My beloved brought me to Westport Quay to celebrate my 30th birthday where we stayed in the lovely Atlantic Coast Hotel. We went into the town for lunch on Sunday & walked around the charming town looking for somewhere nice to dine that evening. Up and down Main Street we went, finding plenty of Chinese restaurants, excellent pubs serving bar food and then at the top of the street - well, you have to turn left & walk a few yards up the hill, we saw a pretty house converted to what appeared to be an authentic Italian restaurant. It was closed so we decided to chance walking in later (we had 2 reserves lined up just in case!).

La Bella Vita is small, basically furnished and homely. The tables are plain unadorned wooden affairs as are the chairs. We were given a window table by a charming English waitress and handed a laminated menu to peruse. What attracted me to this restaurant was the fact that it didn't go in for pizzas with pineapple & all sorts of things you would never find in Italy.

There were 10 starters listed, ranging in price from £1.95 - £6.95 including Bruschetta (with garlic or al pomodoro), Antipasto, Mussels, Smoked Salmon and Insalata Caprese. The zuppa del giorno (soup) was tomato - something I detest having rarely encountered anything but nasty tinned orange slop. I was delighted with the beautifully fresh bowl of tomato soup placed in front of me - it was basically pressed tomatoes with some well flavoured stock and was accompanied by fresh ciabatta - the bowl was cleared. My beloved had the bruschetta al pomodoro (we were in a tomato mood) which was perfect- not oily, not soggy, just a perfect mix of bread, garlic, tomatoes and basil.

As we had consumed some pints of Amsterdam's finest earlier in a pub, we decided to forego the very nice wine list (from £10) and stick to beer. Nastro Azzuro was the beer on offer and it was exactly how it should taste - clean, crisp, cold and just £2.50 per bottle - a bargain by our usual expensive Dublin standards.

The Pasta list was comprehensive with Linguini al Pomodoro e Basilico for just £6.50, the most expensive pasta dish being Linguine alla Pescatora for £10.95. We decided to go for the "meat" menu and I chose Pollo al Vino e Rosmarino for £10.95 - a large panfried chicken breast flavoured with rosemary in a butter and white wine sauce. It was accompanied by garlic & olive oil roasted potatoes. It was nicely presented but was slightly too salty for my taste - however I did clear most of it away! My beloved had the Filetto al Barolo at £13.00 - a fillet steak in a Barolo red wine sauce. He had eaten this before at the renowned Paparazzi restaurant in Chester & loved it. This version was every bit as good - although I dislike well-done (overdone) meat, I had no problem in eating my sample and indeed had more of the steak when his back was turned! The same roasted potatoes accompanied the steak and we shared a side order of vegetables.

After all of this food, we were in two minds as to whether we would force ourselves to eat dessert. The only reason we did was in the interest of research! We shared two desserts both priced at £3.50 - a Torta di Cioccolato and Gelati. The chocolate cake was homemade, very moreish and didn't stand a chance of survival. The ice-cream was even nicer! We were given three large servings of chocolate, vanilla & strawberry homemade ice-cream (sounds boring but tasted divine). No washing up was needed for our plates...

We couldn't even manage coffee after that feast and so called for the bill which came to an incredibly reasonable £46 including 10% service for three courses and two beers - I was amazed by this as there are times in Dublin you would be lucky to get away with £40 for just two pizzas & wine. I cannot wait to go back to Westport so we can revisit the aptly named La Bella Vita.

Tel : 098 29771