Cafe Bella Vita

Great full dinner deal. Appetizer, salad, entrée, dessert, and coffee for not much more than just the entrée alone. With all the food courses I appreciate that they don’t rush you out of the restaurant and give you time to digest between courses. I have eaten here numerous times and everytime the food was delicious.

First of all, can we stop the idiotic notion that «OLD PEOPLE!!!» counts a valid critique? If you need to be around millennials there might be a decent bubble tea near NYU, but certain kinds of restaurants draw an older crowd. Sometimes this means nothing. Sometimes it means the place has been reliable for decades. I’ll say this — I’ve never seen seventy-​somethings at shitty Brooklyn brewpubs that charge $ 28 for fusion pickled egg pork belly with cilantro lime reduction.
Café Bella Vita resembles an outsider’s perception of what Staten Island is like, with Christmas tree-​type lights enhancing the attempt at suburban glamour, and it’s necessarily the kind of place I’d be drawn to. But the food was fresh and abundant, and the service was friendly. I imagine there weren’t too many other people arriving from Jersey City via many buses and the SIRT, and they were happy to help me navigate the menu.
You should definitely opt for the fixed price side of things, including a salad and choice of appetizer and dessert. The Scarola E Fagioli was a fine soup that I strongly recommend unless you’re afraid of garlic. The entrée was Spaghetti o Sole Mio, a light-​colored garlicky dish with shrimp, zucchini and sun-​dried tomato. I liked it although next time I might try something in the red sauce realm. Among the basic desserts available without a surcharge, I got tortoni, which I strongly recommend.

Bella Vita, a recommendation from our friends was just OK. There is a price fixed dinner option which we all took advantage. The prices vary based on your entrée. You get an appetizer, salad, entrée and desert.
I and one friend had the hot appetizer which consisted of one baked clam, eggplant rollatini three mussels and something else, I cannot remember. It was tasteless and thrown together. There was no love put into it.
My partner and my other friend had mozzarella sticks (enough said).
We all had salads made up of lettuces, tomato, cucumber and cabbage with a Italian dressing. It was ok for a salad.
For my entrée I had shrimp parmesan with spaghetti, it was ok, but strange. They took a bunch of shrimp and fried it in a clump. They topped it with mozzarella and sauce. It was good, but a strange presentation. The others had Veal Parmesan and chicken Parmesan which was good per there comments.
For dessert I had rice pudding, it was bland and tasteless. The others had various ice cream options. My friends said the ice cream was freezer burned. It wasn’t creamy, it flaked. Needless to say desert was tasted but not fully eaten.
The décor was old fashion and the waitstaff wore tuxedos… who doesn’t look bad in a tuxedo!
Overall, the food was adequate and the service was adequate. Will I go back… I’m not too sure about that.

Café Bella Vita; décor and clientele, God’s Waiting Room. The service, atrocious. Went for dinner to mark a special occasion, were about to be seated when the head waiter demanded in a booming tone that we be placed at a table near a children’s party instead of the quieter table we were offered by the hostess. When our orders had minor issues, such as bringing all but one drink to the table, my beer which was brought to an elderly man instead, and a screw up on a side of pasta, the waiter made no effort to apologize. Maybe it was the fact he was wearing a tuxedo and felt like he was the grand poobah. The wait staff seem a little over dressed for a red sauce joint that’s on the second floor of a Hylan Blvd strip mall. The pianist was a redeeming quality, I throughly enjoy a soundtrack of Randy Newman covers when I’m aggravated. I’ll be amazed if it’s still open once their octogenarian clientele are no longer with us. Assuming by his accent, if the head waiter is truly from Naples, I’m gonna leave you with two words, Forza Milan.

We went to Café Bella Vita to celebrate a birthday but the head waiter was rude and sat us in an open doorway to the party room. No apologizes for bad service. No friendliness shown to us at all. Bad service and cold food. We will not return. Learn better communication skills and like your customers. Boo hoo Bella Vita.

Fantastic service! Asked waiter for gluten free pasta and he went OUT of his way to ensure my meal was 100% gluten free. So impressed and so delicious!

The food is average at best and takes AGES to get to your table. Don’t go unless you have 3+ hours to waste on sub-​par food.

