Bella Italia - Norwich Riverside — Restaurant in Norwich

We came in at about 21:10 and ordered food and drink by about 21:15 Our order had some food that happened to be starters and some food that happened to be main meals. When the server read the food back to us, they read it all out to us in one go, so we assumed the food would all come at once. To be fair to them, we never asked for the food to come all at once, but we also never said we wanted some food to come first, and some to come later.

The food that were starters came first. At this point, it was about 21:30. We had a train at 22:00 and realised that we should ask for our mains now, so that we would have some time for to eat a bit of our mains and pack up the rest to take home. They were happy to agree to this and told us that they’d put our food in straight away. We paid for the food and also asked for some boxes to pack away the food when it came to it. About 5 minutes later, at 21:35, they told us that our food was ‘being plated’. It took until 21:50 until the first dish came to us and the server asked us to start boxing the food now as they were still chasing another one of the dishes. At this point, it was clear that the food wasn’t ready yet, so we told them to leave it.

I walked my partner to the station and dropped them off and then came back to the restaurant about 10 minutes later to get a refund on the food that never came, which they had previously said was fine.

At that point, I was told that they were refusing to refund the food that we didn’t receive because we didn’t inform them with enough time that we were tight for time. I told them that if they had actually given us the food when they said it was ‘being plated’, then there would have been enough time for us to eat a little bit, but they clearly didn’t have the food ready yet.

I understand that it’s a Saturday night, and to be fair to them, it was moderately busy, but I don’t think they should have been disingenuous to us. If they had told us that it would be another 15 minutes, instead of telling us it was being plated, I would have told them to leave it then and there, and then no one’s time would have been wasted.

The manager, Paul, was very understanding of what had happened, once we had spoken. He ended up giving me a refund for the entire order and also gave me the food that we didn’t receive in the first place. I think this act of kindness really shows their commitment to hospitality. At first, I did not want to take this but he genuinely insisted. Thank you very much Paul for kindness and honesty, and for caring for us and I’m sure that the staff are lucky to have you leading them.

I admit that we could have been better with our communication to the staff, and this whole situation could have been avoided. But I am glad that we all walked away from it satisfied.

The food itself was very good too. Generous portion sizes and very delicious. Not too...

This Bella Italia is nestled between a plethora of other restaurants and I urge you to indulge yourself in any other option.

Upon first arrival, everything was standard. Unorthodox seating allocation, as my girlfriend and I were sat next to the only three other people in the restaurant.

We ordered our three course meal for £19.95 and awaited for our first meal to arrive.

The gnocchi: the shell was certainly potato. That's where the positives end. The cheese was artificial in flavour, texture and aesthetics. Paired with a bizarre jam combination, I cannot recommend this dish with my right state of mind.

The pepperoni pizza: it was bread with cheese, tomato paste, and pepperoni on top. So it was a pizza. They're kind enough to give us one steak knife for two people for us to cut our pizza. Coming onto taste, it was so basic, I've had premade Tesco pizza at half the price taste the same. Truly underwhelming.

The wait: two courses down, one to go. At this time, it was 3:40pm. We were excited for our brownie to arrive. We made conversation to pass the time. By 4:10pm, we became irritated by the lack of communication from the servers and lack of food. I attempted to reach out to our server to be met by an acknowledgement of the food not arriving. After 15 more minutes had passed. Our patience was thin, our appetite was gone, and we wanted to leave. I asked our server for the bill. She nodded her head. Common to the theme of serving us, we weren't a priority as the server was busy serving other tables, rather than accommodating us. Giving them the benefit of doubt, I assumed it was due to an increase in people in the restaurant. In actuality, she was stalling for another 10 minutes so we could finally be served our brownie.

The brownie: perhaps a puzzle unbeknownst to me, but trying to eat a brownie covered in vanilla gelato, salted caramel, and chocolate sauce with no cutlery is an impossible task.. We sat there staring at this tepid brownie with no instrument to use. Perhaps a test of restraint, we passed as they awarded us a spoon after three minutes. However, a poor reward as the the brownie was abysmal. The chocolate sauce, overwhelming. We couldn't finish it.

The cheque: The bill came very swiftly surprisingly. However, after being offered to pay, they have the audacity to ask for a tip. Perhaps attempting to fund their incompetence. Furthermore, there is no zero percent option. You are humiliated infront of the server pressing through the options to navigate a way to NOT tip them.

In conclusion, I have been riled thoroughly by my experience and it was a very poor one. Perhaps you are met with better luck. But I cannot not share my experience. Partly because I think it's comical. Partly because it was awful to...

Visited today for my mum's 50th birthday, booked the table over the phone with the restaurant over a week ago and explained we'd need wheelchair access and a highchair . Turned up today and they wanted us to sit at a table up some stairs. Obviously I refused as my mum can't physically walk so how they expect us to get up some stairs is ridiculous, she is in an electric wheelchair! The lady then panicked a bit and offered us a booth - for a group of eight. Had to refuse that also as could only get 4/5 around it comfortably and again not suitable for a wheelchair user as they are circle booths. I was obviously very frustrated as its 2022 and accessibility should just be standard now in places like this. It's her 50th birthday and we are trying to celebrate her and she was left feeling like an inconvenience. We managed to get 2 small tables (usually seat 2 people each) and shoved them together and all squished around them to make do as we wanted to make the most of it the best we could.

On top of all of this, we were there for over 30mins before we received our drinks/placed our food order. Toddler was already incredibly bored as nothing there to occupy him like colouring in or anything and we were all very hungry. We were advised not to order pizzas as the pizza oven is broken and would take 20/30 mins extra. After we finished starters and mains we were waiting 45mins for puddings (all 3 courses were ordered at the same time at the start) and my son was so bored and upset as we had been there over 2 hours, I had to take him outside to stop him running riot in the restaurant. All we wanted to do was eat and leave, when I repeatedly chased up the food with the waitress I was told "the kitchen couldn't cope" which didn't help matters really.

After a bit of back and forth and I explained how disappointed we were we got £50 taken off the bill which I'm grateful for, we did leave a tip as the waitress did the best she could in the situation she was in but overall the experience was pretty poor (the food was nice, but extremely slow to reach us).

If you were a child free, able bodied couple going there for a meal and didn't care about slow service I'm sure it would be a nice visit, but as a group of 8 including a toddler and 2 disabled adults it was a bit of a train wreck for us, especially having to move tables ourselves and all squish around them just to be able to stay in the first place,not the service you...