Bella Bistro

The experience I had here was horrible! The whole staff was very rude! They didn’t greet us when we walked in and they were rude the whole time we were there. The food was too pricey and mediocre at best. Before they were closing the owner was very rude and went around to all of the tables except ours and asked how dinner was. All of the staff seemed super unhappy to be there. When we ordered they were out of half of the stuff that we wanted so we settled for what they had. They also brought around one tiny quarter sized piece of bread to hold us over for a two hour wait. Basically it was the worst! I will not be going back there again and I will not recommend it to anyone I know.

What a great little place! I was taken here by my parents for a small get-​together and they had been bragging about the place since two days in advance. So walking in, I had some high expectations. This not only met my expectations with atmosphere and food quality, but surpassed it dramatically. I believe the menu changes every day, based on what the kitchen is cooking, and I find that very refreshing. I ordered the pork belly, which I can honestly say I’ve never had, but i knew it was a very Italian dish. Man o man was that the best pork belly i’ve ever had! haha honestly though, the parents probably ate half of my pork belly cause it was so good. They ordered the salmon and short ribs, which everything just fell off the bone (or skin) at the touch of a fork. We pared everything with a nice red wine, and boy was that a treat!
I’ll definitely be going back there some day. I would really like to see them move into a larger location. They defieintely have enough customers to fill a place twice as big and I think the location now only can hold 40 people tops at one time. I just felt my chair hitting the chair behind me, since it was such close quarters. I cannot wait to get back n see what else is on the menu!

In the mood for some fresh, creative flavors? Bella Bistro is the Jewell of Old Towne Arvada. Bella Bistro is the only answer to fine dining in dynamic A. Town. This restaurant is not only great food, but also offers cooking classes, private events and a rotating seasonal menu. I have recommended this restaurant to many people and I don’t know anyone who has every been disappointed. The cooking class I took in the fall. I was able to make ricotta cheese and gingerbread biscotti for the holidays. I love the wine recommendations. Bravo to the staff at Bella Bistro.

I’ve eaten here and attended several cooking classes over the years. Head chef and owner Shelly Steinhaus has got to be one of the most talented and well kept secrets in our small community of Arvada.
In November 2013 I took the Appetizer Cooking class — perfect for finding delicious treats to inspire you to make special treats for guests. The menu consisted of Whiskey Caramel Corn with Bacon, Italian Turn Overs with Sausage & Mushrooms, Crab Cakes with Fresh Cranberry Cocktail Sauce, Beef Tenderloin Skewers with Truffel Cream, Spiced Lamb Meatballs with Red Pepper Coulis, and Cranberry Bliss Bars. The best thing about the classes: you walk away stuffed (plus leftovers) and the recipes to do it all over at home!
In January 2014 I took a Pasta Making class. The menu that night was Lemon Garlic Chicken, Pasta (we made loads of spaghetti, but the recipe works for anything as long as you tweak the liquid), Mushroom Ragu to serve on top of the pasta and for dessert Bombolinis (doughnuts). Shelly told the best story about these doughnuts being the the best recipe she’s found. We served them with espresso or cappuccino and you could have sworn you were in Italy as you ate them with a little dollop of Nutella on top!
What inspires me everytime I go are the amazing stories that Shelly has of her trips to Italy. Shelly gets her inspiration from going to Italy a few times a year and has been trained there. She has a keen ability to come back and translate all of her knowledge to common working folk (like myself) who want the inspiration, flavors and feel of Italian cooking without having to do the trial and error for ourselves. I truly feel like I’m getting the most authentic and «best of» recipes when I come away from those classes. And I can do them at home — it’s not going to be impossible.
Dining there is great as well. I’ve read the other reviews. If you are looking for a quick, Outback Steakhouse experience, go to Outback, not Bella Bistro. Bella’s service times have always been on par with any other fine dining establishment in the area. And the food is always delicious!

