Bella Italia - a very average dining experience (Bella Italia in General)

Member Name: KLockwood75

Product:	Bella Italia in General
Date:	10/03/09 (71 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Conveniently located, caters for most tastes

Disadvantages: Very average

We went to Bella Italia near Leicester Square in London for lunch, having wandered the streets of Covent Garden trying to find somewhere that would cater for our two year old son's demands for 'spaghetti'. There was a sign on the window suggesting they had a 'Menu Bambini' but no sign of this menu on the boards outside the restaurant - however, we decided to give it a go anyway.

We were seated quickly and the layout of the restaurant seemed pleasant. However, I did feel that the tables were packed a bit too closely together and it was difficult to find somewhere to safely stow the folded buggy near our table and they didn't suggest anywhere else to put it. Once seated, we got our menus quickly but they couldn't find the children's menu. The waitress told us she thought that they could have pizza, Spaghetti Bolognese or Carbonara which was ok as it fulfilled the little one's need for spaghetti. Helpfully, she then asked if we wanted his meal brought as soon as possible which was good as he won't eat hot food so we needed to wait for it to cool down.

My husband and I then looked through the menu to select our dishes. The menu was fairly extensive with a good range of starters, pizzas, pastas, salads and other Italian dishes. We opted not to have starters as we just wanted a quick lunch, although we saw a couple of platters of antipasti go past on the way to other tables and those did look delicious. I choose a pasta dish with goats cheese, spinach and cherry tomatoes and my husband went for a pizza loaded with different types of meat. We were only drinking soft drinks, but the wine list looked ok at a glance.

Our food came relatively quickly. The meal for our son came within about 15 minutes of us placing the order, and ours followed about 10 minutes after that, which was enough time for his to cool down to a temperature that he considered acceptable. They topped all the meals with freshly grated parmesan (grated at the table) and offered us black pepper. The Spaghetti Bolognese was good but nothing special. My pasta dish tasted nice, but I felt was a bit greasy due to over-doing it on the olive oil and didn't contain as much goats cheese as I would have hoped. My husband's pizza was well-loaded with meat and he said that he enjoyed it, but it wasn't as good quality as a Pizza Express pizza. We were full enough after the main courses not to have a dessert so I didn't get a chance to see if their Tiramisu would meet with my high expectations of my favourite dessert!

In terms of price, I think that it was fairly standard for a chain restaurant - main courses were about £7-£13 on average, with the child's meal priced at £4.50.

Overall, I felt that it was ok for a basic Italian lunch but nothing special. The service was ok, and the food tasted good but it didn't have anything to make it stand out from other similar restaurants. I much prefer both Pizza Express and Strada for that type of meal, and I don't think it can compete with a good independent Italian restaurant in terms of authentic tastes and flavours. There was nothing wrong with our dining experience at all, and I felt that our expectations were met - they just weren't that high in the first place!
We expected an average lunch and that was what we got.

Summary: OK if there isn't much choice, but there are better places out there