La Bella Ristorante — Restaurant in Town of North Elba

We arrive tired to our destination. We unpacked the car and settled in. Next to set in, hunger to our bellies. We wanted to stay home but the cupboard and fridge were bare. (It’s an Airbnb after all. What did we expect?!). We looked over all the options in town. We read MANY reviews. Some closed. Some close soon. Some cash only. Italian. We love Italian. We ordered to go.

I fed a vegetarian family of 4. 2 kids and 2 adults. We ordered 2 kids cheese ravioli, cheese bread, fried mozzarella, and fettuccini Alfredo. It came with salad and bread. It took less than 15 minutes to pick up. Cost $55

Go read the bad reviews for this location. I just don’t understand how we ate at the same place. ALL of our food was flavorful and amazing. I cannot stress enough how varied the flavors were and how we ate WAY past feeling full. The dip that came with the house bread was impossible to describe but amazing. It was a slightly spicy and so so good on the crispy-on-the-outside, pillow-soft-on-the-inside house bread.

The salad was ok. It’s a starter salad. The ranch it came with was amazing. I eat way too much ranch, but this was top 5 best ones.

Next to surprise me on its impressive taste was the fried mozzarella. 2 large servings of fried mozzarella with some of the best marinara I’ve ever had. I would love to order pasta with fried mozzarella on top. Like an eggplant marinara but fried cheese. Yes please.

Cheesy bread was fantastic. Honestly, it was just a device used to eat as much of the marinara as I Could. I don’t usually gush over marinara sauce, but I couldn’t get enough of it!!

Cheese ravioli for the kids…right….the kids. I ate pretty much both of these because they decided they wanted the Alfredo. So so good. Covered in marinara. Only advice is more marinara!!

Alfredo was great. We all shared off each plate and loved it.

The store was so cute and exactly what I expected. Next time we will dine in. Staff was warm and friendly even though they close in an hour. Plenty of parking and seating.

To say we loved this meal is an understatement. If you are anywhere nearby and need to eat, come...

Ordered basic spaghetti & meatballs - and fried shrimp dinners. Spaghetti & meatballs were cold, no taste or flavor. Did not eat the majority of it. The fried shrimp dinner was disgusting. Batter was uncooked- shrimp mushy, fries had no salt- cold. Did not eat it ! Terrible - the waitress was nice but honestly- it was an awful experience- the floors are filthy & I watched a waiter drop a silverware setting wrapped in a napkin and place it up n the table… really!!! Gross! We did not eat what we ordered and while the shrimp was taken off the spaghetti and meatballs also should have been taken off. Very disappointed **In response to your reply. The waitress we had confirmed that the fried shrimp "looked different than usual". The waitress whom was nice wanted to replace the shrimp, we said no, just charge us for the fries. The waitress, while nice was almost insisting I replace them so I reluctantly agreed to the shrimp cocktail. Several minutes later -the shrimp cocktail still not out & the first time I saw the waitress since she left to order it, I did tell her please cancel the order. It never made it to the table ...not sure why that would cost you anything. The shrimp cocktail was clearly an effort to charge us... Yes, they did return my husbands pasta because it was cold...maybe the reheating impacted the taste, not our fault it was served cold. While you may not believe me regarding the silverware drop, it did. If you were there the night that this all happened, why would you not have come to our table to apologize for both meals having a problem? You didn't say a word to us. It is also really unprofessional to complain that you had to comp food that was not up to par. Our bill was much higher than 30. and we offered to pay for the fries. Maybe you could have stopped over and we could have had this...

I waited two days to think on this. First off, the mozzarella brick appetizer was really good. We ordered 4 meals. Ribeye, chicken picatta, chicken Alfredo, and a seafood medley. Steak might as well have been boiled for its appearance. No visible seasoning and zero searing, but was cooked to correct temp. Bland and had to heavily salt for flavor. The side baked potato was cooked plain, and was a shriveled and over cooked rock. Chicken picatta was one of the worst examples of this dish I have ever seen or tasted. the chicken was not floured or seared in butter , and the sauce was flavorless. The pasta included came on the side with RED sauce dumped on it. Thought they messed up the order, went back, and they did it again. Picatta and sauce is meant to be served together, and the buttery, lemon, wine caper sauce is supposed to flavor the pasta. Please just throw out whatever recipe you use and google a new one, choose the first one, and you would be 100 % better off. The chicken Alfredo had the correct appearance but came with only 3 half inch slices of chicken, sauce was Bland. Side salad was lettuce, with a tomato slice and a few slivers of onion, ranch appeared to be powdered and poorly blended. Seafood medley was good, but not a surprise for the area. In all, I spent 140 dollars for a meal that was sub standard, over priced, under seasoned, and...