Bella Italia - Sheffield St Paul's — Restaurant in Sheffield

Today myself and 5 family members went Bella Italia in Sheffield for the first time. Between us we had meat eaters (Ew, I know) vegetarian, vegan and allergy sufferers.

The restaurant seated us quickly to our booked table.

Our server was impeccably polite, to a nice level not a snooty manner, knowledgeable of menu contents and was allergy conscious before we'd even mentioned it- which makes a refreshing change.

Covid measures were in place we wore masks as we entered and hand sanitizer was available to all entering customers.

I observed diligent cleaning measures performed by staff between customers on neighboring tables whilst we were there today.

The menu, I feel, is perfectly adequate for a mixed group as the restaurant does endeavour to de-meatify or adjust any of the dishes where they can without fuss.

My son is Autistic and wears headphones. This was not an issue at all. That helped us feel very welcome.

Also, he can't cope with different foods touching and so without any fuss the restaurant kindly put my son's foods in different little bowls so that he too could enjoy his time there. As a parent I hugely appreciated their commitment to equality and acceptance.

We each had a main and a dessert, some people had cocktails some didn't.

I had margarita pizza, a passion fruit martini and for dessert I had the tiramasu.

The pizza base was delicately thin and not over baked at all, really light. The toppings were beautiful and not over bearing or stodgy. The tiramasu was freshly made style rather than 'off the shelf' as you can find in some restaurants. It really was delicious and quite a generous portion.

I've not had a passion fruit martini before, it came in a shallow tall stemmed glass and was fresh tasting not too boozy if that makes sense. It came with a shot glass of prosecco, which I was advised by my more knowledgeable friend to pour into the larger glass-so I did. She had two- I would've been on my back as it was only lunchtime so I stuck to one!

For 6 of us having main, dessert and drinks (Inc the alcoholic drinks) the bill was about £120 which I think in fairness is entirely reasonable-especially considering the excellent level of service.

PS I was considerably impressed at the size of the pepper grinder- quite the...

Booked as a group of 10 (only 9 came in the end) for a team meal while visiting Sheffield for a weekend competition. Phone booking was a bit weird - pretty sure it's a robot/AI, so I was unsure if the booking had gone through but received a text confirmation.

The meal started well with a friendly female waitress. Drink orders were taken promptly and delivered fairly quickly. The restaurant wasn't packed but busy enough to create a nice atmosphere. Food orders were also taken in good time and starters came out soon after, which everyone seemed to enjoy.

Things went a bit downhill after that. After a reasonable wait, the mains all came together, but some were lukewarm as they'd obviously been sat while the rest of the meals were prepared. Not a major problem as we were all hungry but not ideal.

At this point, our waitress seemed to disappear and was replaced by a male waiter. One of our group asked him for some garlic sauce to go with the pizza, but it took so long to come that she'd basically finished eating. We also ordered more drinks which were slow in coming and we had to chase to get all of them. Desserts were a similar story, taking a long time to come and at least one failing to arrive until we chased it.

Overall it was a nice evening but slightly let down by the service. I was tempted to complain but in the end decided it wasn't worth it. I've given a slightly generous 4* as the food was nice and 3* felt harsh but the service and food temperature could definitely have...

Visited with my family on Saturday afternoon. Bella Italia is located closely to the Winter Gardens and Millennial Gallery in Sheffield, not even a 5 minute walk which is ideal.

My partner and I decided to go for the two course set menu as it worked out cheaper than buying the starters and mains individually. He ordered meatballs for a starter and I ordered Bruschetta. We both thoroughly enjoyed our starters. I think we got a good portion compared to some places where the starter is tiny and massively overpriced for what it is. The meatballs were full of flavour, very very tasty. I was really pleased with the bruschetta, I absolutely love mozzarella so this was a winner for me, again very tasty.

For the mains, my partner ordered the pollo cacciatore. Looking at the photo on Bella Italia’s website, his meal looks nothing like what’s advertised on there. I think he did enjoy his meal but I think it was lacking a few of the ingredients that there should have been. Again, a good sized portion. I ordered a lasagne to share with my daughter. I was pleasantly surprised by the size of it when it arrived at the table - it was massive! It was very tasty, probably not the best lasagne I’ve had but it was still good nonetheless. It came to just under £60 which also included two large lemonades.

We were happy with the food and experience we had there.

The only real negative I could give from our experience is that the children’s highchairs and our seats were a...