Bella Roma — Restaurant in Arona

The restaurant is clean, open and quite spacious. We’ve eaten at Bella Roma twice this week as we are staying 1 minute away.

We arrived at our villa late on the first night after a long journey.

We were welcomed by a very friendly and polite waiter. The food was fine, but not memorable. I had the fillet with flaming Jack Daniel’s sauce. The steak was nice and cooked as requested. It was well presented, but the sauce was a bit odd and not to my taste (I like whisky).

My wife and son both had pizza, which they liked, but the pizza could have done with a bit longer in the oven to crisp the base up.

The staff didn’t seem to be bothered about two well drunk English guys shouting and swearing whilst sat next to families.

That meal would have been four stars, but our second visit changed that.

Last night after a long day we decided to give it another go. Unfortunately, we were seated and served by a very disinterested waiter. A bigger guy with a chip on his shoulder. We ordered our food and drinks very quickly and didn’t mess him about, but he more or less ripped the menus out of our hands when we handed them to him. That alone ruined the night.

My son enjoyed his pasta dish, and my wife liked hers too. I had the carbonara, which was fine. The prices are reasonable too.

One thing to note from both of our visits is that the breads are not exactly what you think they are going to be. The focaccia isn’t a deep flat bread soaked in olive oil, salt and rosemary, it’s just a pizza base with oil, salt and some dried rosemary.

Anyway, a rude waiter can spoil an experience. If it wasn’t for the grumpy guy both visits would have panned out at 4 stars. Don’t avoid the place, but when there are so many good value restaurants in town you may prefer not to gamble on...

We’ve been going to this restaurant for a number of years and we’ve always loved going. Until this year. Like some other comments on here our experience was spoiled this year by the waiter with the dark hair. This guy is at best curt but generally downright rude. After our second visit my wife decided we weren’t going back due to said waiter’s attitude. He continually mutters ‘under his breath’ showing his displeasure towards customers at almost every opportunity and this isn’t conducive to a pleasant dining experience. However as the restaurant is right next to our apartment my wife changed her mind. The other staff are brilliant, very friendly and efficient. Normally I’d give the food 5 stars but this year one of the dishes we had, a crispy chicken dish with a tepid cheese sauce was what you’d expect from a freezer-bag meal but at €14.50 was appalling. On the other hand every other dish we had was superb, the prawn starters and tomato soup were lovely and the risotto di Gaby my...

I was so disappointed with this experience. Firstly we ordered a starter and a fish dish for two for ourselves. I asked for a handful of plain pasta for my own year old. Our starter never arrived but our main arrived swiftly enough. It was such a disappointing dish. The fish did not taste fresh at all and the sauce tasted like it was out of a packet. The plain pasta that I ordered for our baby came out on a big plate, I had shown with my hands that I only wanted a handful of pasta. Our fish dish for two came to over €40 which it was absolutely not worth that. We were charged a full kids menu rate of €6.50 for the handful of pasta that I ordered. Such a disappointing experience and way overpriced for less than average food. We will not be...