Mia Bella Restaurant — Restaurant in Cleveland

Last night (Saturday, 8/2), a group of us had reservations at Mia Bella for 8pm. A few of us had been to your establishment before, and some of us were first-timers. We were looking forward to an evening of great food and atmosphere and exceptional service.

However, our experience was sub-par -- and this is probably too generous a rating.

Our reservation for 8pm did not get us seated until after 8:30. We were seated outside in front of the restaurant.

We had a waiter named Ergus/Argus (?) who approached our table and was friendly, but unfortunately, was very lacking in service or attentiveness.

We ordered drinks and 2 members of our table did not receive their drinks at all. When reminding our waiter of this when he came back much later (he would disappear for very long intervals), he did not recall my brother in law ordering his Johnny Walker drink. So this was ordered again and took another 15 minutes to receive. My brother ordered a diet coke, which also took 15 minute to get. My sister wanted a latte while we were waiting for appetizers to come out. Because our waiter was not coming in to check on us, she asked a passing wait staff member who was giving us salad if she could get a latte. The girl responded, "You can let your waiter know." My sister responded, "He has not come back in some time." The girl left our table, my sister waited some more and then decided to just walk into the restaurant from our outside table and ordered a latte at the bar. She was asked by the bartender why she did not just ask her waiter and my sister told her that we had not seen him and she just wanted to get a latte. We ordered bread service with olive oil and Italian herbs. We were given bread but the oil had nothing in it at all. No herbs. It was kind of gross to just dip the bread in plain oil. Our waiter never seemed to notice that he did not provide the Italian herbs with the oil. The entrees took over 40 minutes to arrive. Again, our waiter was not checking in on us and was not available for us to ask for drink refills, etc Again, two people at our table did not receive their entrees with the rest of us. We sat and waited for them to get their food, but it took another 20 minutes for their dishes to arrive. At that point, we asked for parmesan cheese, which was sprinkled over our dishes that were now quite cold. There was no apology from our waiter or staff for the delay. The table next to us had a party of 8. They were seated after us and were served efficiently and left almost 30 minutes before us. We were never asked if we wanted to see a dessert menu or if we wanted coffee or after dinner drinks. We were given our tabs and expected to tip for substandard service. I gave 18% against my better judgement, but I can tell you that I did not expect such inferior service. Your establishment presents itself as classy and on the higher end of service and experience, and we definitely did not get that impression last night from the service that we received. I am happy to pay higher prices when I feel that I am at a restaurant that provides notable food and service, making the dining experience exceptional and overall pleasant. Ours felt stressful and very disjointed.

There are a lot of great restaurants in this area, sharing the sidewalk with yours. It would seem paramount to do everything right to set yourselves apart when in such close proximity to very similar...

Great location, amazing food, excellent service!

Visiting Cleveland, came here for dinner. Obvious that this is the place to go as there was a constant stream of customers. As we came around 6, was ably to get a table outside without reservations. Suspect if it were later, reservations would be a must.

Our table was on a the side street, so a bit off the main traffic and pedestrian flow, perfect for the evening. Our server was outstanding, casual conversation as she took our orders and brought the dishes and cleared the table. Right amount of interaction without being obtrusive.

We ordered a bottle of wine, and worked our way through a salad, appetizer, main course, coffee and desert, all shared by two of us so we could try more without getting too much food.

The entire meal, like the service, was outstanding. A roasted beet salad was a wonderful start, tangy with goat cheese and a drizzle of balsamic reduction. Our appetizer was the special, smoked salmon on Italian bread, topped with a sautéed mix of sun dried tomatoes, capers, onions and olives, again with a light drizzle of balsamic reduction. Was again wonderful, our only observation was there were 3 large servings, almost too much for us (even though we ate it all!). Would have been a perfect size for 3 to share, way too much for one, or even two people. Our main course again was the special, a creamy ragout consisting of lamb, Italian sausage and beef, in a rich sauce over bucatini pasta. Was outstanding! For desert we finished up with coffee and salted caramel and pistachio gelato. They were out of one of the flavors which was a little disappointing (especially for so early in the evening), and they didn’t have any fruit flavors which would have been a refreshing finish to a great meal. Only minor issue was like the appetizer, the serving size of the gelato was huge, even with sharing everything, was way too much…could have been half the size and perfect for one or two to share.

Extremely pleased by the whole experience, glad we chose this establishment. With a bottle of wine and a generous tip, we spent around $175 for 2 of us, and were overjoyed at the service, food and drink we received for that amount.

Would I go there again…absolutely! Would I...

I went here this evening with three of my friends and we all felt uncomfortable and disappointed with the overall experience. From the start, we were heavily being sold on the evening features to the extent that for many of the dishes we ordered we were being aggressively upsold a similar feature instead. I decided to take the plunge and order one of these dishes that was described as being comparable to the bolognese. I was not given a price when she described it and it wasn’t on any paper menu, but since she described it as being similar to the bolognese, which was $20, I just assumed the feature would be a few extra dollars. My friend also asked to replace the noodle in her bolognese dish and she was not told about any additional upcharge of doing so. We also thought it was strange we had to pay extra for bread service, but it was only $2 so we didn’t dwell on it too much. We felt really rushed even though we didn’t spend too much time there (75minutes max), they were rushing to take my friend’s plate away even though she still had her fork in her hand.

When we got the check, we were shocked at a few things. First, the feature that I ordered that was essentially a slightly elevated bolognese was $38. Second, changing the noodle resulted in a $4 additional charge. Lastly, they added a $4.50 credit card fee for a $150 bill. None of these charges were brought up at any point before we received the check. After we were given the check, it became apparent they were trying to get us out ASAP by taking away all of our drinks and while I was reviewing the charges the server asked to take the receipt with the tip even though I was clearly still looking at it. The atmosphere within the place felt really frantic and all of the servers were running around constantly. Up until we were given the check, the service was fine and we thought the food was decent, but the noodle change was not worth $4, my bolognese wannabe dish was not $18 more than the actual bolognese, and the credit card fee should be pointed out beforehand. We all felt taken advantage of because of this and definitely will not...