Novella Osteria — Restaurant in Liberty Township

My girlfriend and I went here for our one year anniversary, we wish we went somewhere else. The food was completely disappointing with average service. Our waitress was really nice but every other staff member looked at us like we were aliens.

Speaking more of the food: 'Fresh' Focaccia (3.5/10) : Everything you want in a focaccia in absent. Rosemary? Pepper? Fennel? All missing here. The bread was more of a dense cake than anything. It was completely bland, yet over salted at the same time. We would've been doing ourselves a disservice ordering more.

Cavatelli al Pomodoro (1.5/10) : This was the dish that my girlfriend ate. What is there to mess up? Its just pasta with a red sauce, well this dish was a complete disappointment. All of the components of a worthy dish were there, but completely wrongly executed. The pasta was like a hard gum, as it was at least 2-3 minutes under done. The sauce was completely bland; it had zero spices whatsoever. More notably, it was extremely runny, I wouldn't argue calling it a soup because of the consistency. The cheese consisted of large blocks of cold mozzarella mixed into the pasta as it wasn't melted whatsoever. The 'topped with basil' consisted of one sad little uncooked basil leaf at the bottom of the dish. It made me sad watching my girlfriend look for the basil sitting at the bottom of the bowl. Like I said, this dish had all the right components, but severely lacked cohesiveness. Everything was wrong about this dish. Very disappointing.

Rigatoni (6/10) : This was the dish I ate, and all I can say was that it was okay at best. The noodles were a minute or two undercooked. The beef was good but I didn't really think it belonged in a pasta dish. I would've rather ate it in a burrito honestly. I took half of my food to go for my mother to try. She's Italian keep in mind. She described it as "dogfood". Again the dish was okay, but I would've ate something else in hindsight.

The only good thing about this restaurant besides our nice waitress was the aesthetic. The seating, layout, decoration, and lighting provided a very welcoming and home-like vibe. I just wish the food was as good as the atmosphere.

Overall, this was a very disappointing experience for our anniversary. If you are thinking about going here for a special occasion or a night out, etc. choose somewhere else. Please. Save yourself the time...

Service: Came in on a weekend at 7pm with a party of 4, the place is about 75% capacity. Once we were seated, it was almost 10 minutes before the server brought us water. Then another 10 minutes or so before order was even taken. Dishes came out extremely slowly. By the time we actually started eating it was almost 8.

Food: The bread that was served was actually ice cold. They apparently forgot to microwave it. The olive oil was low quality - not the dipping kind but the cooking kind. It was also very salty. This easily is the worst bread/oil combo I've had in any Italian restaurant that I can remember. We ordered 4 main dishes. 3 of them were significantly under-seasoned, to the point where I think they forgot to actually add salt at all (logistics issue, just like the bread perhaps). The noodles were somewhere between raw and al dente, definitely undercooked (again, maybe just carelessness, maybe logistics, but our food took 30+ minutes from getting order placed to receiving dishes...). Pro: portions are generous and the meat dish actually has a decent helping of meat. The dishes does have potential to be good - we took most of the dishes to-go as it was getting quite late and we've been essentially sitting there drinking water for 45+ minutes... Once I added just a little bit of salt to the dishes at home, they were quite delicious.

Atmosphere: It's a nice place. The ambience is good, a little loud but nothing obnoxious, nothing memorable either. Average.

We ordered 5 things in total, no drinks. Bill came out to be $160. To be sure, this is not a cheap place, the food and service, for the cost, leaves much to be desired. Maybe our experience was an exception, but I can only...

One of the worst experiences going out I've had in many many years!!

We went on Saturday, August 23, we made a 6:30pm reservation at least a month in advance, and arrived right on time. There wasn't a table ready just yet, which is fine, and we were waiting. I had surgery earlier in the week and was walking with a cane, there was an uncomfortable chair to wait on. After about ten minutes, another couple walked in, a few minutes later a third couple walked in.

The third party to arrive was seated literally a minute after they arrived. Shortly thereafter, the hostess went to sit the other couple, which puzzled us so we asked why two other couples, who arrived after us, were being seated before us? We were told that "our table" wasn't ready, but the table for the other two couples were ready???? WHAT!!!!!

I understand having to wait because no table was available, but to sit two other couples ahead of us, even though both arrived at least 10 minutes AFTER us, really pissed me off! What kind of customer service is that? My fiancé was in tears because this was dinner for my 60th birthday, and she wanted it to be special. It was, the restaurant crapped all over us, treating us like garbage!

Honestly, I could care less how good the food may or may not be, an establishment that treats people like that should go out of business!!! I do business with a lot of people in Columbus, and I will make sure to tell EVERYONE how crappy this place is!

Side note: the place was damn loud, and from what we could see from people eating at the bar, this isn't authentic Italian food. We left, went to Brooklyn Pizza, and it...