What do you say about an Vero Beach Italian restaurant that is going strong in its second decade(!) even though its service always has ranked somewhere between indifferent and slower than slow.

You probably would say it must have very good Italian cooking -- why else would people dine there -- and on that score, you would be absolutely right about Villa Nova.

Since we first discovered this restaurant in the old downtown some 12 years ago – when dinner on weekend nights could drag on for hours – to our most recent visits, where the waitress seemed to be in that twilight zone between tired and bored, service has never been Villa Nova’s forte.

But during the decade when co-owner Guy, a lover of food who sadly passed away just over a year ago, was cooking, the food was never a disappointment. And Tony, who worked closely with Guy a decade ago and has now taken his place in the kitchen, is producing very good meals.

The other factor that draws you back to Villa Nova is Guy’s widow, Stella, the hard-working proprietress who for 15 years has done her best to keep patrons happy under what often seem to be impossibly trying circumstances.

Many nights in the old days, as Guy tried to get the meals just right in a too-small kitchen and Stella with a too-small wait staff tried to keep hungry diners from rioting, you sometimes felt you were part of an Italian family restaurant sitcom.

We love Stella, and love the food you get at Villa Nova (for the past few years in new, larger quarters across from Pocahontas Park), but we have held off reviewing this restaurant because you never quite know what kind of experience awaits you – particularly if you dine on one of those rare evenings when Stella is not running the show.

Our most recent experience came on a weekday night, when Stella was taking what we are sure was a much-needed evening off. We arrived not long after 6 pm, when the restaurant was still relatively empty.

Our server quickly took our drink order, and offered to recite that night’s specials. While rattling off dinner specials probably gets tedious when performed for diner after diner, night after night, we detected far more enthusiasm, and emotion, in our last conversation with AT&T’s directory assistance.

A basket of crisp, fresh-baked bread soon appeared, along with a tasty pesto aioli. We also ordered one of our longtime favorite Villa Nova starters, the gorgonzola salad, which generally comes to the table in a great bowl filled with greens, cucumbers, and olives with wonderful chunks of gorgonzola cheese.

On this occasion, an assistant waitress brought a smaller-than-usual bowl of gorgonzola salad, and divided it among our three plates. The salad was okay, but there was a lot less chunky gorgonzola than usual, and it lacked the bite we usually associate with this cheese.

When the entrees appeared, two of them – my shrimp and clams fra diavolo ($24.95), and my husband’s hot sausage and peppers ($21.95) – came out about five minutes ahead of our companion’s eggplant parmesan ($13.95).

Timing notwithstanding, all three of the entrée’s were wonderful. The shrimp and clams, served with a fra diavolo sauce over a bed of linguini, were tasty and tender, the shrimps succulent and juicy. The server asked how hot I wanted the fra diavolo (Italian for Brother Devil) on a scale of 1 to 5, and I chose a 3 – which turned out to be perfect.

No similar heat scale accompanied by husband’s sausage, which would have set an ordinary human’s throat afire (but not, apparently, the throat of my husband, who thought the dish was excellent). Our companion reported that the eggplant parmesan was as good as you could want.

That has been our experience over the years. Villa Nova has always offered a wide variety of tasty dishes – with a particular focus on seafood – that make you happy to have dined there (assuming you had no plans to do anything else that evening). Three can dine well, with a carafe of the perfect wine for many of these dishes, barbarone, for not much over $100 (before tip).

From conversations with Stella over the years, we know she is pained that some local Italian restaurants – which serve food that does not match that from the Villa Nova kitchen – nevertheless get more positive reviews.

We would again say here, as gently as we can, that the perfect dining experience is a combination of great food, and great service. Villa Nova’s food has long been up to that standard, but servers need to smile. Servers need to show passion in discussing the dishes. Servers need to seem more than perfunctorily interested in the diners and their dining experience.

In this difficult restaurant environment, very good food – even great food -- is not enough.

I welcome your comments, and encourage you to send feedback to me at tina@verobeach32963.com .

The reviewer dines anonymously at restaurants at the expense of Vero Beach 32963.

Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 4:30 pm; Sunday, 4 pm.

Bar: Beer and wine.

Address: 1327 21st St

Telephone: 772-564-2400

Review first published: May 7, 2009