Bello Cosi Aarschot — Restaurant in Aarschot

I was hesitating between giving three or four stars, but ultimately, I settled on three based on my experience and the price tag I paid for said experience. I'll elaborate:

This place is located centrally in Aarschot, yet its location is small and cozy. The interior decoration makes it feel as though you're walking into someone's home. Even when every chair was taken up, the atmosphere was still OK. The toilet area could use some refurbishing, though. The door handle and keyhole almost fell off the door, and the whole area feels a bit neglected in comparison.

Once seated, we were given the menu, which is a clipboard. The first page immediately states, "We don't serve fast food, we serve fresh food.", in a very stern tone as to warn people not to complain about wait times. This could be done in a nicer way and made me feel a bit uneasy about what was to come. The whole menu was about 10 pages long, which were impossible to flip backward on the clipboard. I'm not sure why they don't just get booklets. Also, the font on many pages was different (pet peeve).

The amount of dishes to choose from is enormous. I ordered a seafood pasta and my friend ordered a pizza. My friend loved her pizza, and it did look yummy. My seafood pasta was a bit disappointing. The seafood looked like stuff I buy in the supermarket in the frozen section to defrost at home. The mussels were overcooked and were completely dehydrated, sticking to the shells. There was no sauce, only a ridiculous amount of oil. Also, for some reason, celery? First time seeing that in a seafood pasta. The dish did not justify the almost 30 euro price tag.

It took a bit of time before they came to clear our table. At this point, the restaurant was at maximum capacity, and you could tell the staff was overwhelmed. Once they did come to clear our plates, we weren't asked if we wanted to look at the dessert menu or wanted some more drinks. We waited a few minutes and eventually had to stop staff on their way past us to ask for the menu and more drinks.

The dessert menu also has a lot of options (about 10 I'd say). I got the tiramisu made with speculoos and my friend got the moeulleux. My friend enjoyed hers, meanwhile I had some thoughts about mine. You can't really call something a tiramisu if you leave out key ingredients. This contraption was two huge layers of mascaprone with a one millimeter layer of soggy speculoos. No taste of coffee, amaretto, or even the speculoos. The only thing that saved it was the fruit coulis on the side for added flavor, which is also not something usually served with tiramisu. But I wouldn't have called this contraption a tiramisu. Stick to the classic dish or rename it.

All in all, the experience I had was not worth the price tag. When paying such rates, you expect a friendly, caring service throughout the two hours you sit there (we had zero pleasant interaction with any staff member). You also expect your food to be up to or above the general pizza/pasta standard. In my opinion, it seems that their menu is too big, which messes with their general quality and speed in the kitchen.

To wrap this up, I wouldn't come back here unless they cut take a third off of their prices, or they severely work on their menu, service, and food...

Delizioso!!! Op een week tijd hier 2 keren komen eten. Dat wil denk ik al veel zeggen. Het eten is hier van ongelooflijk hoge kwaliteit en behoort zeker in mijn top 3 van Italiaanse restaurants. Vooraf namen wij tijdens onze eerste bezoek een bruchetta met buffel mozzarella om te ‘sharen’ en deze werd zeer mooi gepresenteerd met een bijpassend slaatje in een jasje van bladerdeeg. Nadien koos ik voor de linguini carbonara en mijn partner koos voor de pizza ‘Buffaloni’. Beide gerechten waren zowel perfect gepresenteerd, als perfect van smaak. De linguini was volledig gemaakt op basis van eierdooiers. Dit zorgde er wel voor dat deze gigantisch vullend was (en zodoende kreeg ik meer dan de helft van mijn portie mee naar huis 😊). Mijn partner haar pizza was ook rijkelijk belegd en deze moest er wel volledig aan geloven 😉. De bediening en de gastvrouw waren zeer vriendelijk en professioneel. Het enige nadeel was de koffie die nadien helaas voor een Italiaans restaurant, niet drinkbaar was. Wij komen hier terug voor al het heerlijke eten, de gastvrijheid, het gezellige interieur maar niet voor de koffie 🙈. Parkeren kan trouwens in de nabije omgeving van dit restaurant (op straat).

Tip: reserveren is...

Food ok but relative expensive. Boss is unfriendly, not able to cope with stress on a busy night. You need iron nerves to get served. Almost 3 hours waiting for a main course is not reasonable. At the end we had to ask 2 times to correct the bill. Watch out for being...