Bellamy's Restaurant — Restaurant in Escondido

I visited Bellamy’s last night for the first time. Such a beautiful restaurant with top-shelf service. Fernando was personable, funny and a truly professional waiter. The dining experience is unique, built around their French influenced, California-modern cuisine. We ordered a variety of dishes and the overall quality of the food was somewhat of a mixed bag. When making my reservation I requested a booth but we were sat at a table. I found the chairs to be very comfortable. When offered water service, I thought I was back in Europe! We were given the dizzying choices of sparking, mineral, still, tap, etc. For what it’s worth, the tap water here is very good. The classic margarita extremely sour. I enjoyed the impressive wine list.

The “Baby Romaine” is their version of a Caesar Salad. It had a little too much going on, especially the pepita seeds which I found unnecessary. The seared poached egg was a nice touch. Bread service was fairly pedestrian. Lukewarm, flavorless sliced white loaf accompanied by rock hard butter triangles. My son enjoyed his French Onion Soup. Unfortunately the baguette was soft; either not toasted or already sogged out. My wife had the “Steak Frites”. Made with a prime flatiron steak that was cooked past the requested medium-rare. Fries were very good; thin, hot, crispy, etc. My son’s “Red Wine Braised Beef Short Rib” was probably the best dish among the three.

I ordered the “Baja Stone Crab Pasta” and in retrospect wished I hadn’t. The spaghetti was cooked to a perfect al dente, but didn't have enough moisture in the lemon-butter sauce. The strands just stuck together and didn’t easily separate. The crab seemed rather institutional. Looked and tasted like a pasteurized, bulk food-service type crab. There was such an abundant amount of crab in the dish it overwhelmed the balance with it’s strong smell, flavor and mechanically separated texture. I couldn't eat it all. For dessert, the Creme Brûlée was tasty, but the top was soft, completely void of the glassy snap you expect from a good brûlée. The Lemon Cheesecake tasted excellent and was beautifully presented. At the price point of this establishment I had higher expectations for the food. Everything else however was...

Offers dine in. Serves drinks. Great customer service hospitality-wise. We had an efficient server and they had a great team of people. However, food is over priced and will not meet your expectations with regards to taste on some of their food menu. I was disappointed with their seafood paella. Plate presentation was 5 star but when you actually start tasting it, the seafood variety for $34 was just ok, the rice was watery and mushy and was just covering the bottom plate. Scrape your spoon on bottom and you'll see the bottom plate right away. The taste was awful, indescribable. Will not meet your expectations of what paella should be especially if you've had paella before. Their $30++ pork chop was dry and only one small piece. Pork so cheap at any markets that they could have easily put at least 2 pork chops in there. Their $40 steak was flavorful and tender but was only half an inch thick. It was wide and thin. It looked like the kind of steak you'd find at any mexican meat markets. Their appetizer brussel sprouts with ham was burnt. Its flavor was confusing. It had zero aroma. All we tasted about it was burnt food and sourmess. Ambiance is great and they have live band on the weekends. That's all nice but seriously when we take our family out especially during hard times is that we expect great tasting food especially if we know they're over priced. The good thing is that we appreciate they're still accepting dine ins amidst this chaotic covid19. So, if that's what you think you'd appreciate the most, then this place is for you and you can brush off some of their short comings. For a party of 4: Four meals, 1 appetizer, 1 side of mashed potato, two 16oz. beers, and 1...

A once great restaurant does a belly-flop

We have been eating in Bellamy's since before it was Bellamy's and always marveled that Escondido managed to host a restaurant of this caliber.

Unfortunately that has changed dramatically.

We recently took a couple of friends after repeatedly talking up the food and service, while my friends were too polite to complain I was horribly embarrassed.

The interior remodel is a poorly executed attempt to be hip and trendy. The over-sized booth completely destroys he flow of the dinning area requiring patrons to be paraded through the length of the bar before making a u-turn to be seated in the dinning room. No thought was given to the acoustics which have turned a once peaceful dinning experience into a day at the ballpark.

The food has suffered even more than the decor. Previously I had eaten one of the top-10 steaks of my life at Bellamy's, a well marbled perfectly seasoned ribeye broiled to a precise medium-rare in a high-BTU broiler producing a perfect crust.

The steak I received on my latest visit was HORRID, a low-grade ribeye with NO marbling terrible seasoning and the greasy biter-tasting black marks of a dirty grill.

Service was correspondingly bad; from the hostess for whom it was "not a problem" to show us to our table to the waiter who responded to my critique of my quarter-eaten steak with a grunt.

Don't...