Bella Italia — Restaurant in Annapolis

Yes indeed! excellent classical pizza, New York style. The makers are Latino, so they were either taught by Italian owners or by God, because the pizza is definitively all'italiana. These guys know how to make pizza "my way" (cf. Frank Sinatra). But nowadays there's something extra to recommend Bell' Italia's great variety of pizza-by-the-slice (my favorite is the eggplant pizze--the one with fried slivers of eggplant and red pepprs, the other with roasted eggplant on arugula with fresh mozzarella cubes--but, but, besides the food, there's free parking. Historic Annapoils has become a parking police state overnight, with every single street surveiled by a Parking Mobile mercenary 24/7. This third-party profiteer wants you to pay him a snack-tax through his mobile app for a parking spot while you grab lunch, to save him collection costs while he invests in ticketing and towing. So, as if downtown lunch wasn't pricey enough to start, now there's the parking tax to pay. Closest suburban alternative is the Taylor St./Rowe Boulevard mall, featuring Bella Italia pizza by the slice, plus other Italian take-out. The bagels right next door are pretty good too at Naval Bagel, and Graul's Supermarket is the best price-point in town for a reliable mean between bougey and bad. (By the way, the Walgreens has a price-smart liquor store in the back to boot.) Be smart, eat well, and resist tyrannical taxation at...

To start, I went here with a friend and when we walked it we weren't even acknowledged. We had to take it upon ourselves to sit at a table and find our own menus. After about 10 minutes or so with no service we asked at the counter and we were told to order there, could have been helpful from the start. I ordered a meatball sub and one slice of their taco pizza and my friend got a slice of pepperoni pizza and the lunch sized chicken parmesan entree with spaghetti. My slice looked pretty but fell very at in flavor, I could taste the crust more than the ground beef, cheeses, or sour cream that was present. The meatball sub was one of the most average meatball subs I could have, neither good nor bad. The meatballs themselves seemed to just barley be cooked through, the cheese on top was cheap and tasteless, the red sauce was eh, the highlight was the choice of bread used was light and perfectly toasted. My friends pizza was extremely average and his chicken parmesan was a disgrace. The chicken itself was paper thin and very bland, he wouldn't even take more than a bit of the spaghetti before giving up, it was very overcooked, not even close to Al dente. If I had to best describe this restaurant, I would tell people eats fake Italian and extremely average, not bad but more importantly not even remotely good. I would look elsewhere for...

This place is close to home and most of what they have is really good. The pesto pasta pizza is amazing, and the cheesesteaks are great even if they don't come with fries or chips or anything.

My two stars marked off are because my favorite takeout order are italian subs. Their italian sub is a depressing lump of sadness. I'd rather eat Subway. The meat and cheese and stuff is just dropped flat into the "V" in the sub roll. They go super heavy on the lettuce, and you get a sprinkle of onions and banana peppers on top. It can't be folded, and there's no way to get a bite of everything at once. Maybe it would be a good sub if you could get a bite that had meat and cheese and bread and toppings, but you can't.

Go here for decent pizza, OK appetizers, great (but small) cheesesteaks. Do not order the Italian sub. I'm driving to Jersey Mike's from now on which isn't great, but is 10x better...