First time I’ve ever been. I was there on a Thursday for lunch and it was empty. The server had a tux on and he seemed overdressed. Well, I guess it’s never bad to be overdressed. It is bad for an Italian restaurant to serve pasta and broccoli way overcooked though. It didn’t taste fresh either. The caesar salad was redressed with too much dressing and soggy croutons. So, I walked away feeling as if nothing was fresh. No free refills on soda either.

Food is always good. Been going here for years.
Service has started to get a little spotty. Most staff are attentive, but the last few have left a lot to be desired.
Would give it another chance.

Its been awhile since I’ve been here, and after a nice dinner not long ago, I was reminded on how good it was. Parking the car isn’t a problem as there is plenty of parking in the lot, walked up stairs, and the bar is to the left, the staff greeted us, showed us to out seats, and it was nothing but heaven since. the eggplant rollatini was awesome, along with the filet of sole and pasta, the salmon, which I tried, and it was terrific. the Italian cheese cake was outstanding, coffee and cappuccino were normal, and while eating all this stuff, the man playing the piano topped it all off, it was a great ending to a crazy day.

I’ve been to Bella Vita twice, once was for lunch, the other was a prix fixe menu Communion party. There have a great lunch deal of an appetizer, salad, entrée, coffee, tea, cappucino or espresso and dessert for the price of whatever entrée you pick. I had the baked clams and combination seafood over pasta dish that I really enjoyed. I love tortoni for dessert so I’m always happy to see that as an option on the menu.
I had a different experience when I came back recently for the Communion party. We were a table of at least 20 people with two parties on either side with the same amount of people so things were a little hectic. The service was still attentive while accommodating all of us. (One young server did have extreme body odor which was offensive and off putting.) The options on our menu were:
APPETIZER
* Hot Antipasto
* Fresh Mozzarella & Tomato
PASTA SELECTIONS
* Rigatoni Fileto di Pomodoro * Penne Vodka Sauce
CAESAR SALAD
ENTREE
* Chicken Francaise
* Veal Scallopine Marsala
* Chicken Parmigiana
* Salmon Champagne Sauce
* Shrimp Aregenato
All served with vegetable and potato croquette
DESSERT
Assorted Ice Cream & Brown Coffee or Tea
I ordered the hot antipasto for appetizer. I found the seafood to be overcooked and there was a bad mussel that turned my stomach. The penne vodka was just ok. I liked the caesar salad. I enjoyed my chicken parmigiana but by the time it came out I was so full. They definitely give you a lot of food for the price so most of us took leftovers home. I’m glad this wasn’t my first experience here because I might not have been back but my first experience will bring me back.

Old school (as in back before there was such a thing as foodies in North America) Italian. Like the Italian restaurants my grandmother used to take me to (she wasn’t a very good cook). Even though it’s on the commerical side of the island and the view from the sprawling second floor dining room is of traffic it feels fancy and it’s nice to see the sun real light flooidng through the big window. I went for lunch and there as bad music on a cheap sound system but apparently they have live piano on the weekends and I could see that being really great in this setting, especially if you get a seat at their nice and well stocked bar.
On my visit I got a lunch special which was a pretty great dea. I had a super cheesy but pleasant and filing rollatini, iceberg lettuce with generic dressing. Basket of well heated but generic mass white «italian» bread, and excellent mixed seafood (my experience working and dining in SI for 3 months was I only found one place [a scary looking «chinese» joint that would dare ruin fish) served over boring spaghetti and decent marinara. Like I said, old school italian restaurant.
Attentive but not overbearing staff, looking and behaving professionally. Very «white glove.»
I’d take a Mom or Grandma here for birthday or Mothers day or a visitor from out of town who wants to go someplace «fancy» but you don’t want to break the bank. I wouldn’t try to impress a date here (unless I was trying to seduce someone considerably older than me).

Great Food! very Reasonably priced. great sauce!

It was ok. They give you a lot of food for the price but it was mediocre food. There were no young people on the Saturday night I went at 5:30. Everyone there was 50+.

Extremely good food and service. I have eaten there on over 20 occasions ans absolutely love it. Intorduced to this restaurant by my Grandmother. Great for small t large groups. Prices are fair and there all inclusive meale rock. Highly reccommended!

Went for a birthday part, i was not impressed. all i remember was that my chicken was over cooked and thats it. left no lasting impressions for me.