Bella Italia - Gateshead, intu Metrocentre — Restaurant in Gateshead

Amazing Service but Extremely Uncomfortable Experience – Needs Management Attention

We visited Bella Italia at Newcastle Metrocentre today (around 3:30–4:00 PM), hoping for a nice late lunch. Unfortunately, the experience ended up being one of the most uncomfortable dining experiences we’ve ever had, which is disappointing because we’ve enjoyed Bella Italia before.

Within just a few minutes of sitting down, we began noticing a very strong and unpleasant smell that kept coming and going. At first, we assumed it might be something from the kitchen or perhaps an issue with nearby drains. However, after a short time, it became clear that the smell seemed to be coming from our server.

I want to be absolutely fair — our server herself was fantastic. She was friendly, polite, and genuinely attentive throughout the meal. She clearly cared about doing her job well, and her service alone was excellent. This issue was absolutely not her fault. In fact, she was the one positive part of the entire visit.

However, the smell was extremely off-putting. It was strong enough that we lost our appetite, and it wasn’t just us — we could see other diners around us reacting and quietly commenting as well. It created a very awkward and unpleasant atmosphere. We even considered asking to move tables, but we didn’t want to cause any embarrassment or make the situation worse for her, especially since she was being so kind and attentive.

The real problem here lies in management and staff support, not in the individual. In any restaurant environment, colleagues and managers should look out for one another and be aware when a team member might need help or a quiet word. Nobody should be left to struggle through a shift in that kind of situation. It’s unfair on both the staff and the customers.

It’s clear this could have been avoided with a bit of awareness and care from the management team. Things like this can happen to anyone — it’s human — but that’s exactly why good leadership and communication matter in a workplace like Bella Italia.

We left feeling quite disappointed and honestly a bit sorry for the server, who did her job brilliantly despite an obviously difficult situation. This experience has really put us off returning, which is a shame because the restaurant itself looked great, and the food otherwise seemed fine.

I hope management at the Newcastle Metrocentre Bella Italia take this as constructive feedback and use it as an opportunity to show better care for their team. Great service should be supported, not let down by a lack of oversight or...

My wife and I visited for the first time today. We were taken to our table by a pleasant looking young lady, only to be subsequently greeted by a greasy haired equivalent of Rowland The Rat.... really not sure why you would employ these type of folk when they’re in the front line as it doesn’t instil much confidence from the offset. - After ordering a couple of draught beers, he literally threw them down on the table with little care or manners whatsoever. Anyway, we decided to go for the 2 course lunch menu, which to be frank is very basic, yet cheap and cheerful. We are big lovers of Italian food and eat out quite a lot, so wanted to compare this with our other experiences. We both had the garlic mushroom and four cheese bruschetta for starters. Although relatively flavoursome, it was just a sprinkle of 4 or so slices of mushrooms topped with a cheese sauce on top of a toasted slice of bread, on top of a cold plate! On reflection there was literally no hint of garlic, so not sure if we just missed something there!?! For our mains, without giving you the Italian names I basically had twisted tubes of pasta with ham, peas, mushrooms and a cream sauce, whilst my wife had the chicken pollo spaghetti. - To summarise, we were brought our mains yet didn’t have any cutlery so had to ask for this, then the waiter offered us black pepper and got distracted so I had to get up and hunt him out. Not a great start!! The dishes.... hmmm, well let’s just say that my wife wasn’t impressed with her luke warm oily spaghetti, half a dozen small pieces of what seemed like microwaved chicken and 3 spinach leaves. I’m not particularly a fussy eater when I’m hungry so managed to eat most of my undercooked pasta tubes, yet more cheese sauce (which I’m convinced was out of a packet and the exact same sauce as my starter), tinned spam/ham/luncheon meat and 80% of my peas. All in all, the dishes we ate were something I could have easily thrown together myself at home with an out the packet cheese sauce and lashings of oil. Although Zizi’s certainly isn’t perfect, our recent trip knocked spots off this very underwhelming, bog standard un-authentic Italian meal. Best thing about it was the draught beer and the fact it...

Where do I even begin?!

We went at around 4pm, by no means a busy time and the restaurant was around a quarter full. We were a party of 5 but were put onto a small 4 seater table and had a chair brought out to plop onto the end. Upon questioning if we could move to an adjacent 6 seater table that was free we were told no because there wasn't enough waiting staff, even though the table wasn't even 6 feet from our current table. We then waited for another to become clear and were moved there instead.

At this point I want to say our server, a young lass, was absolutely superb and was a bloody credit to this place and without her attentive service I would've left a 1 star. I ordered a seafood risotto and honestly what I was served was an utter disgrace, the rice was severely undercooked and was swimming in stock. The seafood inside the risotto also had an overly fishy taste which only signals that the seafood had not been kept to the correct temperature and wasn't in a fit state for consumption. Whoever thought that would be okay to serve deserves sacking! I'm not a chef but I cannot comprehend how anyone with any form of culinary training would think that was an acceptable risotto. My kids barely touched their food with the only person happy with their meal being my partner. For the first time in my life, I sent my food back and was completely put off ordering anything else. I cannot knock the service staff's response who wanted to make sure that I ate and even offered a free meal/desert, which I kindly declined.

I felt terrible, I didn't want to come across as a Karen and I know this review makes me sound like one but I will never come here again. With plenty of other places to eat in the MetroCentre, including Zizzi and Ask Italian, we'll go...