Recently, upon their return from traveling through Scotland and the U.K., Alex and Tim decided to drive down and meet everyone for dinner. We hadn’t gotten to see them in a while, and wanted to pick a good place to eat. After much debate (we are lucky to have so many options!), and considering that they had never been to downtown Cincinnati, we finally decided on Via Vite. It’s been a while since Adam and I last ate there (which was also when we reviewed it for Do Downtown Restaurant Week), so we thought it was worth giving them another visit to see if they were still as good as we remembered.

Luckily we were just ahead of rush hour traffic, so our drive from Mason to downtown Cincinnati was only about 20 minutes instead of an hour or more – though from Alex’s constant chirping of ‘Are we there yet?’ you wouldn’t have known it. We were also lucky enough to find an awesome parking space in the Fountain Square garage right below Via Vite.

We were seated almost immediately without reservation, although we did ask to be seated on the patio up on their second floor. It was a cool end-of-summer evening, which is the perfect weather to be eating out on a patio!

For our last stop of Do Downtown’s Restaurant Week we decided to give Via Vite a try. We had been wanting to for quite a while since we had heard so many good things about it, but had yet to find the excuse to spend dinner downtown.

Via Vite is situated right on Fountain Square, directly across the street from Palomino. Their dining area has two floors with outdoor seating avilable on each, and there are plenty of opportunities for a nice view of Fountain Square while you dine.

Our reservation was for 6 p.m. and we were seated in a corner of the lower level by the window. Even in the corner the view wasn’t bad. The enormous windows lining the wall we were seated against made the already open layout of the dining area seem even brighter and more spacious.

Though wine pairings were offered with the prix fixe menu, we decided to stick with water and as the waiter left to get our drinks we looked over our meal options for the evening. The first course was a choice between Insalata Siciliana and Gazpacho, the second was between Ravioli and Scallop Fettuccine and for the final course you had your pick of Tuna with Sicilian Vegetable Caponata or Seared Lamb T-Bone.