Bella Napoli — Restaurant in Schaumburg Township

Updated 2.23.24. Not a good experience! NOT AT ALL!

I bragged this place up and down to my friends because of my first experience, but what a MASSIVE letdown!

We were greeted by walking through a cigarette smoking area with a gentleman in a suit smoking right in front of the main doors. With no way to avoid the smoke and both of us being very sensitive to cigarette smoke, this was not a good start just to enter the building.

We waited quite a while just to order our drinks, and then again to order food. Both of our pizzas ended up being burned on the tops and bottoms, even the cupped pepperoni was burned. Some burnt area in top is expected, but not when it burned on bottom too, leaving a burnt taste in your mouth after eating... that's not pizza!

It took a really long time for the pizzas, which looked like the toppings were thrown at it in chunks not even close to the outer part of the pizza, so it really became more of an 8 inch pizza with a lot of bread around the edges. And it was just warm, not even hot by the time we got it to our table.

Our waitress seemed to keep disappearing like she was part of a magic show, leaving us for long periods and keeping us waiting for a really long time for the check. Don't schedule anything else if you're in a time crunch. There is no urgency or regard for your time.

The atmosphere was loud because everyone seemed to be seated close together even though there were open areas to separate crowds. The televisions were all cooking shows and streamed horse races. It is not very entertaining during dining!

I will not be back again in the evening hours or order anything for pickup in the evening hours. I might try it again during the day, though, in hopes of a better experience.

My first experience and review below was during the daytime. I will never go in the evening again. Different cooks on the pizza oven, and they are not nearly as good as the guy preparing and cooking during the day.

My purpose for going here was not to do a second review, but, to enjoy what I thought would be the same experience as the first. However, reviews help others make an informed decision about a place they want to try.

END OF UPDATED REVIEW - EVENING OF 2.22.24

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I visited a couple of weeks ago with my significant other and had a super weird and off-putting experience. We were seated quickly and greeted by our server fairly quickly. The server was SO animated when he arrived and SHOOK our hands. (I’m trying to have pizza for dinner). As someone who is introverted and doesn’t like being touched by strangers, I didn’t like this at all. My partner was pretty unbothered by it, despite noting it was strange. The server asked us for our drink decision and brought our drinks out pretty quickly. And then? And then he did not come back to our table for 45 minutes. I saw him talking to everyone in the restaurant, going in and out of the patio and other tables (some were his he was serving and others were regulars, which he pointed out when we finally got his attention). We were watching all the people who came in after us get their drinks and appetizers and meals. You might be thinking, why didn’t you grab his attention? Why didn’t you leave? (Which one of his other tables did do. Unsure if it was because of his service or completely unrelated). Well, you see, we tried, but he was never looking at us. And when we tried, the only reason he “noticed” us, was because another worker pointed us out to him. (But also, I was curious if he WAS going to notice us again—I don’t think he was). And we didn’t leave because, well, I was set on trying their food. I’m new to the area and I’d been thinking about wood fired pizza all day. When we finally got his attention, my significant other had already finished his beer. The waiter came over and tried apologizing (but at this point I’m hangry) and I interrupted and asked for bread (we noticed ALL the other tables had bread so I assumed it was complimentary) and he runs to get it and says “here, I even brought you the whole loaf!” (Great? Should have been brought to us 40 minutes ago? I’m not going to make you feel better because you forgot about us?) the whole time after he was just talking non-stop with excuses and stories and trying to butter us up. He could tell I was very unimpressed and kept trying to use my name to be more personable, but at this point I recognized how frustrated I was and didn’t know what my mouth would say and I was trying my best to not be rude, so I told my significant other that he needed to speak for me. So, over an hour after being seated, we finally ordered and got our appetizer. And 20 minutes later, or so, our main course. We both got pizza. Personally, it was nothing to write home about. However, we saw a ton of pasta options we were very interested in and when looking around this is what most people were eating. We’re not writing Bella Napoli off yet, but we will definitely only be doing take out if we decide to try it again. Not risking having that experience again, though it seemed like all the other servers were...

If you're in the Schaumburg area or live around there, this is a decent option. I wouldn't necessarily add it to my places to meet-up with friends again next time we visit from NYC though.

Service was good, no complaints there. We were there on a Friday night and there was a live singer. He was pretty good, but we were seated a few tables away from the stage and once he started it was hard to hear our friends and catch up, which is what we were there for since we only see them once a year.

The food was decent. I liked the fresh bread they offer for the table with olive oil. We asked for parmesan and crushed red pepper to elevate it. The bruschetta was probably the stand out for me - so good! The woodfire goat cheese was ok. My friend ordered the cavatelli trattoria and my husband the pistachio pesto gemelli. I know I'm not Italian, but I've been a part of the culinary industry, am pretty well-traveled and have eaten out enough to know my pastas. They brought out the dishes and it seemed like my friend who ordered the cavatelli got the gemelli for her dish and my husband the opposite for his dish. He didn't care, but my friend isn't a fan of gemelli as it's too thick for her. When we mentioned it to the waitress, she sent the manager over and he was trying to convince us that we received the right dishes. I'm sure they were right according to them and what they have labeled in the kitche, but they definitely were not the traditional definition of the two pastas. That aside, she ended up changing her dish to the rigatoni alla vodka which turned out to be the better of the three pastas anyway. I was happy with my margherita pizza, but wish they had the calabrian chili oil like most authentic Italian restaurants do.

Overall it was a good place to catch up with friends, but I wouldn't necessarily go back...