Trattoria Viviano

I ate dinner here the other night with a family member. The ambiance was nice, the staff seemed friendly and professional. The bread served was ok, not great not bad. the menu was very nice and seemed fancy, which was fine with me but the person I was with just wanted a simple Italian dish like veal parmisean or pasta with meatballs. The chef did make veal parmisean but my companion hated it and thought it was a frozen veal cutlet. The meal took longer than I thought it should but that may have been because of the special order. I ordered the short ribs lasagna and thought it tasted very good. I could not tell the great difference between short rib lasagna and regular meatball or sausage lasagna. The sauce was excellent and delicious. I thought the portion was very small and should have came with salad instead of having to order it separately. The waiter service was good.
My opinion of this place is that it is very good, not great. The portions are small, the menu pricey. The chef is talented, but for the price, there are better Italian restaurants.
TIP: If you go to this place examine the menu and decide what you want to eat before sitting down. If you bring a picky eater with you, they may not like it.

Outstanding! Go if you get the chance. Great atmosphere, service and food. Quaint historic building with wonderful fresh food.

We saw the menu posted on the outside of the building and thought ok, let’s try this.
None of the four items we wanted were available because the sous chef was not working, so the executive chef decided to cut the menu way down, as per conversation with our waitress.
I should had listened to that little voice in my head saying «time to go somewhere else»!!
Dinner took exceptionally long, even though there were only four other tables.
The waitress was very nice and apologized.
Food was bland and boring. Except for the veggies on the plate which tasted like they had turned bad.
Two and a half hours is a little crazy for tasteless Cod and Rigatoni Bolognese.

Went out for a girls night and happened to stumble upon this wonderful place. The wait staff was attentive and made some amazing recommendations. From start to finish the food did not disappoint, each course gave amazing authentic Italian favors that reminded me of my grandmothers cooking. The family that owns the restaurant is family oriented and it shows in the food that they place in front of you. I highly recommend this place and will be coming back for any occasion.

Long time Warwick resident
Two visits several years apart
First shared w another couple in 2012
Meal spoiled by a waiter who was annoyed having to repeat the specials and would not take two CCs to split the check
Second visit 2016 Valentine’s Day just the two of us
Food and wait staff good
Lady owner at reservation desk has a puss for everyone
Couple at next table very upset at long wait
Would not go out of my way Needs to be more customer friendly

Great Food & Service! We were so pleasantly surprised to find this gem of a place. Being from out of town to attend a funeral service we wanted a nice place to dine. Do Not Pay Attention to any negative reviews found here. This place is 5 Stars! Thank you.

