La Bella Italia — Restaurant in Sabadell

La Bella Italia is my new favourite restaurant in Sabadell! The current rating on Google is too low and does not do this restaurant justice. The traditional pizzas are made in wood fired oven and with San Marzano tomatoes are delicious. My ortilana (vegetarian) pizza was only 10 Euros, which is cheap compared to the Maximus in the centre of Sabadell. Indeed, the aubergines and courgettes on La Bella Italia´s ortilana pizza had been nicely char grilled in advance of going on to this pizza, which was another nice show of attention to detail. The service was the best I have had in Sabadell (along with the service at Sandvitcheria where the owners and one of long serving waitresses are very friendly too). Our waiter very patiently explained to me what all of the desserts were in their fridge, which I was admiring from a distance. In the end I took the tiramisu with fruits of the forest (there is also the more traditional version of tiramisu available) on our waiter´s recommendation and I loved it. You could see and taste that they had put in extra egg yolk in to the tiramisu which made it very rich and deep in taste. I have never tried tiramisu with fruits of the forest inside but it was delicious and I highly recommend La Bella Italia´s non traditional version of this dessert. I came with my wife, our two young children and my parents in law. My children were running around and being the (lovable) nuisances that they usually are (despite the fact that we do our best to control them). But it was no problem as the space was large and we were not disturbing anyone else. The staff who I believe were mostly from Italy (our waiter certainly was from Naples as he told me this) were also friendly to our two children as they were very happy to see them, even when they were getting in the way, which reminded me very much of what the restaurant staff are like in Italy. One of the pizza chefs brought our children a present of bread with nutella. They made us feel like they actually wanted us to be there. Some other restaurants could learn from this. The prices too were also Italian, by which I mean very good value. My only request is that they add a vegetarian arancini di riso to the menu please. I will be coming back to try all of the other desserts and La Bella Italia will now be where I will order my pizza´s from on the nights when we have an emergency and have no energy to cook for ourselves at home. Forza Naples, grazie and...

Amazing linguine di mare that blew me away given how flavorable and fresh it was. Given the price, I was not expecting this level of taste and quality. The dish was served piping hot which was good. The portions were generous and there were a lot of clams. The big shrimp was fresh and juicy, as were the clams and tomatoes. The sauce was so good that I drank every drop. I asked for chilli oil and it had some kick, and made the dish even better. Do keep in mind that this is a saucy seafood dish so if you prefer the kind that is very light with only the taste of the sea and some light garnishing, then you may find this a bit strong and salty.

Overall a very memorable meal that was well well well over expectations for 16 euro. Had a bottle of water and the bill came to 18 euro. I have eaten at much higher end Italian restaurants in Milan, Rome, and internationally, and equivalent quality would have been much much more. This place is a diamond in the rough that can stand with the best of them. Keep in mind this restaurant has a very extensive pizza menu while pasta offerings were actually quite limited. Therefore I can't comment on the the rest of the food but if this was any indication, then I will go back to try the pizza for sure.

Chef is Italian and clearly cooks with his heart. I told him how impressive his cooking was and he smiled hard and waved from the kitchen. Decor is modest but they have a very fancy pizza oven in the front of the restaurant. Service was also very friendly and attentive. Would go again...maybe tomorrow night!

2ND VISIT I came back 2 nights later after sampling other fine restaurants in Sabadell, only to realize that I could not stop thinking about the amazing seafood linguine from my first experience. This time I ordered the freshly made short pasta and the it did not disappoint. And perhaps I was a repeat customer, I got two huge prawns. Hands down my favorite restaurant now...

I was honestly kinda shocked by this, I didn't expect to find a pizzería of this quality next to my hotel in a random commuter-town in Spain? Maybe in the center of Barcelona, but here? I'll definitely revisit when I'm around the next time, hopefully to eat in.

A couple of local ingredients you wouldn't see as often in Italy (so much artichoke, don't mind it but it's almost amusing), but this would almost certainly be the best pizzería in town in a similarly-sized city in Italy, which I think is really...