Bella Donna's at Grand Lake — Restaurant in Grove

Bella Donna's is a welcome addition to the Grove area. Finally a decent Italian restaurant! The place hadn't even been open a week when we went there. There were a few bumpy things that I am sure will be worked out after they have been there a little longer (reason for only 4 stars). First: checking in and waiting for a seat was a little weird. There is a window at the entrance that you talk through to give your party size. Then you sit outside to wait for your table. That might be a little uncomfortable during rain, winter or hot summer day. Second: there is a little bit of outside seating under nice umbrellas. Then there is a long outside "bench bar" seating. But it faces the inside of the place, instead of the lake. Kind of awkward to basically watch the inside tables as you eat ad the inside people watch the outside people as they eat. Third: the menu sucks. Not the food items but the actual printed menus. It looks like their Point-of-sales system had a print menu feature and they just used the default output. Forth: no fresh bread as you were seated. Fifth: no chocolate desert.

Now for the good stuff. Great location. Right on the water. Park your boat and walk up if you want. The staff was great. Though they were still learning their jobs they worked really well as a team and serviced the customers well. The food was great. We had a Charcuterie board for appetizer. The Chicken Florentine and Veal Marsala for entries. Key lime pie and cannoli for desert. Certainly worth your...

First let me say, the service is very good. The hostesses are friendly and wonderful. That is where our good experience ended. The food is not good. We wondered why the place was so empty on a Saturday and on Labor Day weekend, after we received our food we knew why. It's almost like they picked some Italian dishes off the internet having never actually had them and without knowing how to make them. In my case I think they didn't read the recipe far enough, because they served me raw meat dredged in flour, and not cooked. Veal Marsala should have the meat cooked and brown before the rest of the recipe, yet it seems they missed that part. Raw flour is not okay to serve customers as it is a risk for food poisoning (think E.coli), yet they served very raw flour and veal. The fried ravioli (kids menu) was overcooked. The inside was dust and the outermost part was hard to bite into with zero flavor, no sauce and none offered. Their parmesan cheese is not fresh parm, just taken from the container and put into a bowl. The appetizer (stuffed portobello) had an okay flavor, but the mushroom was overcooked, in my opinion. I went here with high hopes there would be a local place where I could enjoy date night without having to go to Tulsa or Joplin. Unfortunately my hopes were not to come true. I hope they just had a bad day in the kitchen, but for the prices and what we received we will never try...

So happy to have this business serving Grand Lake. We arrived for dinner around 5 on the second day of business. The staff was a bit nervous and getting the feel of things but everybody did just fine. Waitresses were very attentive and sweet. You could tell the floor manager was doing a good job training and putting them at ease. As for the food, we began with an appetizer of the pan fried eggplant. It was breaded just right and easily fed three people. I ordered the chicken and italian sausage with penne pasta. The style of this Italian cooking is truly unique and satisfying. Very rich and authentic. The breaded chicken is marinated and tenderized to absolute perfection. My wife ordered chicken florentine with alfredo and my mother ordered fettucini alfredo. There was such an organic olive oil nuance that came through in the fettacini dishes. Now you won't get a salad as a part of the dish, but when you see the entree, you will not care. There were three of us and we all ate our fill and took the other half home, making it well worth the price on both portion and flavor. The wine is a bit higher priced than you might expect at around $10 per glass but the entrees were a mere $18 each and made two meals. No way I could eat it all in one sitting. I highly recommend Belladonnas. They have brought the true taste of Italy...