Bella Italia — Restaurant in Port Angeles

Bella Italia, overall, was a fun experience for my partner and I. We were driving in from La Push and were obviously coming in for Bella’s Mushroom Ravioli. We called earlier in the day and made a reservation. I highly recommend making a reservation before showing up because when we were waiting on a table, they were turning away walk-ins.

Before our reservation, we had about 20 minutes to burn and headed to the New Moon Craft Tavern (fitting 🐺) right around the corner for a quick drink (highly recommend you get a little tipsy before walking into Bella Italia ~ trust me). I chugged a cider while my bf chugged a beer. After closing our tab, we headed to Bella Italia.

When we walked in, there was already a small crowd waiting in the waiting room. I walked up to the 16 yr old hostess and told her I had a reservation. We ended up having to wait 10 minutes for a table anyway. Which wasn’t a big deal for us because we were both pretty tipsy and giddy, quietly giggling at all the small touches of Twilight they had around the restaurant. Once we were seated, I noticed that the bartender was also working as the waiter (rockstar). It seemed as if only him, the hostess, the cook in the back, and another woman were working that day— so it was really short staffed. I looked around at all the tables and noticed everyone seemed upset, impatient and non understanding of the situation. There were so many families with stern tense faces, tapping their feet, etc… like relax mannn. You’re gonna get your Twilight meal. 😂 We were having the time of our lives due to our “pre-gaming” and low expectations (due to reading previous negative reviews). It was just so fun to be there at Bella and Edward’s apparent first date spot, eating Bella’s meal. We joked about ordering 2 cokes as well since apparently she orders that in the book.

Anyway We were served in a timely manner, food came out fairly quick, and food was bomb. I wish they had salt and pepper shakers at each table because my ravioli could have used a touch of salt. We also ordered the focaccia 🤌💋 so good. My bf got the spaghetti and meatballs and it was pretty good as well. Our waiter was really cool, swift and experienced. He knew what he was doing so props to him. I also noticed that the staff were having small celebrations for getting food to each table 🥺 which made me sympathetize with them because I couldn’t imagine running a full restaurant with only 4 or 5 people. Especially since this restaurant mostly attracts Twilight fans from around the world. So you never really know what kind of customers you’re gonna get (tourists can be the worst 🙄).

So if I could give any advice about this experience it would be:

1. make a reservation
2. go get a little drinky drink before walking in
3. lower your expectations (this is just a small sea town forced to serve Twilight fans. They didn’t ask for this!!)
4. HAVE FUN!! It’s Twilight themed for Christ’s sake.
5. Bring your own salt shaker ;)

Like I said, overall, this experience was great and I’m so glad I went. Tbh we were gonna skip this stop but I’m glad we didn’t. Great job to the staff,...

I was so excited to go to this restaurant. We went for my boyfriend’s birthday dinner. We made reservations two weeks in advance and even were going to make a weekend of it.

We arrived early for our reservations. We told the hostess we had a reservation at 7:30, we gave us a annoyed look and preceded to inform us she couldn’t find our reservation. She seemed annoyed with us. She then told us reservations were getting lost lately. She seemed to imply we didn’t have one. Here is where our horrible service began.

After a brief wait (7:45 pm), the same hostess sat us down, brought us water and gave us menus. We were not greeted by a waitress until almost 8:00. When I say greeted I mean we were ignored, no waitress even made eye contact with either of us. We started to wonder if we existed. We saw several couples that arrived later be seated and receive drinks and food. At 8:15 a waitress finally came to us and I asked for a wine taster of the house wine. This took another 15 mins. She went to other tables many times. When she came back we decided to put in our appetizer orders and entree orders. The salad I ordered didn’t arrive until 8:45 pm. I ordered the large Cesar salad, let me tell you. The lettuce was brown and I had one crouton. I tried to make eye contact with someone to get the salad remade, no once did any staff even look in our direction.

I was at a loss really, how can anyone be treated this badly. They ignored us for what seemed to be eternity. I noticed a couple across from us. The young lady got the same salad, piled with croutons, cheese and the waitress offered cracked pepper. We were offered none of this. My boyfriend got the bruschetta and the bread was burned. I remember I was so hungry he gave me one of his breads.

We were ignored until about 9:10. When she finally came back I sent back the salad and the waitress said “I didn’t even notice.” When my boyfriend went to the bathroom I finally waved the waitress over and I asked what was the eta on our food. I explained to her it was his birthday. She said my boyfriend ordered the most difficult dish to make, (chicken marsala) and the chicken had to be pounded. My boyfriend was a chef for a while so this reasoning didn’t make sense.

We received our food at 9:30 pm. Two hours after arriving. The waitress finally seemed to acknowledge us. Both dishes were bland and lacked seasoning. The chicken Marsala was not the correct sauce. And the chicken was obviously not thin enough to reflect it being pounded down.

When we finally got our check the waitress took the time to start asking us about finding wait staff. She did offer us a birthday desert, chocolate mouse. This took another 15 mins. I can understand being under staffed that is difficult and waiting on food. What I can’t forgive is that we were blatantly ignored for so long until the check. After all this our check was 75.00. I still tipped. I have never experienced such service. It made us feel awful. It was his birthday and he felt ignored. I am disappointed and hurt by this treatment.

I don’t believe we will ever return to...

I wanted so badly to love this place. Made reservations for two almost two weeks in advance for our vacation to Washington. Arrived five minutes early to our 7:45 reservation. The hostess confirmed the reservation and then asked us to wait a few minutes while they set the table. Okay, no problem at all. A few minutes later a waitress escorted us to the table, which had water, glasses and our menus. The time is now about 7:45 pm, we look over the drink menu and are excited to try the lavender cider and a half carafe of wine. The three waitresses and hostess keep working, serving the three tables of two and two tables of four. Walking past us dozens of times while looking away any time we made eye contact, the staff seemingly went out of their way to ignore our table.

We wait and we wait and not one person came to our table. 8 pm rolls around, then 8:15. 30 minutes and not one word from a waitress or the hostess. Another couple was sat at a table after we arrived and had their drinks ordered and delivered to their table and we still had not been so much as acknowledged. It's now a little after 8:15 and after I made extremely long eye contact with a waitress as she was standing talking to the hostess, she put her finger in the air as to say "one moment" an eternity after we were sat. The waitress was nice enough in theory. She came over and said "hi I'm sorry I know you guys have been waiting a few minutes." A few minutes isn't more than 30 minutes. But it's okay. We clarified politely it had been more than a few minutes but we were ready to order–drinks and food since we had plenty of time to look over the menu in our wait to be acknowledged by someone. Tried to order the lavender cider–out. Tried to order the chicken parm–also out. We settled for another cider and a white zinfandel, with a bruschetta appetizer, one fettuccine alfredo and a zucchini noodles with pesto, both add chicken.

We eventually get our drinks and my white zinfandel comes in a cracked wine glass. Our bad time continues but we move on. The two tables that came in after us are now eating and we're still waiting. Food comes out faster than we were acknowledged which was a plus, but the alfredo was bland and the chicken was just okay. Never got the appetizer. Ate just to get out of an experience that I can only describe as a could-be episode of the Twilight Zone, no pun intended. We planned on ordering the tiramisu but there was no way we were staying there any longer.

Spent the rest of the night racking our brains as to why on earth we could have recieved such horrendous service with a decently staffed restaurant and minimal guests inside.

We were fond of Port Angeles before this experience. Words can only do so much to describe the misery of our night at Bella...