Bella Italia

My colleagues and I recently visited Bella Italia at the Piccadilly branch and was thoroughly disappointed. We were advised the day before we were due to visit for our Christmas meal that lamb wasn't on the menu and we had to choose something else, which we didn't particularly want, although we did receive complimentary bottles of wine, after asking.

When our main courses arrived, to say we were disappointed was an understatement. For your turkey dinner, the vegetables were luke warm and raw, not al dente, but raw!! Also, I think you must've picked the skinniest turkey going, because there wasn't a lot of meat on the plates as it was completed over run with your raw vegetables. If we'd have wanted raw vegetables,we'd have stayed home and done ourselves a salad or ordered a salad ourselves. The salmon meal, if you can call it salmon, as you must have picked the most anorexic salmon going, because there was the smallest slither on everybodys plate. The john dory fish it was accompanied with had bones in it and also the skin left on it. It was not enjoyable at all. Your waitress was obnoxious and rude and when we said about your menu saying it was salmon with John dory and not the other way around, we were advised by your maitre d, that we'd have to email you directly with our comments and complain. Back onto your waitress, unfortunately I didn't have the pleasure of knowing her name, asked us if our meals ok, and when we didn't respond, took this to mean the food was fine. How wrong she was when we did complain, she got on her high horse and was rude.

Another thing that happened was that when we arrived at your restaurant we were advised that they had not received 2 orders for 2 people who were with us, yet when they came out with the confirmation our menus we'd ordered, low and behold they were on there.

When the bill arrived, we were billed wrong, as the deposit we had paid was not removed from the bill and also, we refused to pay the service charge - pay for what, a rude waitress and an unpleasant meal - I don't think so. Although, the maitre d did his best to please us, it was too little too late.

As you can tell from my comments, I am not pleased and nor were my other 8 colleagues. What was meant to be the highlight of our night was completely ruined!!

I would appreciate and look forward to your comments on the appalling food and bad service as soon as possible.
Comment on this reader review

Lindsay Brockbank
Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Having visited manchester i paid a visit to bella italia where we always go when in manchester. We stood there waiting to be seated with staff just ignoring us,the starter had only 4 king prawns and cost £5.25, then the main course came in a dish which most italians would serve as a starter it was pollo diavola with pepperoni , there was 2 pieces of chicken and 4 bits of pepperoni it was a disgrace.
Comment on this reader review

chris rodgers
Sunday, June 03, 2007

I go to Bella Italia once a week, its lovely. My favourite dish is the penne gamberi and you can't beat a bit of the traditional spag bol. Varied specials menu, but past dishes that I have tried and which I think should be put on the main menu are the pate served with olive oil and crisp bread, and also (can't remember the name) the dish with chicken breast pieces with sliced peppers and courgettes in a creamy sauce. Yum!!
Comment on this reader review

sarah
Monday, December 04, 2006