Belli Siciliani Restaurant — Restaurant in Bucharest

I came to this place at the recommendation of a friend who visited one year ago. Before you read on please look at the other reviews and notice the one star - five star trend. It looks like this place has quite a few "benefactors" in the form of bloggers and media figureheads that keep it afloat.

The good: The restaurant space is adequate, with ample space both indoors and outdoors, making for a homey atmosphere. There are also quite a few baby animals around that you can pet or ignore at your leisure, which is a fresh experience.

Now for the bad. As you read please keep in mind that this is not a cheap establishment, given it's location, with a portion of pasta costing around 12 Euro at the time of writing.

Lack of booking: It is not possible to book, at least mid week. This wouldn't be a problem but this is not exactly an area with many close by options.

Cash payments: Absolutely unacceptable. Given the perceived pedigree of this establishment and the peppered prices, denying card payments is a questionable choice to say the least.

Dismissive staff: Walking into the restaurant the first impression was not good. We came in asking for a table, and were promptly told to "find one ourselves, as we can sit wherever". Asking for menus is also tabu, as a QR code taped to a napkin holder is all you get.

Subpar venue presentation: We selected a table outside, which was dirty with a full ash tray as a cherry on top. A member of staff wiped it off with a dry rag, but the ash tray remained with us for the duration of our stay. The colourful decor was also dusty and overall unkept. Sadly, as cute as they were, the free-roaming animals didn't do much to add to this scene, tipping the scales away from rustic-chique to grandma's farm house.

Abysmal serving: We ordered a set of cold starters (random meats and cheeses), specifying that we will decide on mains and wine by the time they arrive. 20 minutes after ordering starters, we decided to flag down staff to ask for wine and water as the starters seemed to take more time. The wine and wine glasses were brought to us by children. The water was brought in a sealed plastic bottle and unceremoniously left on the corner of the table, by one of the aforementioned kids, with no glass to speak of. The cutlery was also brought then, wrapped in the thinnest dustiest paper napkin. After precisely 50 minutes of waiting for the cheese&meat platters, we asked where they were. And were snidely told that we were supposed to ask for mains, as they were ready for quite some time now. We asked for mains and proceeded to eat the disappointing platter (more on that later). The rest of the food came in shortly after.

Self service cantina quality food: I will do my best to not exagerate here. All of the above issues could be overlooked if the food was good. Sadly that is far from the case. Chese&Meats platter: We asked for 2 platters but there was only one. A third of the ingredients mentioned in the menu were missing. Only one type of cheese was present in two one inch cubes. We were told that the "quantity is adjusted for two portions". They ended up charging us only one. Spaghetti carbonara: Accompanied by a soupy sauce. The meat however was simple boiled bacon, and the spaghetti were undercooked. Yes I'm aware of "al dente" pasta. In this case, the pasta did not bend around the fork. Oven baked risotto with cheese: The most disappointing dish of the evening. Plain white undercooked rice, mixed in with mozzarella, dried in the oven for a few minutes. Salmon & seven cheese tortellini: First and foremost I cannot stress how identifiable store-bought tortellini are in any dish. You know the kind: small, squished by the vacuum sealed bag. The interior of the tortellini was lukewarm and the exterior shell chewy and brittle. The salmon dish was accompanied by smoked salmon that you can find in any super market. The cheese sauce for the other dish was, once again, a white soup with the occasional unmelted cheese piece in it.

We finished what we could, payed (in cash!) and left....

This place is a must go for pet lovers. Our personal experience here was a very positive one. We were told that reservations are not possible so we just went there hoping to find a table available but there were none so we decided to wait a bit. In 3-4 minutes a kind lady noticed we were waiting and imidiatelly moved some things around and made space for a small table which was brought from inside and we were sited and given the menus which were like books, with countless options of pasta and pizza, so, it was hard to decide. When we asked the same lady to recommend something to eat, she gave us 6-7 choices until we stopped her. The pasta with 30 types of cheese, which she recommended second was an amazing choice. While we waited for the food we got to play with a baby bunny, a goat and a piglet. The wait time flew by instantly. In our opinion Belli Siciliani is a fantastic restaurant with a beautiful authentic Italian decor just perfect for a romantic night out. Prices are high but the whole experience is well worth it. P. S. We later found out that the kind lady was actually the owner 😀

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I would not recommend this place not even as a practical joke. Location - ⭐⭐ - kind of a bad neighbourhood Decor - ⭐⭐ - kitsch all the way. Some might like it, I don't. Food - ⭐ - although it's supposedly a traditional sicilian place, an ambassador location for sicilian tradition, i sincerely hope that true sicilian food is not like what they serve here. We had seafood spaghetti and a mushroom and speck lasagna. Neither had the taste you'd expect, if any at all, the bechamell sauce one would expect in a lasagna was not there, its place was taken by a flour thickened glue like substance with no taste. The whole plate looked like it was assembled by a kid playing "chef" . The white wine sauce of the spaghetti was... not. The seafood mix tasted like it was cooked beforehand and added afterwards, the sauce had no trace of it. Price - ⭐ - price is very high for what you get. Furthermore, if you choose handmade fresh pasta it doubles. That would be OK if the food was actually palatable. Service - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - the only good thing about the place, other than the very cute black labrador, is the girl who served us. When I found a hair in my lasagna she was apologetic, took the dish out of the check and even brought us complementary desert. She was cheerful and very easy-going, and is the only reason there's 2 stars instead of 1. I suspect that the proximity to one of the biggest television stations in Romania is the only reason why they are still...