Bella Italia

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92-96 Deansgate, Manchester, England M3 2QG(0161) 832-4332

Description: == Location == The restaurant is one of four in Manchester, it is situated on the corner of Deansgate and St Mary's Street, less than 5 minute walk from the Arndale Centre.== Opening Hours == Mon - Fri 10:00 - 23:00Sat 9...Read More

Cuisine:
Mediterranean, Italian
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A Wonderful Restaurant

by Fiver29

Barrow in Furness, United Kingdom

January 17, 2010

Best of IgoUgo == Location == The restaurant is one of four in Manchester, it is situated on the corner of Deansgate and St Mary's Street, less than 5 minute walk from the Arndale Centre.== Opening Hours == Mon - Fri 10:00 - 23:00Sat 9:00 - 00:00Sun 9:00 - 22:30== ...Read more

Bella Italia (two)

by joellevand

Edgewater Park, New Jersey

March 6, 2005

Best of IgoUgo Bella Italia is, like all chain restaurants, carefully crafted inside to convey whatever mood is necessary at any given time. The walls are lined with mass-produced prints, replicas of advertisements for wine, spirits, and other items that feature ...Read more Bella Italia is, like all chain restaurants, carefully crafted inside to convey whatever mood is necessary at any given time. The walls are lined with mass-produced prints, replicas of advertisements for wine, spirits, and other items that feature women in seductive poses curling around bottles and various pieces of fruit. The interiors are painted to look like terracotta and mud-brick stone, with fake vines and trellises acting as walls between seating and the bar, as if you were actually dining in the courtyard of some Venetian café. Of course, all this is obscure the minute the lights go down and the candles are lit, obscuring everything except for your artistically prepared meals and the faces of your dining companions.

As expected, the dishes are cookie-cutter chain restaurant fare. Like Bertucci’s or the Olive Garden in the U.S., you can walk into any Bella Italia in England, and if you order the spaghetti bolognaise or linguini rustica, you’ll get the same dish, prepared the same way, with the same garnish. Same goes for the garlic bread, which appears to be freshly baked by some old Italian baker but in reality probably is the same ciabatta loaf with garlic and butter you can get at ASDA for a quid.

That said, however, there are many reasons for someone who holds chain restaurants in the same regard that I do to at least try Bella Italia, and the tiramisu is foremost among them. As someone who loves Italian food, I consider myself an expert on the subject of tiramisu--a connoisseur of the dessert, if you will. To date, I’ve tried nine different Italian restaurants—some chains like Bella Italia and Olive Garden and some independent, family-run cafes in the Italian sections of Baltimore and New York. Of all the places I’ve tried, Bella Italia wins my vote hands-down for the best tiramisu I have ever tried. If there’s a place which has better tiramisu, I’d love to try it.

There are, of course, other menu items to savor as well as the desserts. The pizzas are incredible, to begin with, and for pesto lovers, the linguini rustica cannot be beaten. I highly recommend the cannelloni with ricotta and spinach, even for those who can’t stomach the vile weed, and while I abstain from red meat myself, my dining companions on several different occasions have raved about the meat lasagna.

Bella Italia has two locations in Manchester: on Market Street and on Deansgate, across from Kendels. With monthly meal specials, you can usually score drinks and dessert along with your main course for less than twenty pounds, which is a great deal, considering the Pizza Hut across the street will run you about the same price for half the quality.

From journal Six Months Living in Manchester

Bella Italia (one)

by joellevand

Edgewater Park, New Jersey

March 6, 2005

Best of IgoUgo I’ve never been a fan of chain restaurants. I understand the concept: when facing an unfamiliar situation, one is given to feel a certain sense of dissociation that is alleviated by being surrounded by something familiar. In other words, when ...Read more I’ve never been a fan of chain restaurants. I understand the concept: when facing an unfamiliar situation, one is given to feel a certain sense of dissociation that is alleviated by being surrounded by something familiar. In other words, when suffering from a feeling of being lost, alienated, and confused in a foreign locale, something you know is going to make you feel at home, like you’ve found a place you can trust. In marketing, this is called "brand identity", and this strategy is geared toward the holiday traveler. It’s why, when you’re in another country, the restaurants and fast-food joints you recognize from home may be staffed with different people, the menu populated with foreign words and currency marks, but the customers are usually your own countrymen. It’s what makes you go into a Hard Rock Café when you’re in Paris and order, in perfect English, the HRC staples, like a pig sandwich or herb-marinated grilled chicken breast. In fact, in the example of the HRC, when I first began traveling as a student, I would seek out the establishment to see how many different countries I could order "Twisted Mac and Cheese" in.

Most people find comfort in the ability to walk into a place, not knowing the language or culture, and be served something they are guaranteed will be appetizing and palatable to their bored and atrophied taste buds. I, however, dread the same ol' thing in a thousand different countries, cultures, and currencies. On a recent trip to London, I allowed myself to be dragged to a TGI Friday’s three times because my traveling companion—my sixty-year-old mother—was having trouble understanding what some of the ingredients were on some menus. In addition to the previously discussed abomination that is rocket, there were courgettes and aubergines to puzzle her, as well as daunting bar drinks lists that didn’t include margaritas or Long Island iced teas and little pubs that didn’t take American Express.

The first night we went, I looked at it as an adventure, to see if I could find something marketed as "American" that obviously wasn’t. But, like every other TGI Friday’s in the world, this one was a chain restaurant: same décor, same menu, same drinks list. My mother loved it; I loathed it.

After a few nights of Americans eating American food surrounded by other Americans, all lost in the confusion of London, I talked her into trying an Italian chain restaurant called Bella Italia that was on her AAA-approved eating establishments list. After a three-course meal that included one of the best desserts ever created, I have become an adamant fan of the place.

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From journal Six Months Living in Manchester

Bella Italia

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A Wonderful Restaurant

Bella Italia (two)

Bella Italia (one)

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