Bella Monica — Restaurant in Raleigh

EDIT: Manager called me about my negative review which was clearly a shock and disturbing because I had not called to make a reservation or made one online. I asked how he got my personal phone #. He said he did a search on OpenTable using my name as is listed here on this Google review, and that he was easily able to retrieve my phone number from a reservation I had made on OpenTable sometime prior, which had never happened. . I had not been here in years and I didn't make the res. He encouraged me to return and ask for him, Ben Hunter, so he could give me some Bella love. I told him that was creepy. I ended the call after telling him we won't return because of the poor dining experience and being tracked down online, which I told him was beyond his duties as a manager. I've contacted OpenTable to report this and asked to have my phone number deleted for privacy after this manager tracked me online, reportedly using their system. OpenTable said they could not find any reservation I had made there, after several minutes on hold, they advised me that a reservation was made in 2014 and advised me to contact the mgr via email and supplied me with the restaurant email address myself, to ask him to have it removed on his end and for him to let OpenTable know and they will contact me once he has done this. I emailed at their request, titled "REMOVE ME", despite hesitation, and the manager, Ben Hunter, replied and was again incredibly rude about my review. I asked him not to contact me further, that I'd asked him to remove me, and that any further contact is harassment. OpenTable had not contacted me that he had removed me and my phone #from his OpenTable account. UPDATE: Now, this manager, Ben Hunter, has emailed Google, copying me, despite me telling him to not contact me, to have Google, remove this review, resorting to slandering me in various ways personally, and asking Google to remove me completely and further saying he will pursue legal action as he considers my negative review remaining online and any updates to be harassment to his business. I contacted OpenTable immediately and sent them screenshots of the email exchange. OpenTable advised that he had my phone # from a reservation made in 2014 where I either called to make a reservation or did so in person, which could be true, I don't recall. According to them, I had not even used OpenTable ever for Bella Monica. They said they "facilitated the removal" of my name and contact info in the restaurant records and would give him information on how to respond more appropriately to negative reviews in the future. Dear Reader, if you have read all this,....BEWARE of this and other restaurant managers such as this, that will resort to do anything to track you down if you leave a negative review. Use a nickname for reviews and also when phoning in a reservation. That was the advice given to me by OpenTable. REVIEW: We stopped in on a weeknight, not busy, seated promptly. We did not make a reservation. Used 4-course, dinner-for-2 gift certificate which I informed waitress of before ordering. I was the highest bidder on the gift certificate in a silent auction for charity dear to me. Alcohol not covered of course. Bruschetta was rock hard, salad dressing had strong odor, entrees were disappointing. Had to ask for bread, none was served with our meal. It didn't arrive until after we'd finished. We were over charged for our wine. We had 4 glasses between the 2 of us. We tipped generously on the full amount, despite the inattentive service and disappointing food. We left shaking our heads, agreeing that we...

Updated Review from May 2024: I ate at Bella Monica two nights ago with a group of family members. Unfortunately, our food was mediocre at best. I had the vegan meatballs and “gravy” over spaghetti. Not something I really wanted but their vegan options are basically a cheese-less pizza or pasta. My fiancé and I also shared a beet salad.

We asked them to add onions to our salad which at least gave it a little taste and crunch. The small amount of vinaigrette they had put on the salad had almost no taste other than bitterness. That didn’t pair well with the peppery arugula. Aged balsamic, a little bit of salt, a hint of garlic, some olive oil and a pinch of herbs would have elevated the salad dressing and improved the entire salad. The beets were diced up finely but otherwise unseasoned. We make roasted beet salads at home all the time and eat them at restaurants quite often. This was one of the less memorable versions I’ve had.

The vegan meatballs on our entrees did not seem to be homemade. I believe they use premade frozen Beyond Meatballs. They have a weird taste almost reminiscent of charcoal/lighter fluid. Impossible Foods makes a much better vegan meatball that actually looks, tastes, smells and cooks like a real meatball. Bella Monica should look into switching to Impossible’s Italian style meatballs. They even get a crust on them like real meat and I have been amazed how many folks can’t believe they’re not actually a meat-based meatball. The tomato sauce “gravy” was quite bland and watery. Again, not much in the way of a developed flavor. Just overwhelmingly canned tomato tasting. Our spaghetti was long past al dente, bordering on mushy.

Even my mother who tends to eat quite blandly thought it was underwhelming in the taste department. My aunt and grandmother shared a salad and the squid ink pasta. There was quite a strong aroma of fishiness when the plate was sat on the table. Unfortunately this recent experience was much the same as my last experience at Bella Monica several years ago. I would really love to see Raleigh get a great Italian restaurant that serves up food on par with the prices most of these restaurants charge. As I said in my review a few years ago, I consider Bella Monica to serve food that’s on par with your typical Italian-American chain restaurant. The best thing they have is their delicious bread, but they should include some extra olive oil to dip into as it can be a bit dry on its own.

Review from 2019: So it’s been a long time since I ate at Bella Monica, and I decided to give it another try. Unfortunately, the experience wasn’t great. We ordered the Bolognese and Sockeye salmon entrees. Both were completely bland and tasteless. The bolognese had a strange almost sweetness to it that I don’t even know how to describe. Other than that one unusual flavor that I’ve literally never tasted in any other bolognese sauce, there was no seasoning or even salt.

The salmon’s side dishes also were extremely bland, as was the sauce it came with. I had high hopes it would be good, but we were both extremely disappointed to the point we didn’t even take home the leftovers. Usually I’ll try to doctor up anything that’s bland, but this was beyond help.

I love their focaccia bread, but even it was stale. The food seems to be more old school “American Italian” food vs. authentic Italian, just at a high price. Raleigh is lacking in phenomenal Italian...

If only Bella Monica was a great Italian restaurant. Unfortunately, it is not. We have gone probably 7 or 8 times, usually to “try something new” because we thought it had potential. Their pizza/flat breads were decent in the past but not great. We went again the other day for the last time.

We had crab flat bread for our appetizer. It was ok, but definitely nothing to write home about. It was quite salty but there were Kalamata olives on it, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt.

Eggplant Rollatini appetizer was decent.

For my main course I had chicken parmesan. The entree, not the sandwich. How do you mess up chicken parm? I don't know how but if you'd really like to know, ask Bella Monica. Because they did it. Ruined chicken parm. The sauce was so greasy that there were literally pools of grease in my plate. I can understand a sauce being somewhat greasy if there is, say, ground beef in there. But a super greasy sauce to go on top of chicken parm? Come on. It was so bad that I actually threw away the leftovers…

My husband got a calzone which was not bad but, by the end of it, his entire plate was literally covered in grease. Don't be mistaken, I don't mind a little grease, but this was excessive and unnecessary. I wish that Bella Monica was excellent, I really do. But it’s not. If you know real, delicious Italian food, and are craving it, I hate to say this, but don’t go to Bella Monica.

This last time we went, the service was good. But in the past, it has been horrible. Amazing we went back, but, due to the lack of great Italian Restaurants in the area, we were desperate to find somewhere decent. One time my husband went without a reservation, he inquired about a table and said he didn’t have a reservation, in response to how long it would take for a table, a comment was made by the restaurant staff along the lines of “Well, we are Bella Monica”. Boy would it be nice if their food was as good as they...