Bella Luna Bistro

A wonderful little find in Merced. The façade doesn’t look like much from the outside, you might think that you were going to be eating pub food — but step inside, you will not be disappointed. The seating area is quite deep but not very wide, as the kitchen area is exposed. I ate here on a Friday night, and the place was full even at 6:00pm. The greeter was cheerful and relaxed even though the restaurant was already at capacity. The service was delightful and all of the employees were happy, talkative, and professional. The menu was fairly typical for an Italian restaurant, but the specials had more of an experimental flare. My dinner was very good — portion size was perfect — not too large. The wine I chose was very good as well. The activity level of the restaurant was high — it was quite loud due to the hard floor and wall surfaces, but not overly so — just not a quiet place.
I imagine I have found my go-​to restaurant in Merced when I am looking for good Italian flare food.

What a gem! Fantastic gourmet bistro food and exquisite wine. Fidel the manager and Joey the waiter are par none! A must try in the Merced area.

I seem to eat here every time I’m in Merced. They a have delicious menu. I’ve had pastas but I still prefer
The Chicago beef sandwich beefed up!. It’s a very nice bistro with full service staff and excellent for a business lunch or just out for a nice meal. Enjoy you’ll love Bella Luna!

Heading back to the bay, needed a quick bite before hitting the road. Absolutely adorable spot! In downtown Merced, you get a feel as if you’re in Italy. I love to sit outside, but with no outside seating their large front windows did the trick. I also love sitting at bars, but was able to join the table next to this cute bar that provides fresh fruit for their cocktails! Ordered the antipasto salad, hit the spot! Shared that with the BF. They quickly prepared our Columbus Grinder hot sandwich to go. Little did we know what sort of a treat we were in. Driving on the road is always difficult, but we inhaled that sucker. Bomb dot dickety com.

This place is so good! Food is delicious. .and you must try the Gnocchi with the 4 cheese sauce. What stood out the most was the service. Ordered a pizza and we were enjoing it when the waitress brought out another because the pizza chef said he didn’t like the way it looked. Both were great, but they wanted to present their best. Who does that?.. well they do! That’s outstanding!

Great Food, Great Prices and Great Food Choices

Check your credit card bill. They changed the tip to several 100 dollars! For a $ 30 meal. I don’t think so. Scammers

We drive from Turlock to eat here, the food is amazing!
Easy parking, staff very friendly and food came fast.
I had the hot pastrami, hubs had the meatball sub. Both were delicious. Comes with homemade chips and a cookie.
I do have to mention the pickles, homemade from zucchini, I wanted more!

I went to Bella Luna last night while in town for an event at UC Merced. The waitress was so friendly & the restaurant is really cute and comfortable. I sat by the window and ordered a Swordfish special they were offering. It was so fresh and good. The risotto was creamy and flavorful. I also tried their special wine; a red blend & it too was spectacular. The waitress said the owner hand picks the wine and orders only the freshest fish. I believe her! I highly recommend.

The atmosphere is very nice… service is just ok I really have enjoyed their Pizza have tried several other things on the menu that just seemed ok at best.

I usually dine in & the food is fabulous. Due to having surgery I did take out and I was pretty disappointed. My iceberg salad had no blue cheese crumbles & very little of the rest of the toppings. Not to mention the iceberg lettuce wasn’t cut like it usually is when I dine in. My gluten free BBQ chicken pizza crust was soggy & the chicken tasted very gross. My mom ordered her favorite gnocchi which tasted horrible like an odd old cheese she claimed. I am not sure what happened with our order tonight but it is pretty upsetting. I hope someone responds to my complaint.

We ate here for the first time last night, even though we’ve lived in the area 50+ years.
They had plenty of staff on hand and it wasn’t busy yet. The customer service was lacking but they were very friendly, it just felt disorganized. It took quite a while for our drinks, including water, to be served; our salad came first. We had to ask if a server would be coming.
However, the food was excellent. I’d love to see different wine glasses, as the stemless ones currently in use, are too wide to hold comfortably.
We will return and hopefully it will be a bit more organized.

Our first visit to bella luna, it smelled delicious as soon as we walked in. We were greated immediately. Our server Letecia was amazing she made our experience one to remember. I work in customer service and Letecia was excellent! accommodating, knowledgeable, she helped us with the menu and special requests. She recommended the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake and it was melt in your mouth delicious. Overall we will be definitely coming back. Great food and FANTASTIC service.

While I’m traveling for work, I try to order take out. It allows me to get my food faster, and stretch my travel allowance a bit more.
Last week I ordered the fungi pizza from Bella Luna, I was extremely impressed with the flavors but unpleasantly unsatisfied with the service/​interaction when picking up my food. So, I promised to come back and try an actual food service. Not only did I affirm my prior thought about there service, but my idea of them got worse.
This visit was on a Wednesday night at 8 pm. I figured after the dinner rush I should be able to promptly get my food without any troubles. I was wrong.
I’ll get straight to the bad details about the service and then talk bout the food. My order took FOREVER and it’s not like there was a packed house either. The restaurant was probably 10% full. The time it took to get my check also felt like an eternity. And yes, the girl behind the counter just kept looking at me while prepping utensils. We made eye contact at least a couple of times, but did not bother to inform the other servers to close me out. Tf?!
I came back for the buttermilk chicken sandwich. My overall opinion is that the sandwich is all hype. The chicken was over fried. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it was dry, but it was far from juicy. You could tell by dark edges and the constant crumbling of the battered pieces that something went wrong in the kitchen. Oh well. The house-​made pickled jalapeños add some much needed acidity and flavor. The sauce they used also helped save the dish. Do not, I repeat DO NOT, order the sand which «plain» or you will regret dropping 14 bucks on a bland ass piece of chicken on bread.