Warwick is a lucky town to have so many options for Italian food. I have my personal favorites for pizza-​by-​the-​slice kinda’ places and I’m sure you do too. Of course, there’s ‘red sauce’ Italian that some folks might otherwise refer to as ‘gravy’ which has been adopted to become the (extra) cheese & (extra) red sauce combination affectionately known as a la parmiagana — where there is seemingly an expectation by many patrons for a ‘free’ plate of pasta to accompany every family-​style entrée. Then you also have those places that may serve two or three dishes with tomato sauce and are more apt to also serve food demonstrating the breadth and diversity of more refined Italian cuisine from a chef with some skills — like Trattoria Viviano’s.
[The movie ‘Big Night’ with Stanley Tucci, Tony Shalhoub, Minnie Driver, Isabella Rossellini, etc. is a lovely ‘date nite’ film and depicts the over red-​sauced versus more refined Italian food in amusing fashion. This is a film/​movie for any self-​described ‘foodie’.]
Located on Main Street, across from the hospital and about next to the Post Office is this stand alone building, Viviano’s is an established and well-​respected restaurant where, for most patrons and their families, it is the pricey place that might best be enjoyed for ‘special occasions’ if that occasion includes Italian cuisine (and gentlemen are not required to wear a jacket). No matter how you slice it, the food places Viviano’s amongst the ‘Best in Warwick’.
Like most local fine dining places, Service is the weak link. The most egregious problem which we have experienced all too frequently is when a new waiter/​server just does not know the menu and offers descriptions without knowledge of the food. It’s true of most any food service business, but some folks might consider this to be a bigger problem when a $ 20 (+/​-​) pasta & $ 28 (+/​-​) main courses at Viviano’s are just being verbally described incorrectly. The Owner, unfortunately, does not seem to have the gravitas to help the team overcome their service shortcomings by being a noticeable manager ‘working’ the dining room. I could nitpick more about service, but nothing else has prevented us from returning 7 – 9 times a year.
Be prepared to take a bit longer to complete your meal because food of this calibre does take time to prepare. Now the food begins. Bread basket arrives with a few delicate squares of focaccia bread (that many would think resembles a smaller version of the ‘Sicilian’ square-​slices in your local pizzeria); there will also be some hearty, and yet quite ordinary, slices of a long loaf bread to consume along with the chopped onion and tomato mixture to make your own table-​side version of a bruschetta. Take your time — the food from the kitchen will too. To mitigate some of the pressure that is on the dining room staff when a kitchen is known to be slow’ish, they offer an intermezzo of lemon sorbet that gives a few more minutes for food preparation and the patrons a sense of fine dining value between savory courses.
We’ve been going here for so long that we always expect to see some of the same menu items, but also expect that some of the presentations of produce will change with the seasons. It’s easy to skip over the Appetizers since we often skip over the appetizers when eating here. If we do start with something, it’s going to be a seasonal special or personal favorite. Maybe we split some pasta or just have an antipasto plate with sliced meat & cheese to accompany the wine; you could easily substitute a few meatballs and/​or enjoy from a selection of salads.
Entrée options will always include braised meat on bones like lamb shank or osso bucco served with a bit of risotto (rice) or pasta — all are a reasonable amount of food. Similarly, you can also expect to see traditional pasta presentations like lasagna served with the classic bechamel (white sauce), top-​notch spaghetti dishes can be garnished with anything from clams to eggplant, and our favorite ravioli of veal served with prosciutto & peas arrives with a perfect amount of butter and sage sauce (butter distinguishes Northern Italian cuisine from the olive oil-​centric Southern Italy).
More plainly, the portions will likely not make you need to open a belt loop or grab for ‘statin’ medication — there is no enabling of overeating copious portions of bread & pasta carbohydrates accompanying a corresponding portion of cheese covered fried meat. Maybe that’s the distinction — when you finish your plate of food, there will not be a cup of sauce left at the bottom of your plate.
After a big meal, it is sometimes difficult to have enough room in your belly to enjoy dessert, but the Italian ‘affogato’ of espresso covered ice cream is a treat for coffee lovers like us — and that slides right down. Desserts can also include a simple cannoli, cheese cake, and a list of fun flavors that will include something with chocolate.
Minus 1-​Star for spotty service. 4-​stars.

White linen tablecloths. Wait staff was friendly enough although the waiter wasn’t very happy, seemed like. Food was good. Lamb Chop wrapped in bacon for app, Seafood Risotto and Hangar Steak for entrees. Little pricy, but OK.

Wonderful food great ambiance wine selection is good. Unfortunately the wait staff is up to par. The food never lets you down I only wish they would train wait staff better.

This is an excellent Italian restaurant. The food was tasteful and artfully presented, I liked the décor with exposed brick and small intimate rooms and the service was cordial and welcoming.
We were very hesitant to go here with several bad reviews, but the photos on the website and the broad menu gave us hope. We were very glad we took the chance!

Had a great experience. First time we eat here and there were four of us. Everything was perfect, the drinks were well made, the food was delicious and the service was spot on (thank you Kayla). Looking forward to our next visit.

Ok, so the place was cute and intimate. Older crowd on a Saturday night. We were seated right away which was fine and from there it was pretty much downhill. Service was really bad, polite, but really bad. We never received water or bread and had to ask for both. The Italian bread was not very good but the tomato bruchetta made it better. So, two appetizers were ordered and they eventually came out and were TINY! Very tasty but so small which was a shame. Small portions and very overpriced. For dinner, most of us ordered the special hanger steak and someone ordered chicken parm and we had a risotto as well. They said the chicken parm and risotto was excellent but I thought my steak was just OK. There was nothing food-​wize that came close to blowing us away. We almost fell asleep at the table we waited so long. It’s a shame because it was a nice place we had wanted to try but we won’t go back. Too many other great places in Warwick to go to.