We dined at Bella Bistro for Valentine’s Day. The low down:
We arrived at 7pm for our 7pm reservation. The owner said it would be a few minutes, not a big deal there. We waited at the bar and had a beverage. About five minutes later another party of two arrived with a 7pm reservation. There were told the same thing, a few minutes, hang out at the bar. Then, five minutes go by and they seat the part of two who arrived after us. Not sure how this is possible but we didn’t want to make a fuss.
We were seated at a two top in the middle of the room that was awkward, cramped, we kept getting bumped in to by the wait staff and other diners the duration of the meal.
Once our waiter finally came by he really underwhelmed us. No word about any specials, no recommendations, no «hi», «happy Valentine’s Day», no «hey there person I’m hoping to get a tip from so I’ll try not to act like an apathetic d*ck». Nothing. He did take our order, and brought it about and hour later, and never at any point did he stop in to say, «sorry for the wait folks it will be a while».
So I get it, they were busy, Valentine’s Day and all, but had anyone acted like cared that we were there we would have been more understanding.
The entrees were excellent, I had the scallops with Polenta and my husband had the lamb. We split a salad for our appetizer as their actual appetizers looked super heavy and not good pairings with their entrees. Their menu is tiny and changes very frequently.
A few other words — the interior décor is mid-​90s faux Euro, not cool and sorely in need of an update. The exterior of the building is super charming, and it looks like there patio would be great in the summer though it’s on a super busy street.
I wouldn’t come back, but I’m not sorry I tried it. If you go in with low service expectations, knowing that you’ll wait a while, you might not be disappointed.

Fantastic! The menu is always changing and always new and wonderful. What a great place to ENJOY a meal and your company. I recommend it for parties of 4 or less, but they are accommodating for all.
I want to eat there all of the time!

Went here for a date night with the husband on a Saturday. I’m glad we made reservations as we noticed several people were turned away. When the patio is closed there aren’t that many tables, which makes for a nice intimate atmosphere. We sat at the chef’s counter and had a great time watching the food being prepared. All of the fresh ingredients were laid out in the kitchen. The food was so delicious. It is more of a fine dining experience, so I wouldn’t bring kids. Service was great. The only thing I would change– the wine I ordered wasn’t available so they brought me something else. I would maybe just ask for a taste of something before being served a full glass. Overall a really great experience.

One of my snooty patooty friend of a friend suggested this place. I’ve seen it so many times but never been drawn in to try it. Our server was the wine guy from the quaint wine store the next street over. I’m fond of him and he has always given me excellent wine recommendations at the store, so he earned this place an extra star.
The happy hour wine is a crap shoot, you pick red or white and they give you whatever they are trying to get rid of. The food was painfully slow. We had bruschetta and a cheese pizza. It took an hour. It wasn’t worth the wait. And mysteriously, extra glasses of wine wound up on our bill. There were 4 of us and we didn’t want to quibble about it so we just paid for it and left. Next time we will be going to the Thai place next door. It smelled SO good and I guarantee we wouldn’t be waiting an hour for it.

Been trying to go for a year. Always too busy and stuck on themselves to serve us. Don’t waste your time or money.

