Bellissimo — Restaurant in Winnipeg

I rarely feel inclined enough to review but for the experience I had here today, I wanted to type out a genuine review about my first and only experience at Bellissimo.

I had ordered pickup from Bellissimo (lunch menu). I ordered Carbonara (16) and Lobster Mac and Cheese (18) with a side salad. Upon arrival, the lady had already had the total punched in on the machine and was about to hand me it when I inquired if I could pay part of it in cash and the rest on debit (co-worker's cash). She agreed but didn't seem to know how to do that, so she grabbed someone who I'm assuming is her supervisor to help her enter it into the POS machine. The total came to $40.48. I assumed she had just entered it in wrong because she was new or something so I just said "f* it, i'll just pay it all on debit". I paid the $40.48, thinking nothing of it, and she asked me if I wanted a receipt. I said no and left.

About 20 minutes later, my boss comes into the room where I'm eating and says there's a lady on the phone by the name "Bianca" from the restaurant I just ordered from who said that I took my food without paying for it. It was quite embarrassing. I checked my bank account to be sure that it had be charged and it had. So I called them back to figure out what was going on. When Bellissimo picked up and I told them who I was, they were extremely rude and condescending. The man (I do not know his name) who answered said that I should have paid 60 something dollars for my lunch. Of course I inquired because I only ordered 16, 18, and the side salad which is nowhere near 60$.

After being put on hold for a few minutes they came back to the phone to say that they had charged me the "wrong" amount and that it was indeed only 40 something dollars. I owed something like 1.50 because they put in the wrong numbers. They told me "not to worry about it" because of the inconvenience, but not even an apology. I offered to come by anyway to pay the rest and they said no and hung up before I could even say anything else.

So, they made a mistake on THEIR end and called my place of work to talk to my manager calling me a thief. It was humiliating and completely poor service from them. I'm not impressed at all. Instead of calling to talk to me and ask whether or not I had perhaps left the cash with a different attendant or anything, they opted to instantly accuse me of stealing instead at my PLACE OF WORK. Seems like they wanted to make drama and catch a thief rather than figure things out in a professional manner.

I won't be dining there again, and I will be telling everyone I know not to dine there. The food was decent, but the experience I had is not near worth that mediocrity. Just wanted to leave this review so that anyone reading this or the management there know how awful their customer service was to me today, and that it spoiled...

Haven’t been in a few years and I was super disappointed. There was a total of 8 tables in the place..maybe 20 guests with 2 servers, a host an expo/busser and maybe a bartender on. Our service started out good but as our server got busier he seemed to forget about us. Reminder: there were 20 guests total in the place including the lounge. He slipped a bill on the table without asking if we wanted separate bills. We were clearly 3 individuals who were not on a date, family or having a business meeting! Then when I asked for separate bills in a very polite manner 15 minutes later when he finally came back, he snapped at me saying, “It’s going to be a minute then!!”. He eventually came back and threw the new bill on the table and grabbed the old one and crumpled it up and stormed away. There was no acknowledgement of our debit cards on the table. No polite, “ I will be right back with a machine!”. He treated us like we were bothering him. We are all GM’s of restaurants so this service was atrocious to us. In the midst of a pandemic your staff shouldn’t have to be reminded that they should be grateful for community supporting them. Super disappointed. On top of that, the food was mediocre. The Caesar salad tasted like raw garlic cream and the pizza was doughy and thicker than displayed in the picture in their menu. Had a check back been done while we were eating, we could have mentioned it. The server’s name was Manny. He was brutal. The female server working tonight seemed to be pleasantly conversing with her guests (1/2 of the 20 in the restaurant), not crashing and being a “server”and not an “order taker” like Manny. If I were to go back and he was my server.. I would just leave. I also...

BEST MAC&CHEESE IN TOWN

Today, we went for Mac&Cheese Mondays and it was fantastic. The flavours were great.

We know that there is a new Mac&Cheese place in the city called Kevin's in the exchange district. Don't bother going there. Their dishes are not nearly as quality made as the ones from Bellissimo, which is quite ironic since they "specialize" in Mac&Cheese.

Bellissimo has a fixed price of 10$ for the Mac&Cheese dishes they have for Mac&Cheese Mondays. Kevin's dishes range to up to 15$ each and are not worth the money. Just wait for Mondays and take advantage of what Bellissimo has to offer.

We ordered the Clubhouse Mac&Cheese and the Porcetta Mac&Cheese. They were both made so well. The sauces for both were very creamy. You can taste the quality in the indegredients they use. The Clubhouse comes with a rosé bechamel (a tad of marinara mixed in with bechamel). Perhaps the best Mac&Cheese we've had in the city. We're also very happy that Bellissimo doesn't cheap you out on the meats in their dishes. There was a very decent amount of meat in both the Mac&Cheese dishes we ordered. We can't believe we got all that goodness for only 10$ each!!!

We also had their Mango Sangria which was so delightful and such a taste of summer in the cold weather we have now. It's definitely worth trying.

For dessert we had their Caramel Macchiato Creme Brulee (their flavours change) and their Death by Chocolate Cake. Which was just rich and creamy layers of quality chocolate on top of each other.

We will definitely be back. It's a wonderful date spot for dinner and a fun place to...