This is by far my favorite place to eat in Merced. I live in SoCal and I have yet to find a place this good thats local to me. Every time Im up this way, I look forward to stopping here to get the crab ravioli. The rest of the menu doesnt even need to exist for me. This is the best pasta ive ever had and everything is made in house.

This place is frik’n amazingly delicious!!! we had the pizza and it was sooooooo good! the calamari was fresh and tasty also had the Roasted Fig with goat cheese and basil
in a balsamic and olive oil.

Amazing fresh bread and BIG portions! The spicy angry shrimp pasta is SOOOO GOOOODD! It’s spicy and creamy and there’s kick to it. You have to like artichokes though cause they put a lot of them, which sounds odd but tastes delish!
We also ordered the Chicken Parmesan and buttermilk fried chicken sandwich both were equally good.

Split a California sandwich and a grilled fig appetizer special for lunch today. The appetizer should go on the regular menu because it was incredibly good. It had goat cheese, grilled figs, several types of heirloom tomatoes, basil leaves and olive oil and balsamic. Wow. If that’s on the menu lucky you.
The sandwich was pretty good. I took out the cheese because it was kind of meh longhorn mild cheddar or something not great. It came with really good kettle chips and a chocolate chip cookie. That was nice.
The only drawback was that altho the waitress was super and running around like crazy, the kitchen was kind of slow. And maybe sanitation was not the best. We sat there watching them slowly and carefully make sandwiches with fingers all up inside and everything and no gloves on… Ive worked in a bunch of kitchens so have no problem with that as long as they wash their hands often. I just figured they did. Our sandwich came as my sis commented on the no gloves. I was all rationalizing it to her when some guy came to relieve the sandwich makers and was wiping his nose with his hand all the way to the sandwich station. So glad our sandwich was already made.
If I get a cold I’ll amend this review… In the meantime I was pretty happy to eat here.

Traveling from LA to Oregon and looked on Unilocal for a place to stop for dinner.
Had the salad of the night with prawns — best I’ve ever had! The others had the house salad & the Gorgonzola pizza & loved them as well.
Highly recommend!

This place is usually closed on Sundays, but because there was a graduation at UC Merced, they thought that it would be good business to be open and they were right.
Let me just start off by saying this place is in the middle of nowhere. All you see is a vast open space of greenery and cows then there’s Main Street. It’s literally the «downtown» of the area. And this is where Bella Luna is located.
There is plenty of ample FREE public parking lots EVERYWHERE.
If you don’t pay attention, you could actually miss the entrance to this place. Once you get inside though, it’s beautiful with tall ceilings. It’s very light, bright, and open. It looks like you’re dining al fresco, but you’re not.
We were greeted immediately by our waiter who was supremely nice throughout our whole dining experience there. I checked in on Unilocal for the free check-​in offer of a cookie, but at the end of the meal, we got more than expected, but I’ll tell you more about that later.
I ordered the mango iced tea… wow… so good. Probably the best mango iced tea I’ve ever had and I’ve had plenty. This iced tea actually had real chunks of mango in it.
I was here two weeks ago and I already forgot what food I ordered… I’ve lost my mind. I know for sure my bf and I ordered the specials. One was an au jus sandwich, which was what I had and the other was … was the other special my bf had. My sandwich was a little dry so I dipped it in the au jus, but the au jus was too salty. I think it’s because they actually used the juice from the cooked tri tip. I wish I had remembered what kind of sandwich my bf had because I actually liked that one better than mine.
The piece de resistance though was what came after our meal… dessert! Remember that free cookie I was talking about earlier? Well, we didn’t get a free cookie… we got a plate full of delicious dessert! 2 identical plates of dessert for the table to be exact. There was cheesecake, tiramisu, bread pudding, and a decadent chocolate cake. Let me give you some math right now… bread pudding + chocolate cake = orgasmic! The tiramisu was light, airy, and not too sweet and the cheesecake was rich, but not in a really sweet way, but out of all the desserts, I just loved the crispiness of the top of the bread pudding and the smooth, dark chocolatey goodness of the chocolate cake together. It’s literally making my mouth water right now just thinking about it.
I think this place would do well in Los Angeles where I live because not only would I frequent it, but it has a really nice vibe and the service was really spectacular.
If I’m ever in town again for some reason (maybe to tip cows or something… not really. I’m an animal lover and I wouldn’t do that…), I would definitely come here again just for the mango iced tea, the bread pudding & chocolate cake combo alone.