Bella Italia - Bolton — Restaurant in Bolton

I booked a table at Bella Italia in ample time before my visit to ensure that I would not arrive disappointed and without a place to sit. The server that greeted my party of 6 was friendly and ushered us to our table with a grin on her face. On the subject of the table, we were impressed with the clever design of it (see picture attached). The menus were clean, compact and concise and this enabled me to have a clear view of what was available to me that evening. I opted for a tantalising Pollo Picante with the mozzarella stuffed crust. After I’d placed my order, I was left with what felt like an eternity to receive my food. In a fully booked restaurant this would be understandable but on this bleak March Thursday evening, the place was sparse. This dented the ambiance and the atmosphere had fizzled out even before my pizza had arrived. When my pizza did arrive I was sceptical as it looked slightly undercooked and, even for the first few mouthfuls, I remained so. However, I grew to love my pizza and with a splash of chilli oil is was tip top. Not to mention the flavour of black pepper that tickled my tonsils. As for my accompaniment’s meals, they were delicious and very well priced. One of our party was gluten free and they praised the freshness and taste of their pizza; however, they would have liked an option for the stuffed crust on their pizza. One other minor hiccup was the absence of any pizza garnished with Captain Bird’s Eye fish fingers. Writing from experience in this field, this is an area that Bella Italia could utilise to achieve a higher profit margin.

There was a poorly positioned Vespa in the restaurant. Although it was a vibrant magenta, it sat in a place that obstructed my table’s view of a birthday celebration on the other side of the restaurant. This meant that when we sang happy birthday to the joyous teenager, we felt like we could not see her and it felt more like The Voice that we would’ve liked.

We had a discount code and the server inputted it with ease to deduct 40% from our food bill. That said, there was one moment where I questioned the talent of the staff as she held my phone up to the QR code reader: she dropped my phone onto the till from a height of around a foot. Luckily my phone was uninjured and I was able to move on from the incident.

Finally, the friendliness and banter levels of the staff were above average and I would certainly recommend this pizza...

Table booked for early evening (6pm). Arrived and was seated quickly. The waitress recognised us as we do visit fairly regularly. Our drinks order was taken which after looking at the poured drinks on the bar for around 10 minutes and a total of 15 minutes since we ordered them I decided to go to the bar area to collect them myself. Just as I got there they were just about to bring them. He brought the drinks without any apology as to the wait even though I had gone to collect them myself. The food order (pollo creme) again was sold out that makes the last three visits in a row. Again I was offered an alternative but had to pay extra for the chicken (£1.25) the food came and I was asked if everything was OK - No, it wasn't. There was barely any chicken in the dish and the alternative wasn't close to the original. The supervisor was called who stated it was measured out by the chef to guidelines. We are talking about the smallest portion of chicken I've ever seen. The last few times I have had the alternative there was at least four times the amount of chicken that there was today.

The supervisor acknowledged we had been before and offered to knock the £1.25 off the bill for the AWOL chicken, again reiterating that it was measured out.

I'm sorry Bella much as I like the food I have had enough of sitting looking at my drinks on the bar, you running out of a certain dish at 6pm on Saturday and then to top it off when asked if everything is OK and I reply no I expect more than £1.25 knocked off my bill and a debate at my table while we have only just received our meals and would like to eat them. Some more chicken would have been my preferred option rather than a debate about portion sizes when my food wasn't that hot to start with.

It seems as it is always busy that customer satisfaction is not top priority. I will not be visiting here again for the...

me and my friends went to bella italia on a monday night, aware it was a bank holiday and that bolton were playing so we knew that it would be busier than normal. however, the wait time in between being seen by a server was ridiculous; we waited 45 mins before getting our starter, possibly because we had to order through a server rather than the qr code because one of our party has an allergy, but even so, the wait time was horrendous. after we finished our starter, they took at least 25 minutes to clear the table, and no one came over to ask if our food was okay at any point. when they finally gave us our main courses, nearing 2 hours after our arrival time, my friend did not have cutlery at her table. she asked the waitress (presumably the manager), who said (rather rudely) that she would get to it once she’d finished bringing the plates over, which is fair enough. however, we never got the cutlery, and after 5 minutes of waiting we had to get up and ask someone, who finally brought it over and apologised.

the food was average, we had meals we had before and yet it tasted a lot worse (possibly due to a busy rush? even still, not okay) and the portion sizes felt they had been reduced a lot. still, no one checked up on us and asked if we wanted any more drinks, anything else and we had to ask several times for the bill.

furthermore, there was no toilet roll in the toilets between us arriving there and us leaving, even though we asked for some to be put in, and we had to go somewhere else to use the toilet

i completely appreciate that it was busy and not enough staff, but having to stay at a table for 2 and a half hours for food which took us 10 mins in total to eat, is not good at all. i’ve had some good experiences in bella italia, but...