Pardon the lengthy review, it was that appalling.
We make a habit of trying out new eateries with creative menus and concepts regularly. We recently moved to Arvada and heard both good and bad things about Bella Bistro, but wanted to see for ourselves.
We made a reservation for 7:30. The man working the host stand, who looked like Dennis Farina, let us know we were early (7:20). We could see the table we reserved clearly had two seats open, but those were not for us. So we grabbed a drink at the bar and wait.
The bar is tended by one overwhelmed tender who is making drinks for the whole restaurant. We were eventually greeted. I understand this is a restaurant focused on wine, but not everyone drinks wine. They did have two beer selections in bottles and no drink list to peruse, so my boyfriend took the more micro-​brewy of the two selections.
Fifteen minutes later, our table was still not ready, but they seated us on the patio. We were crammed next to the most drunk and obnoxious middle-​aged couple I’ve seen in quite a while. It was entertaining. But given the cost, a better ambiance would be nice.
We put in our appetizer and entrée orders. We ordered a salmon appetizer, and a pork and a steak entrée. The chef «suggests» medium rare, but my boyfriend prefers a medium, so that is what he ordered. Apparently, you’re supposed to wait 1 ½ hours for your meal to be lovingly prepared. There can be a lot of reasons for this. If you’d like a French-​style dining experience where you spend hours on small dishes, you would hope that at least they’d bring you some bread while your meal is lovingly prepared, but they don’t. So I’m left with the following reasons: 1. They can’t afford staff properly prep food before dinner service so that cooking times are shorter. 2. They have crammed far too many tables into the space that they can’t serve them adequately. 3. They want to drive up your tab with alcohol, and you’ll also be so drunk and starving that you won’t notice the lacking quality of the food, by the way, not only are they shy on offering bread, but also on refilling water.
So anyhow our appetizer comes out, and to their credit, after over an hour of waiting, it is pretty good. My only complaint would be the portion of salmon (2 oz), but it’s an appetizer, we are starving, and so that is good enough.
After watching bread being delivered to every other table, and our waiting over 1 ½ hours for dinner, we decide we are done. We’d just like to take our check and go before something better closes. We tell our server that, and the manager rushes out to us bellowing how they «aren’t McDonald’s» and «good food takes time» and how this time frame is stated on the menu. Well, I’ve had 5 star in less time, so I’m not sure what kind of kitchen alchemy they are doing. He then says since we ordered the food, we have to pay for it. Now, I have no problem paying for the drinks we enjoyed or the appetizer that was good. But I didn’t have dinner so why should I pay for dinner? And at no point have they even apologized. My boyfriend, not wanting to cause a scene says, just give us the bill for everything then, and throw our food in the garbage.
The manager storms off, and surprise, our dinner is ready!!! My entrée was good (but minus 2 stars for the side of attitude that comes with it). The steak wasn’t lovingly prepared at all. Overcooked carrots, the steak ordered medium came out more medium rare to rare, and the steak was more than a ¹⁄₃ gristle. I would be embarrassed to serve something like that, but not this place. Quite frankly Outback Steakhouse would have been better.
So they give us a bill, that is so scribbled, we can’t decipher what is what. And we just find it better to speak to the manager again.
We started off just wanting the steak taken off the bill, but his arrogance made the conversation deteriorate so quickly, that we just wanted to leave. Imagine if this was a special anniversary evening, and we waited all year for a nice night out. He would have basically ruined our night. Yet, he treated us like we were the ones ruining his day by trying to give him our business. He had to keep revising the bill, he came back out at one point yelling at my boyfriend «You didn’t tell me you ordered 2 beers!». No, I didn’t know you were incapable of counting. He threatened to call the police for not agreeing to pay for the steak, at which point, my boyfriend said, «Ok, let’s call together». The manager hurried back in, I for sure thought we would have a confrontation, but instead the chef comes out and says she will take care of this, because we are «ruining her staff’s night». You know what really ruins a night? Expecting a 5 star experience and getting treated like the crap on someone’s shoe. Not an I’m sorry once. I’ve never had a worse experience dining in my life.
P. S. Now I can’t watch Get Shorty without thinking about this manager a-​hole

We’ve watched this place build an open and we’ve only tonight tried it for the first time. I am sad I waited so long! This has become our new absolute favorite place to eat! It is not a family restaurant, we wouldn’t bring our young kids here. But perfect for a date night.
I initially shied away from Bella Bistro because they have strange hours and it is classified as an «Italian» restaurant.
The reason the hours are odd is because the food is absolutely fresh and carefully made for each customer. It takes time and skill to do a job that well.
I wouldn’t classify the food as Italian. There are some Italian influences, but the food is unique and I wouldn’t pigeon hole it to one classification.
Each thing on their menu looked irresistible. And they change the entire menu twice a week. Both dishes we tried were amazing. Their specialty drinks are not to be missed and definitely take the time to indulge in the desserts!
The portions are perfectly sized. Too many places these days overload your plate with far too much mediocre food. These portions are just right and each bite is a treat!
The pricing is high for Arvada, but this is a
fine dining experience and worth it for the excellent quality and experience.
Make reservations.
Plan on spending a long time here. It takes a few hours to dine here.

