Bella Italia Raleigh — Restaurant in Raleigh

After much deliberation on where to dine within the area we were referred to Bella Italia by a friend.

The restaurant, being buried in the back of a retail mall, is not easy to find unless you are approaching from six forks road. Parking appears to get tighter as the evening progresses, the parking lot does come to a dead end.

With the many TV's spread throughout the dining area playing professional sports, made this restaurant feel more like a sports bar, rather than an Italian restaurant. The sounds of the many games playing made for a bit of an unappealing ambiance.

The staff were all extremely friendly and personable, our server appeared to be knowledgeable of the menu and was able to provide input on entree selections, she also proactively ensured alterations to the order were reflected upon the bill.

The Caesar salad unfortunately was served a bit wet, although the ingredients were fresh and I enjoyed the salad for the most part, it ended in a soupy mess with the remainder of my fresh cheese and croutons drowning in the soggy mess and forcing me to retreat, leaving them to drown. The fried ravioli was prepared well, the cheese was fresh and evenly heated, but unfortunately the sauce accompanying them was very bland and not quite comparable to a jar of Ragu. The lasagna came out looking quite impressive, the serving size was significantly more than I was expecting and although it was pleasing to the palate, it was quite clear this lasagna was not made fresh and just shy of being called Stouffers. The Gnocchi in "pink sauce" was somewhat of a mystery to me, I would assume this was a vodka sauce? It was unusually, overly creamy, leaving the Gnocchi to drown in it. The serving size was impressive and the sauce had a pleasant taste, but did not appear to be made fresh.

My dessert of choice was the NY style black and white cookie, I chose it to go due to the fact they did not offer espresso, much to my disappointment this dessert selection was pre-purchased from a bakery in NJ as indicated in my posted photos. I would have stopped at whole foods for a dessert had I known this.

In my opinion the price point for this restaurant is to...

FOOD POISONING WARNING: I don't want to be the person who only reviews things when they aren't good, but this was NOT GOOD. I'm not even sure where to begin, our meal was THAT bad. All I really can focus my thoughts on is that I will never give this restaurant a second chance, that's how bad it was.

My son's ravioli sauce smelled sickly sweet and looked like it was straight tomato sauce out of a food lion generic can.

My wife and I both ordered a side caesar salad and pulled out so many blackened/rotted pieces of lettuce we could almost make a new side salad of our own. As for the pizza, the crust was as plain as could be, the middle was soggy and droopy with practically zero undercarriage and the meat toppings were sliced so thin I simply can't understand how the to-go door was constantly swinging open with people coming in to pick up food. The grease was astounding and the cheese tasted like it was freezer burned. I don't think I've ever been as disappointed in Italian food that previous to this, was almost impossible to mess up. Either the undercooked/soggy pizza or the rotten salad gave both my wife and I food poisoning the following day as well and in this day and age when the average dinner for 4 costs $60+, that's the last thing I want to pay for.

Our server was super sweet but seemed to be overwhelmed at the time with a huge soccer team already seated by the time we got there. She did accidentally add an extra pizza on the bill and if I hadn't of gawked at almost paying $100 for such a terrible meal, I may not have caught it due to just trying to get out of there as fast as possible.

I can get over the little Italian "dingy" dirty style hole in the wall aesthetic as that's usually the kind of place where you get truly great meals, but this meal was so God awful I can't imagine this place stays open for another year assuming people open their eyes and realize their palate's deserve better. Look at my last name, it's not like I'm new to this...

So I’ve heard good things about this place for a couple of years and my daughter asked to go for pizza. I need gluten free meals so we called in advance to ask and they do have pizza crust and pasta that is GF. When we got seated no one came up right away to take drink orders. Then a waitress finally said let me check who is going to take your table. We got another waitress who took our drink order shortly after that but our drinks didn’t appear for a while. All the other tables seemed to have drinks and food. When she finally brought the drinks I told her we would order food since we had her attention. It was an hour now and no food. We ordered a large pizza for our kids, a gluten free pizza and salad. The other waitress told me she saw I looked confused and would check on our food after more time passed. Our waitress came out after some more time with a salad and said our other food was coming soon. Then 25 more minutes passed as we saw tables who came in after us get their food and finish up, etc. The other waitress told us again she would check on our food and she was sure it was coming. Finally my gluten free pizza came out first BUT it wasn’t what I ordered. I was super disappointed since it’s been almost 2 hours now. Our waitress offered to make us a new one but honestly I didn’t have two more hours to wait and sit there. We just told her please bring out our kid’s pizza because they are very hungry. They did. She kept apologizing but then brought the check with no discount, etc. Not sure how this place will bring me back for a second time at this point. We are nice people so we still tipped a little bit but would have been nice to admit what happened there. Hopefully their service...