Bellissimo Bistro — Restaurant in St. John's

Updating my review because the last several meals we had here were very good. It’s nice to have a true Italian restaurant serving food prepared from scratch.

We highly recommend Bellissimo.

Old review:

I just don’t know. I guess I’m comparing Bellissimo to Il Mercato in Halifax or similar based on price.

But it just isn’t in the same league … it’s good, but, it’s missing the mark.

It starts with no effort whatsoever on decor, comfort or style. Even the service was pretty bland.

The food is good. It’s obviously made from scratch but it lacks the fresh herbs, spices and garlic I would expect with authentic italian cuisine. It borders on bland rather than flavourful and fragrant.

I had a Caesar salad my first time there and this time around a could not get any sense of garlic in the recipe? We also ordered the bruschetta on our first visit (outstanding) and we couldn’t recognize the bruschetta on this visit … again very bland and completely different that the original version. We both had pasta dishes on each visit.

Hope this is taken as constructive and we will try the...

The GOOD : -The food was a solid 7 / 10 -Free parking -Nice non-congested area. -Friendly staff.

The Bad : -The wait times! ... even though there were very few customers, we felt like it took them forever to get servings to our table. Starting with a soup which one would expect would only need to be laddled up and brought out, it still took almost a half hour just to get it served to our table. -The Soup was decent, but it's sodium content was off the scales!.. as if it were made from the ocean water itself. -We had ordered chicken sandwiches and wraps at the same time we ordered the soup, so one might expect that they would be ready to be brought out shortly after we started with our soups, .But it's still took another 20 minutes after we were done eating our bowls of soups before they got brought out. But if you aren't on any sort of timeline and would rather just sit there and spend an hour or two in conversation while waiting for your meals then I would say you will enjoy...

This place is AMAZING.

I used to work here, and from someone who has worked at many dining spots before, THIS restaurant does everything right. I cannot tell you how much care this place puts into everything - the cleanliness, quality of the food, and the little things that just make the dining experience special, EVERYTHING. The drinks are delicious, I would go just for their cocktails. The coffee is top notch, the food is without a doubt the best food I've ever tasted (and I could never get sick of it). Part of my praise for the food comes from knowing that everything is fresh and homemade, the cooks are incredibly talented and put so much effort into making sure every dish is perfect. The quality is consistent, the serving staff there are some of the kindest people I've ever met, and the atmosphere is wonderfully cozy.

I normally don't ever leave reviews of restaurants I have worked at, but this one deserves high praise. Without a doubt the best Italian...