Decent restaurant. Slow service, though. The bakery has great treats. They need more beer selections.
Too many tiny tables that don’t leave room for food. And, it is very difficult to get a table for more than two people. That being said, the abundance of tinybtables does add a bit of a romantic air to the restaurant.

I’m on a new quest to find decent Italian food in Austin, and thus far have been thoroughly disappointed. Vespaio Enoteca has given me hope that good Italian food does exist here. It wasn’t perfect, but it was darn good. The quattro formaggi pizza was very tasty and the zucchini fritti was excellent. The tagliatelle con funghi was just ok, didn’t find it very flavorful. We took some Italian cream cake home for dessert and it did not disappoint. We will definitely be back.

I’ll admit that I’m not a connoisseur when it comes to Italian food, so it doesn’t take much to impress me. An afternoon spent at Olive Garden with an old favorite and plenty of breadsticks usually does the trick, but since I moved to Austin just over two years ago, I’ve tried to step up my game and reach for authenticity when I go out.
A friend and I had dinner here on Friday night, and I can’t wait to go back for brunch or dinner in the near future. The wine list was both extensive and reasonably-​priced. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a decent wine list that had more than a handful of selections, and the fact that the menu points identifies the regions each wine originates from is a really nice touch. I wish more places were this detailed with their wine lists! Enoteca is not a high-​end restaurant, but it provides a high-​end quality that anyone can appreciate.
The food was fantastic, particularly the Caprese salad. If I could marry this salad, I would. The herbs, the seasoning, and mozzarella they used were outstanding. Maybe this cheese lover is a little biased, but I really happy with my selection upon the first bite. The buddy and I actually split the salad, and there was more than enough for two people.
We also ordered two glasses of Prosecco split the linguine mare (the Prosecco was a server suggestion and complemented it well), and I wish there had been a little more seafood to be enjoyed. The fact that we split it had nothing to with it, as there was more than enough linguine, they just kind of skimped on it. So not the business, but it was still tasty.
We finished the meal by splitting the chocolate mousse, which was divine. I wish it they had used dark chocolate, as it would have given it more flavor, but it was fine as is. It’s a little rich, as you might expect, so sharing might be the way to go.
The service was the only disappointment. The hostess, despite seeing that fact that we had a seven-​pound Yorkie with us when we arrived, tried to say that there weren’t any patio tables available. This was a knee-​jerk response, and there was no effort made to actually see if anything was available. We pointed out that we had seen an empty one on our way in, and asked if she could have it cleaned. She snottily obliged, and her demeanor was quickly forgotten as a passing chef played with the dog as we waited to be seated.
My friend lives nearby and is a regular at this place, so she was happy when she saw who our server was, saying that she was the best waitress in Austin. Or at least she was until the girl spoke. No sooner had we sat down than we were asked what we wanted to drink. I’ve lived here two years, and I’m still not used to the hurried pace of Austin’s customer service. I’m from Dallas, where manners and customer service are king, and it’s still an adjustment for me. The girl wasn’t rude, but she wasn’t overly attentive or friendly. Granted, it was near the end of the night (why do Austin restaurants shut down at 10 on weekends?!), but she could have been better about the service she provided.
Overall, I enjoyed the food and the company, and look forward to trying it again. I just hope that the service will improve during my next visit.

I recently went here for my birthday dinner so it marked my second appearance at the restaurant. I can now say that I have so much love for this place! I love the atmosphere and quaint feel of this restaurant.
The spaghettini con polpette is to die for if you’re wanting that veal and wonderful tomato sauce. Be warned, the portions are large! I could barely finish my meal… Makes for wonderful leftovers though!
Walk-​ins are preferable, outside patio is wonderful when it isn’t 100 degrees outside, food is fabulous, wine can be hit and miss (definitely do a bit of tasting if you’re picky), and food is a winner every time!

First off, I wish I could give a place 4.5 stars.
The food was delicious and I left feeling very full. My qualms are with the interior. It just felt so cramped to me. However, there was parking in the rear which is pretty convenient so that makes up for the cramped interior.
Back to the food, It was delicious! I mean it, my fiancé had the Rigatoni Con Polpette and loved it. I had some and it was honestly very good. I had the special rabbit dish and it was equally delicious. We had a hard time deciding what to get since everything on the menu looked appetizing. That is not a bad problem to have.

This is our fifth time here after randomly trying it. The capachinos are the best around. We have only tried coffee and deserts but the dinner menu is very large. The chocolate hazelnut cake is amazing. Macaroons and chocolate moose are also great. We always recommend getting coffee and deserts to all our friends.