Stopped by this cute little place on a Friday evening with my husband and daughter.
Ordered a regular house salad, which was good. I enjoyed the dressing very much.
Had the rigatoni bolognese which was delicious as well.
Service was mediocre. It took 20 minutes to get bread AFTER our server greeted us. He was also MIA most of the night.
We will try this place again during the weekday, maybe there will be better service.

Very nice… food was authentic and delicious
Service was friendly and helpful
Nice atmosphere and dishes are plentiful

I think that my first venture here was not with the right attitude – if you’re with impatient people, and you can’t stop to enjoy a glass of wine and have a good conversation with your companions, and are afraid to order something new (i.e, try the meat, not the pasta!), you probably shouldn’t eat here.
However, on a return trip with just my husband and I, we got to enjoy a really good glass of wine & I stepped outside of my food comfort level to try something new. Dinner took two hours (and with desert, no doubt, might have taken three!), but it was a relaxing two hours and a great experience.
So, I’ve learned my lesson… some amazing meals require a little more zen on my part!

Hello Veal Milanese! I’d been craving some authentic Italian food so my parents and I came here sometime after Thanksgiving. My parents loved the stuffed mushrooms, and the Osso Bucco. As I said, you can’t go wrong with the Veal Milanese. The service was top notch. We had a great European server who made us all feel like we were indeed in Italy!
I’m docking a star solely because our water glasses were a little dirty.
Check this place out!

My husband and I just got back what should have been a nice Christmas Eve dinner. We arrived early for our reservation and sat at the bar for a few. We were then seated and about 15 minutes went by before anyone came over to our table. The waitress comes over like we hadn’t been waiting and asks us what we would like to drink… We had said we were waiting a while, and just replied rudely «oh, we are a little busy as you can see». Meanwhile other waitresses were tending to tables of people that were seated after us even! I asked her about a couple items on the menu and she was rude about it. We were so disgusted with her attitude, we spoke to the owner I presume, and she assigned us a new waitress.
Then apparently on top of this there were some old farts across from us who I’m guessing goes there regularly, as they made some snooty remarks loud enough for us to hear how great the service was, since they knew the owner. Guess they were a lil upset we were complaining about the establishment, and obviously heard us.
While the food was ok, my whole dining experience was ruined with a nasty waitress with an attitude problem. I will never step foot in this place again!!!

Great restaurant. The service was good and the pizza was fantastic! I can’t wait to go back and try the other dishes. Overall a wonderful experience.

My parents just moved to Warwick a week ago. The night before Thanksgiving, during a snow storm, we set out for dinner with no destination in mind. Most places were closed, so when we saw that Trattoria Viviano was open, we had found our place.
Little did we know that we had stumbled upon a fantastic italian restaurant!
The appetizers were a great start — calamari, stuffed mushrooms and a lamb chop. Also, they brought out some tasty bread with a tomato/​bruchetta mix. For our entrees, my brother and I got the veal ravioli with prosciuto, peas, mushrooms in a butter sage sauce and IT WAS DELICIOUS! My mom ordered the rigatoni bolognese and she said that it was the best bolognese she’s had in years and my dad got the veal special which was also very good! It was served over some really nice risotto. For dessert, we had the bread pudding and apple cake. I’m not much of an apple cake person, but it really hit the spot.
What a nice wekcome to Warwick! I am certain that we will be making many more trips to Trattoria Viviano in the future!

Strolled on into this little gem after an afternoon of visiting wineries and distilleries and downtown Warwick.
Restaurant setting is very nice. We really loved the ambiance of the dining room.
Our waiter was great, very attentive, and friendly.
The wine list is good, and the markup not too bad.
I had fettuccine with mushrooms, asparagus and truffle. It was very good. There was actual truffle not just doused in oil, and just a touch of cream. The dish was beautifully executed. It looked fantastic on the plate, and tasted even better.
My wife had a mushroom truffle pizza, and it was great as well.
This is going to be added to our list of regular Warwick spots.