Bella Vista Restaurant - Kaleen

We're visiting Canberra for a week. I've heard the food here is great but the two occasions we've had take out here we've been surprised by the poor quality of the pasta. Tonight's lasagne can be best described as very salty, cheesy mush. It's the worst lasagne I've ever tried to eat. The WORST. Thrown out 3 serves in the bin. $45 not well spent. Horrible. Just awful.

This restaurant was probably the only decent Italian place around the Belconnen area and as we were already in Belconnen so myself and 3 friends decided to go there. First of all, we went in the restaurant and no one greeted us for a while although they were not busy at all, there were probably only 4 tables of guests. We sat down and a lady took our order who was quite impatient when we asked about the daily specials, she did not smile and just seem to have a poor attitude overall which made all of us felt uncomfortable. This lady unfortunately served us through out the entire sitting, first of all she spilled our drinks on my friend and did not even apologize and just put down the now half-full drink and walked away. We waited for at least 40 mins for our food to arrive and when she was handing us the dishes we also noticed she had very long dark color fake finger nails which she placed uncomfortably close to the food, to be honest it was quite off-putting. I am quite certain for Health reasons food-handling staff should not have fingers nails like that, it is mostly likely contrary to the heath department's policy. Worse yet, one of us has found a stringy item in her food, but she didn't want to say anything as the whole experience was already appalling all she wanted is to be out of there. Overall, very disappointing experience for a meal that cost each of us over $40, whilst I used to go there occasionally I don't think I will ever be visiting again.

I don't know how the waitress (apparently the manager) can survive there and has her job since she provides appalling customer service, made everything sound like it was the customers fault. Has long fake acrylic nails in the hospitality industry??? Honestly I don't want her nails to be touching into my food and drinks. This so called manager needs to go and read the food standards Australia/ New Zealand and needs to be re trained on how to provide high quality customer service because she's letting Bella vista down.

A friend who lives nearby took us to this restaurant and when we walked in the decor gave me the impression that it was going to be very 'old school' suburban Italian food, but upon looking at the menu I was surprised to see quite of lot of different dishes that are not so 'typical' Italian and a bit more adventurous. At the same time these modern dishes were not over the top and weird, but rather updated classics and moving away from the typical pizza and pasta that so often seems to limit Italian food.The portions were a good size and everyone was very happy with their food. Despite it not being on the menu, they were able to supply my son with penne with pesto sauce in a child's size.At the end of the meal our friend ordered the cheese plate and was presented with the most amazing arrangement of cheese, honey, crackers and dried fruit - very generous serving and beautifully arranged. The other desserts were also good, but the cheese plate really stood out!The staff were also very friendly and attentive. Service was quite quick.

We were so impressed with a lunch time meal that we had to go back 3 days later with the whole family. Just wonderful. Makes you remember why Italian is one of the great cuisines of the world. We had a GFV dietary requirement for one of our number and while there weren't a lot of these options on the menu, the chef and staff put up wonderful alternatives that were sensational. A wonderful time out and will definitely be back again.