We were in town for a special occasion, looked at Unilocal after landing at Denver airport. It was a Friday night in July and we got there later in the evening. On he phone the owner was pleasant and when we asked if there was a big crowd he said that there would be room by the time we arrived.
We were greeted warmly. Because we were eating later, we chose to eat lighter portions. The food was excellent! Service was great. Very glad we took a chance on this place. When back in the Arvada area, we’ll definitely return.

Oh my good Italian food! Bella Bistro is a small boutique restaurant that serves top notch Italian food. Top notch in quality and atmosphere.
I really dug the the atmosphere … it was cozy and quaint. They also offer chefs table seating, which provides a nice view of what’s going on in the kitchen. Kind of a different dinning experience but I was into it. There is a nice patio section that would be awesome for summer nights.
Everything from the salad to dessert was tasty. I had a pork tenderloin served over pasta for my entrée that was served just right. The one dish that stuck out was dessert though … we some kind of salted caramel chocolate bar goodness. I should have paid more attention to what was in it but I was mesmerized by the combination of flavors.
I will definitely be coming back to Bella Bistro and enjoying the combination of great food and atmosphere.

The service stinks, terribly rude! Food, ok nothing special!!!
We went here for a fun night out with another couple. Our reservations were super early, 5:30. We were the only table in the place for a long time. When we arrived we were put in a corner table by the fuse box, we asked if we could sit at the next table over instead and quickly and rudely told NO! Since we were not offered another choice, we asked if we could then sit at another table, pointing two over… he sighed and said he would check on it. We ended up with the better table but we were made to feel pretty bad about it.
In a nut shell, we ordered a bottle of wine to start and then ordered two appetizers. We were asked multiple times before the appetizers came out and while we were eating the appetizers if we were ready to order. Since we didn’t know there was a «time limit» on our table, we were just enjoying the evening and didn’t want to be rushed. Finally, the waitress came and said «I can take your order NOW, please» as in you have to order now! It was so so rude.
We proceeded to order a couple more bottles of wine. Dinner arrived, it was all just ok. Nothing special. And certainty nothing to brave the rude service for.
And this is the topper. After a few more rude comments from the white haired guy while we paid our bill… Shortly after we finished desert he arrived again at our table telling us we had to leave! We had apparently overstayed a specific time limit of one and a half hours that they allow tables to stay. We were told we were holding up other people from having dinner and that we had to finish up in the bar! Seriously!!! What restaurant kicks you out — especially after ordering a ton of food and wine, it’s not like we weren’t spending our money.
There are so many other great restaurants, I will never visit this one again.

Really rude service!
We just returned from a romantic dinner at Bella Bistro– that ended very abruptly! Service was slow, as our server warned us it would up front, since everything is made from scratch. (This is not entirely true– they have a drawer full of pre-​made potatoes and other items!) Also, we noticed that we weren’t offered bowls for our mussel or lobster shells, and weren’t given clean forks for our dessert. However, we didn’t really mind because it felt like a friendly, cozy place. Plus, the food was quite excellent.
But… minutes after we finished desert and paying our bill, as I was about to enjoy my last sip of wine and head out, the maître d’ came up and told us that they like to «turn over tables every hour and a half,» that people had been waiting an «very long time» (said as though we were to blame), and «could we finish our drinks in the bar?» Now, if we’d been sitting there for a while after finishing– if it had been phrased in a less accusatory way– or even if others around us hadn’t actually been there longer than us– we wouldn’t have minded so much.
I understand that this is a small place, but I’ve never been asked to leave while still finishing up a meal. And if I’m paying around $ 75 per person, you would expect fairly nice service. Looking at the reviews, I’m seeing a consensus: the food is quite good, but if you want to be sure you’ll be treated decently– look elsewhere.

