la viola

although la viola is a non-italian family owned business, this restaurant provides diners with some fantastic italian food. in fact, la viola is such a busy spot that the family ended up opening la viola west right across the street from the originalbyoblocation. the west location is open seven days a week while east location is closed on mondays. however, each location differs slightly in hours, so in order to keep from getting confused, it’s best to make a reservation beforehand.

november 27, 2012 tags: philadelphia , restaurants by colleen if you’ve ever been to philadelphia, you might have noticed the popularity ofbyob(bring your own bottle) restaurants. what’s amazing is that there are some very high end places without liquor licenses, making fine dining in philadelphia quite affordable (that is, if you’re a wine drinker like me). i now appreciate the fancy places, but my best memories from college in philadelphia are from some favorite cheap italian byobs. that’s not to say that these restaurants are bad; let’s just say that the focus was the wine at the time. still, i remember always enjoying my food at these restaurants, so we made a reservation at one favorite – la viola – the night before the philadelphia marathon . this time the focus would be on the food, and i was curious to see how much of my love for la viola was just wine-fueled. we arrived 15 minutes early for our 7:30 reservation. as it got closer to 7:30, people started pouring in and there w

great italian food and byob. can't go wrong!. i had dinner here and loved it! the food was delicious and very reasonably priced. also, the restaurant isbyoband there was no corkage fee (which i think is typical in philadelphia, but being from toronto, this was a nice surprise).

i particularly enjoyed the caesar salad as the dressing is so good. the grilled calamari appetizer was also good.
good portion sizes, not too large!

was a bit disappointed. veal and spaghetti dish wasn't great. salad was lettuce with mostly oil, no flavor. the best part of the meal was the bill. with it beingbyobit kept it just at about $125 for the six of us.

my favorite italian restaurant!. la viola is my favorite italian restaurant! every single meal i have had there is delicious and is very inexpensive! the penne al'oriolo (i'm not sure if i'm spelling that correctly) is amazing and the sauce is perfect! all of the staff is extremely professional and nice. la viola is abyoband is an extremely enjoyable experience. i dine there at least once a month - sometimes more!!!