Bella Luna
233 University Ave.
Palo Alto, South Bay
650.322.1846
| Menlo Park |
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| Bella Luna |
| San Jose |
| E&O |
| Sunnyvale |
| Sushi Maru |
With rustic yellow walls, a night sky ceiling and a simple lunar motif running throughout the small space, Bella Luna feels like the kind of neighborhood restaurant where the owner learns your name and brings you glasses of wine to try with your meal. Unfortunately, Bella Luna proves that ambience alone just isn't enough to turn a restaurant into a favorite.
The meal began auspiciously. A waiter brought a basket of warm, freshly baked bread that was clearly superior to the more hardened loaves so popular these days. Luxuriously soft with a slightly crispy crust, the bread tasted wonderful with the herb and garlic olive oil served on the side.
The menu at Bella Luna offers the standard Italian fare that has become a fixed element in California restaurants: bruschetta, caprese, focaccia, etc. My companion ordered the panino al pollo and I, in my endless quest for the perfect capellini al pomodoro, ordered just that. We started with a caprese salad, which is such a brilliantly simple idea: slices of ripe, red tomatoes topped with fresh mozzarella, basil leaves and finished off with a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. There's one catch: all the elements have to be of top-notch quality for the dish to really work and, at Bella Luna, our tomatoes looked as if they came straight from Safeway: pale, pasty, and flavorless. The cheese was fine, but not outstanding.
My quest for the perfect capellini al pomodoro continues. Bella Luna makes a competent version, but the sauce was too heavy for it to achieve any notability. It was more of a true marinara than that delicate, pink coating that characterizes, and yet is so elusive in, this dish.
My companion's sandwich was quite tasty: two slices of focaccia lined with roasted red peppers, eggplant and a surprisingly tender chicken breast. It was accompanied by a salad of tender mixed greens, dressed in a vinaigrette that was overly sweet. For dessert, we shared a cannoli: a perfectly crispy cookie shell, drizzled with chocolate sauce and filled with a ricotta blend of cinnamon and Grand Marnier.
A note on service: our waiter was worthy of a Seinfeld episode. He was such a "mumbler" that we never fully understood what the specials were. He also had some kind of service inferiority complex and needed our constant reinforcement: "Yes, that is what we ordered, thank you . . . No, it's just fine, really . . . No, you didn't make a mistake, honestly." I was ready to give him the name of a good therapist.
I recommend that Bella Luna keeps its pastry chef and works on the rest of its meal. Thanks to its University Street location, Bella Luna would be a great place to visit for dessert and coffee. Bella Luna, 233 University Ave., Palo Alto, South Bay, 650.322.1846.
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