Nice, elegant and friendly dining in Arvada. Not bad for a converted gas station.
I was treated to dinner at Bella Bistro a few weeks ago. We sat at the chef’s counter, giving us a front row seat to the exec, sous and pastry chefs, and their ministrations. Bella Bistro’s cuisine is Italian in origin, but encompasses the whole range of continental fare.
I started with the Gnocchi appetizer, and the Duck Confit main dish. All was delicious. Watching the chef prepare, and present our dishes was a unique experience. Chatting with them during down time was also a treat.

We stopped here late one night on our way to Winter Park Ski Resort. It was basically a drive-​by; we were hungry for Italian and the restaurant came up on our GPS listing of nearby Italian restaurants. We showed up without a reservation, but they treated us like we were one of the regulars. Very classy.
We started with a bottle of Zinfandel (very nice) and the Baked Brie, which we would highly recommend and are tempted to try to make ourselves. What a treat for an appetizer! Between the five of us, we had Greek Salads, pizzas, Prawns and Pasta, and the Oven-​Roasted Chicken. Everything was delicious and well presented. The boys would have preferred more cheese on the Margherita pizzas but said that they still hit the spot.
Good service, friendly waiters, delicious food, and a unique venue. We’d definitely eat here again.

We walked in on a Friday night prepared to wait and have a glass of wine. We did not have a reservation and that seemed to be a problem for them for some reason. The hostess told us it would be about 40 mins and we would probably have to sit at the counter. When we said we’d go to the bar for a glass of wine she said that was fine, if we could find a spot even though there was room at the bar. We waited a very long time for a glass of wine. The bar tender was clearly there to serve the tables not the people sitting at the bar. It was finally the owner that came out and made some recommendations and poured us a glass of wine. The wine was just poured and we were notified that they had a place for us — a table for 2. It was about a 20 min wait and wasn’t at the counter so I’m just not sure why the attitude.
The food was fine. Not great. We had the Caprasi appetizer. The tomato wasn’t the best. The entrees were good enough. We had a scallop and lentil dish and squash ravioli. As others have said it was very crowded with tables packed into the small space. It was brightly lit — I would have liked dimmer lighting and a litlte more ambiance but it would have been impossible to navigate the tight space in lower light.
Over all impression was eh. The food was just ok and the personalities of the staff were really lacking. Not likely to return.

Attention to detail!
In every single way!
The food and drinks were outstanding.
The service was extremely attentive, without being over the top.
The ambiance was upscale; and yet. .. somehow comfortable and homey.
I wouldn’t hestiate to recommend Bella Bistro to the Queen of England, the «F» chef, or to my favorite little old great-​grandmother. I would drive across town or across the country to eat at Bella Bistro again.
Thank you, dear friend, who took me here for Easter Day Brunch, I couldn’t be happier, or my tummy fuller!

This was the latest restaurant try for my girls’ brunch. A friend of a friend suggested it, and it was a very good suggestion. It’s a very small restaurant that was converted from an old garage, but it’s comfortable and has a good atmosphere. It’s in the Old Town Arvada neighborhood. There’s a small bar when you walk in, and then the dining room on the right where you can look into the open kitchen. If it’s warm out you could sit outside too.
We went on a Saturday morning before the Broncos game, and there were only a couple other people there. We started with mimosas which were excellent and served with a strawberry on the rim of the champagne glass. I rodered the brie stuffed french toast with nutella, and my friends ordered the apple dutch baby and the med (poached eggs with cous cous). As is customary at our brunches, we all tried a little bit of everything… and it was all really good.
The service was very friendly and prompt. We were never waiting very long for anything we asked for.
The only thing that was odd about the restaurant is the restroom. There’s only one, and it’s unisex… no biggie. However there’s a statue of a Spartan in there that’s almost lifesize and very cartoony. It’s a little off-​putting when you’re in there. Otherwise, great restaurant!