Bella Notte Ristorante

I celebrated valentines dinner at Bella Notte and was quite impressed with the food. Understandably they were very busy but I did not expect the service to be so slow. We had to wait to place our order, wait for our drinks to arrive, remind the staff when we got our appetizers that we were not served any bread. When they did finally bring the bread they only brought 2 small pieces (one per person) which I thought was a bit ridiculous. Our server had to be reminded that we had ordered our dessert. Had we not, we would have been sitting there for much longer.
I would rate the food 3.5 out of 5 stars
I would rate the service 1.5 out of 5 stars
I understand it was a very busy evening but with 8 servers I thought they should have been able to manage the service levels.
I will certainly go back again for the food and can only hope I get better service next time.

If I could give this place a zero I would. I had a party of 20 for NYE. They split us up at two different tables, side by side. We were all sitting in plastic lawn chairs. When we arrived, our second table of 10 was still occupied with guests from the previous party; our entire party wasn’t able to sit down until 8pm (the reservation was for 7:30pm). From the very beginning our waiter was extremely overwhelmed. He dealt with our party of 20 plus other tables and could not keep his composure. The restaurant was certainly understaffed. Once we ordered our meals, the sever did not bring out our main courses, but the bus boys/​girls. They arrived at our table with plates not knowing who ordered what. When they place a meal in front of us and said «Who got this?» we asked «Well, what is it?» (seeing as it was our first time at the venue) and the bus boys/​girls simple stated «I don’t know, we aren’t servers, we were just told to bring this out». After a lot of confusion and switching plates, we finally all had our meals. Several of us ordered the lobster linguine ($ 29) and we were less than satisfied with our meals. There was little to no lobster in each of our dishes, we were all still hungry after our meals. No one came to see how our meals tasted, we were offered ground pepper or Parmesan cheese. It was extremely unorganized; I have no idea how this place is classified as ‘fine dining’. This was the worst NYE experience I’ve had and I will never be returning to this venue; neither will the 19 others I came with.

This is a very good Italian restaurant. I would actually have given them 5 stars but the dish I had could have used just a little more flavour in my opinion. Bet the I am one who prefers bold flavours. The app my son and I shared was the Prosciutto Wrapped Sea Scallops and it was truly a ¹⁰⁄₁₀. I had the Linguini Lobster as my main, and like I said it could have had a little more pizzaz, but it was still quite delicious. The lobster was really well seasoned, but the sauce for the pasta was a little milder than I prefer. My son had the Veal Scaloppini Napolitano, which I tasted and was very impressed with. The olive/​caper mix was really delicious. The Limoncello Cheesecake for desert was absolutely to die for. Over all the experience was excellent, the food is really good, the service is spot on, and the décor is warm and inviting. I will repeat.

My review is based on two trips — both in large groups. If a place can handle groups as efficiently and professionally as Bella Notte did, I can only expect that a normal dining experience would be outstanding.
The food was great in all respects, or at least almost — I had chicken parmigiana on one occasion that was a little too done — but not so much that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy the meal. A nice salad with an excellent viniagrette accompanied both meals, and I must say that I love that warm bread comes out with a very nice black olive tapenade, though I’d love an olive oil/​balsamic option too for all that bread I eat even though I shouldn’t.
Service was prompt and efficient.
The wine list offers a lot of nice options for bottles and half-​litres as well as by the glass. A good selection of cocktails as well, classics and new ideas.
Nice spot for a night out.

Daddy-​Daughter Day was upon us and my father picked me up for dinner. It was a Saturday night and we did not have reservations. We stopped at a few places and ended up at Bella Notte. A classy, Italian spot that we were fortunate to snag a table at. The décor and servers had all of the trimmings of a traditional Italian restaurant.
My Dad ordered half a dozen, fresh oysters. They were served cold with a lemon dressing and lemon wedges. It was my first time eating oysters. The texture was interesting, but not unpleasant. The lemon complimented their natural, briny flavour.
What’s an Italian restaurant without pasta? My Dad chose his usual, Pasta Primavera, and I went with the Spaghetti Carbonara. The dishes arrived piping hot and piled high. While I snapped a few photos and ate with my eyes… when I realized I had penne noodles. Not a big deal, but it’s called Spaghetti Carbonara. I expected long, difficult to eat noodles… especially since they brought me a spoon. Puzzled and hungry, our dishes didn’t last. 90% of the time, I end up with a doggy bag when it comes to pasta. Not today. It was delicious. Smothered in a mellow cream sauce, full of fresh peas and pancetta. The pancetta was ok; sometimes crunchy, but very salty. My Dad was pleased and he too cleaned his plate. He uses the primavera as a test for any restaurant that serves it. He said it was pretty up there on the list!
The dessert menu looked AMAZING and I wanted it so bad, but we were far too full. I will save that for another day.
There WILL be another day.
This is a great place for dates or large groups and the service is fantastic and very professional.
I can’t wait to go back!

I’ve created an account to rate this restaurant. And after watching Kitchen Nightmares with Chef Gordon Ramsey I have seen a few others do the same for these so called «nightmares» of a restaurant.
Myself, and a group of 8 others had made reservations to go to Bella Notte in Whitby for my lovely girlfriend’s father’s birthday party. Traditional Italian family with a flare for food, reservations had been made and we had shown up on time and seated promptly.
After hearing their specials from one of the waiters the owner came out to question us about a bottle of wine my girlfriend’s brother had bought for the occasion. The owner informed us the corking fee for this bottle of wine was $ 35 CAD which we said we were fine with.
Dinner was had, and although there was a few problems (calamari was very undercooked and rubbery, other elements of dinner were not al dente or soggy) we didn’t really complain and continued on.
As the rather large bill for 9 guests came to the table, the brother (whom was paying for the meal) noticed the owner had silently increased the corking fee to $ 50 CAD.
We decided to question him about this, which began this restaurants downfall. The owner quickly danced around the question of the increase in price and decided to take us on a business lesson of his margins, and how if we had purchased this «rather generic» bottle of wine at his restaurant he would’ve made more money — and thus, should punish us for bringing it by increasing the corking fee, even though he had simply stated earlier it was $ 35 as he picked the bottle up.
The owner began to tell us the bottle was larger than he expected, and this was the reason for the increase. I can assume the owner who had quite a good wine selection on the other side of the restaurant had seen a bottle of this size before, and upon grabbing it could tell it was larger and thus inform us of the increase, but he decided to sneak it onto our bill.
After a few exchanges, excuses, and rude comments in regards to giving us a measly $ 15 refund, he came back with a $ 15 gift card and threw it on the table. At this point, he might as well have given us a blank piece of paper as we weren’t coming back to this restaurant ever. As a small business owner myself, there’s a larger lesson here — if you make a mistake and tell a customer something, suck it up and make it right. $ 15 is nothing in this transaction where he probably had made hundreds of dollars in profit on us that night, and to satisfy a customer (and have a repeat visit), as well as accept you made a mistake it would’ve been no problem for him.
We had left upset, and angry at the fact the owner would not accept he made a mistake, and charged us for it.
I would seriously consider not visiting Bella Notte any time soon if you are interested in going. If the owner is not willing to bend a bit for customer satisfaction, it shows a much larger problem trickling down from top, to your plate.