B.B. Italia Bistro & Bar — Restaurant in Sugar Land

We have heard lost of bad comments about this restaurant. We do live in the area. Today we were at SL town center and we decided to finally give it a try. it was around 2:30 p. I saw on the website that they have a lunch Houston Restaurant week menu and since it was before 3p.m we decided to give it a try. I also noticed that they have a"summer Aperittivo"from 2-6pm which is like mainly a Happy Hour menu for drinks and for small bites. It said only at the bar. We were sitting across from the bar so I asked the waiter if I could get a glass of wine from the 2-6p.m special , he said only at the bar. So, that meant that if I wanted to have a glass of wine at my table, I had to pay regular price. OK, I know that there ares some restaurants that have the same rule, but they mostly do it for the small bites so they can use their available tables for people that really want to consume dinner, I understand that, but drinks too? Anyway , let's continue, since that is not really the main reason of this one star review. Food: I ordered -Eggplant garlic capponata , it was a very decent portion with a piece of bread. It was ok, needed more eggplant for my taste but also it has a weird oil(not EVOO) smell. -GRANDMA'S RAVIOLI pork & brisket, mushroom marsala ragù, shaved parmesan: it was warm/cold like it was reheated on microwave(saw another review with same situation below) See pic attached, runny sauce , where is the shaved parmesan?? :( Husband food: MInestrone: OK (husband's opinion) 20 layer lasagna. See pic below. I tried it. It was dried , very hot though and with a bed of olive oil to maybe dsiguise how dry it was.... My food was already packed to go and I mentioned the waiter my the Raviolis were meh but that I would try to fix them at home) He asked us if we wanted dessert, my husband said they are included on the HRW menu? (we even had a place we were thinking to go for dessert after that) the waiter said YES. so, I requested my dessert to go, hubbys asked for ice cream. But then when waiter left to place o the order ,I told my hubby I do not recall desserts are part of the menu, let me ask for a HRM menu again, I saw it said at the bottom of the menu that desserts were extra $. The waiter showed up at our table with my husband's gelato and my dessert (he forgot to pack it to go). So, I showed him the menu where it says it was extra, he said yes. I then started looking for the manager but I met the host on the way and she asked me what happened. I said the waiter told us that deserts were included on HRW menu and they were not, and he is charging for them. Host confronted waiter and he said yes I said that upfront, well he did not! !! I got upset not because of the price of the dessert but of the waiter's attitude of lying in front of us!! Anyway, we talked to the manager, and they said they were not going to charge us that(I did not even touch mine dessert , husband had some gelato that was melting) This place is nice decorated, it has a piano , a cute small bar ,but that for me doesnt do it. HRW menus are for restaurants to make their best effort to be the best they can ,so they attract more customers. But when service is not good, food is mediocre and you add a fee charge when you pay with your credit card, I rather take my bussiness ...

Unfortunately my girlfriend’s and I most recent experience here at B.B Italia left us unsatisfied with the service and had us questioning wether we had done something wrong in order to receive such cold shoulders from the staff.We have been here many times before in the past and have had wonderful excellent experiences,especially in ways such as exceptional service from the hostess,waitress and the managers but tonight was different. We had made a reservation online and shown up a few minutes before and when we walked in the hostess looked at us and ignored and and walked away,when she came back she did not say a word to us and simply just acknowledged the fact that we had a reservation after we told her. We were seated after and quickly accommodated by our waitress of the night,there was no greeting or small talk as all of our experiences have had before,she was solely focused on getting our food order put it and nothing more,this is to be expected from most restaurants but at such a fine dinning establishment such as this we expected more dialogue with our waitress about our evening and the special occasion we were celebrating tonight,simply expecting this due to all of our past experiences. As usual the food came out remarkably fast and tasted absolutely amazing,but rather than being attentive of our experience it seemed our waitress was ignoring our table at times ,while giving more attention to tables with more mature audiences which perhaps appeared to have deeper pockets than we did. We were never asked if we wanted cheese on our pastas ,if we wanted dessert and were made to pack our own leftovers which previously had been done for us by the staff. We did feel rushed to leave the restaurant for some reason by the staff but we were still no where near the time of closing and there were still an abundant amount of guest still enjoying their meal. When the time came to pay our waitress was very quiet,inserted my card into the POS mobile card reader and turned the machine around very promptly when the tip screen came on,we tipped very generously and left with little gratitude from any of the staff at all,from the moment we entered we both felt discriminated in the form of lack of attentiveness and care presumably based off our of style of clothing and our age. The food,waiting time and general ambiance and cleanliness of the restaurant was just as remarkable as our previous visits have been rather than just the lack of attentiveness, and welcoming by all staff we had interacted with. We were out celebrating a very special occasion between the two of us in which we even mentioned in our online reservation ticket,but to our surprise we were greeted not with open arms but with cold glazes and lazie-faire dinning. We felt as if we were not treated as guest tonight but simply as wallets. Once again the food was remarkable,the wait time was extremely short,the ambience and cleanliness was superb,but our one off experience with the service was extremely lacking and we hope that when we return ,we can once again an amazing dining experience, one bad experience does not speak for the reputation of an entire restaurant and we hope to come...

I want to start by saying that I am very glad BB Italia has opened in Town Center. This is a great addition to the restaurant options and brings yet a different setting and food category from all the other good places there. The ambience and décor are great and the vib and energy level were fun. The crowd noise was high and it was a bit difficult to talk, even with a group of 4, but I liked the environment nevertheless. Even though we had a reservation we still had to wait 20+ minutes to be seated but we survived. :)  The bar drinks were excellent and they were able to make all that we ordered whether on their drink menu or not. The service was very good and we highly recommend Jackie (Jaquelyn P as listed on the check) when you go. The food and drinks came out quickly enough despite the place being packed. The other 3 in our group really liked their food - one had a pizza, one had lasagna, and one had spaghetti and meatballs. I was not as pleased even though I will definitely be back to try other things. First, the other couple in our group had visited once before and came away raving about the focaccia bread and so we each had an order. In form, it didn't look like traditional focaccia as it was very thick and not at all dimpled. I also didn't sense the usual taste of olive oil or, often, rosemary. It was also over-baked for my liking as the crust was very dark brown. I prefer a chewier than crispier focaccia. For my entrée I had linguine with clam sauce. The taste was fine but the pasta was very sticky and not easy to fork - maybe due to a lot of parmesan being added in the kitchen? I was expecting oily, garlicky noodles, not all glued together. The photo they show for this dish in the online menu appears as I would have expected to receive, and without bread crumbs, please. That's for maybe topping a baked mac & cheese, not a traditional pasta dish. Also, it came with just 4-5 clams in their shells and I couldn't tell if any additional chopped clams were included. As I said above, we will be back but I will not order either the bread or this pasta dish again which is sad because linguine with clams is one of my favorite pasta dishes.

Update June 2024: We have been back several times including last night. I had the linguine with clam sauce and this time it was perfect. The noodles were al dente and the sauce light, oily and garlicky. I expect that the pasta was way over cooked the first time I had it. My wife had the vodka sauce pasta and it was tasty and smoky wit the bacon. I will likely get this next time because I really like rigatoni. We also had the shrimp scampi toast. It was really good but be aware that it's a very large appetizer (a lot of bread). I would not order one of these for one person - definitely share it. We sat at the bar and enjoyed the live piano music. The bar tenders were friendly and knowledgeable. We'll be eating at the...