Bella's Fine Dining — Restaurant in Dothan

Let me start by emphasizing that I came to this restaurant with my family and friends to celebrate my engagement, but this experience was beyond disappointing. The service was horrible. Our server was not attentive (no drink refills, no checking in, no napkins given when our food came out, etc). When we asked for help or for anything, it almost seemed like it was an inconvenience for her. She was so rude that we ended up asking for a manager and receiving a new server. When our food finally came out, just about my whole party’s food was cold. Our cold items were replaced, thankfully. However, the new server told my mother that he would replace her pasta entirely with a new HOT one since it was so cold when it came out. She ordered the shrimp and andouille pasta. He ended up bringing her back her SAME pasta, just microwaved with more Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. We know that this was her same dish because the finished shrimp tail that she placed on the side of the bowl was still there when he brought the plate of “new” pasta back. UNACCEPTABLE! At this point I question this restaurant’s cleanliness and safety because when is it EVER okay to bring customer consumed dishes or dishes that have touched a dining room table back into the kitchen to be reheated??!?!! This is NEVER okay, just in case you didnt know. There are so many risks of cross contamination by doing this. And if they did it once, I’m sure this is a regular practice of theirs. This is so disgusting and dishonest. The owner, the kitchen staff, and both servers that served my family should be ashamed and embarrassed. No one did anything to try to reconcile any of our issues, even after I called the server out on being dishonest about not bringing a fresh pasta after he offered it. I would not recommend anyone eating at this restaurant. The food is mediocre at best and definitely not worth the price gouge they charge for it. And not to mention the health risks and lack of cleanliness associated with their inappropriate food handling. It’s not worth being treated like you don’t matter, and it’s not worth potentially getting sick bc servers believe in risking customer’s health and safety instead of having integrity and remaking dishes they’ve failed on. My engagement celebration was ruined. DO BETTER! Edited following the owner’s response: two people out of the eight in my party received desserts. Everyone wasn’t offered a dessert also, please know that. I chose not to receive a dessert bc I questioned your restaurant’s cleanliness, and that’s okay. NO ONE was ever rude to any of your staff, including myself. Even after I found how poorly my mother was treated when your server guaranteed and lied about a healthier fix to her issue with the pasta, I was still nice- everyone was. The male server who took over my table was nice too, he was just wrong. He handled a very fixable situation incorrectly and unsafely. Please choose to reconcile your opinions about customers who patronize YOUR BUSINESS publicly differently if you aren’t going to hold your establishment accountable for very...

Anything but fine dining this evening at 7pm - Feb 13 if you are looking for Italian food fresh skip this place. Reservations were made online with clear annotation of Anniversary. Not even acknowledge by staff or were the directions followed, oh by the way I did follow it up with a call at 3pm. Ordered a bottle of champagne and had to request it upon being seated at the table verses it being at the table upon arrival. Appetizers where do I start, clearly made about an hour before opening or two hours before serving, crab cakes were possibly publix brand or Gordon food service special, the center of the trio appetizer was a bread with cheese and the sauce was possible from a sweet mixture from an oriental restaurant. I will not mention my spouse's reaction to the artichoke "something" mostly melted cheese. The Main course, shrimp scampi with angel hair, okay leave the lemon at the bottom of the plate and the tails on the shrimp and mix into the pasta, really and this is “fine dining”. I ordered extra shrimp that direction was missed entirely by kitchen staff but found on the bill upon leaving. The chicken and pasta dish “you left the bone in” also was buried in thick cut cheese slivers, obvious rushing by kitchen staff and not what was advertised as “boneless”. The wait staff, ordered a Bombay Sapphire Martini, I was brought a concoction that resembled a blue whale and not a martini in any form….. don't tell the customer "well this is what the bartender said it was"....... try for round two, they did seated us next to their station and the comments about other customer’s was appalling, not to mention the comment of “well I guess you were not that hungry you didn’t even finish your meal”. I don’t think it is the place when the customer appears in a suit, his wife in an evening dress and then comment upon the amount of the meal ingested, we didn’t solicit the commentary, had you did ask us anything about the meal you would have found out the whole story instead of handing me the check without review of performance or quality. I definitely would have told you about the meal and the need at that point to bring your manager to my table.

The bright note was the hostess that asked about our evening outside of the restaurant… the only ones to ask us about anything. We explained the substandard food, horrible service and failure to follow basic etiquette or direction. At $170 in total for the evening I was left with the feeling the commercial was just hype and the place is definitely not a fine dining experience. I don't write reviews for a living and if it bothered me this bad imagine what other's have thought without saying a word due to...

I was told by a co worker to check this place out for a nice place to take my wife. It must really make a huge difference what day of the week you go because our experiences were night and day. The restaurant is located on a one way street in downtown, so parking can be a chore. If you go during Foster Fest then getting there can be nearly impossible so do your due diligence and plan accordingly. Inside can be described as rustic, complete with creaky floor boards and dim lighting. There's a bar where you enter that has a modest selection of spirits and an open kitchen to the right where you can watch the cooks toil away. The dining area up the stairs is fair sized with another bar area located there. Once we were seated it took 10 min for anyone to come over and say anything to us. We were kinda parched from the walk so having some water would have been nice, so strike one. The appetizer was okay, but pricey for what it was. The same goes for the salads. Once we finally got our water and it ran dry, we waited another 15 min to get it refilled. The waiter seemed pretty preoccupied and disinterested in anything the entire night which could explain the wait. It could be the table with the with the cute girls sitting all alone that had him tied up, but in any event, Strike two. I'm not really sure why it took 30 mins for the entrees to arrive AFTER we finished our salads, it takes 10 minutes to boil some pasta, right? Once the food finally arrived I was pretty disappointed. It was warm, not hot like it came fresh off the stove for 30 min. The food was bland, uninspiring and very minimal for what you paid for. You would get bigger portions with better flavor at literally half the cost if you went to the Olive Garden down the road. I've had better sauce come from a jar I picked up at Wal-Mart. Sad, but true. This was the final nail in the coffin for me. My wife still held out hope though "there's always dessert!" she said. Unfortunately, they just awkwardly brought something out without telling us what it was first. Too bad I'm deathly allergic to it. That would have been the cause of the literal nail in my coffin. The manager came over at the end and tried to make up for some of it, but by that time it was too little, too late. I just wanted to egress and RTB. Long story short, they missed the mark by a wide margin this time. I don't recommend and won't be coming back. You get one 10 year wedding anniversary and this one was pretty messed up for me by this experience. It's too bad since I...