Vayamos a un restaurante italiano que conozco.

Let's go to an Italian restaurant that I know.

Interesting (from a RS lession). It seems like I read previously on the forum here that when using "vayamos", it refers to just leaving a place with no specific direction in mind; otherwise you would use "vamos".

It is the present subjunctive tense, right? So it is expressing a wish or desire that "we" should go to the restaurant? I haven't studied the subjunctive yet so I am just subjunctively hoping that I might be right...

I only know voy, vas, va, vamos vais van. I also know "vaya con Dios". Whether that's subjunctive, I am not sure.

"Vaya con Dios" is exactly how I started thinking about this. Again, I haven't yet studied subjunctive so I could be wrong, but I think this is a perfect example of use of the subjunctive. With it you are expressing the hope that someone "goes with God", or probably more accurately, God goes with him or her.

I think "Vaya con Dios" is yet another example of the elegance of the Spanish language.

Good thoughts. The forms for the subjunctive and imperative (in the negative) are identical. I am guessing that "Vayamos a un restaurant" would be more of a command - stronger than "Vamos a un restaurant". To be in the subjunctive "May we go to a restaurant", you would generally see a "Que" in front of the phrase though not always "¡Viva el rey!". Interesting.

Anyway, I suspect that a previous thread regarding "vayamos" being limited to leaving a place (as opposed to going to a specific destination) would not be accurate.

Hola a todos,
Here's a link addressing this:

http://spanish.about.com/od/specificverbs/a/ir_plural_imper.htm

Saludos,

Ricardo

I read the link that Rich shared but I would like someone to summarize it or discuss it further.

Wow. Good summary. It may be that in our original discussion, the word being addressed was "vámonos" (as opposed to vayámonos).

The article confirmed what I thought.  Saying "vayamos a un restaurante..." is a suggestion, like saying "let's go to a restaurant..." while "vámonos a un restaurante..." is more of a command, like "hurry up, let's go to a restaurant".

Also, grammatically, "vamos a un restaurante" is an indicative statement of fact, "we go to a restaurante", while "vayamos a un restaurante" is a present subjunctive statement of something that might happen, or something that we desire to happen.