cucina bella

nice local place. ate there the other day with my wife. nice atmoshpere and service was good. the menu is focused around pizza. the pizza selection is verygoodand interesting. you can tell the ingedients are fresh, which makes a difference. prices for the pizza are higher than the local pizza shop, but fare based on quality. salads and selection are good, but way, way, way over priced. the owner may want to consider a lower price point on the salads. i would recommend.

cucina bella. great place. great pizza. mrs. mcsmoot and i had the capricciosa pizza..fresh mozzarella, crimini mushrooms, sandaniell prosciutto and fresh basil. tremendous. the tiramisu (a ubiquitous dessert normally shunned by the mcsmoot family) was really good. do not tell anyone about this place...it is toogoodto share

fresh ingredients.  good salads and pizza.  byob, which is great to have a few byob restaurants.  service is predictable and friendly.  if the weather is right, great to sit outside.  unfortunately, we were forced inside due to the weather.  still a nice place but it is noisy inside.  we split a salad that had goat cheese, and some fresh peaches with a verygoodwine vinaigrette.  just wish it had a few more slices of peaches, was expecting a few more slices.    our pizza had fresh mozzarella, homemade meatballs that were so good, a tasty sausage, parmigiana, san marzano tomato sauce and some olive oil.  it was mouth watering tasty.

fun italian cafe. we were able to snag an outside table on a beautiful friday evening. one of our fav byob spots to have agooditalian meal, agoodglass of wine and linger!

our meal, as usual, was great. had a salad and a pizza.

some new items on the menu.
our waiter was very talkative and nice but a little forgetful.

the owner stopped by to talk.

really enjoyed our meal and lingering!


-----22 jun, 2013-----

just like an italian cafe. some table outside with umbrellas. you walk inside and feel like you are in a small italian cafe. the food meets those expectations and satisfies. the menu has some nice pizza, panini and salad choices with many local fresh ingredients. there are 3 new salads and 3 new appetizers on the menu to go along with some new pizza choices. try an antipasto you won't be disappointed. the figs stuffed with some cheese and pecans were sweet and very good. our brutta ma buona pizza made with san marzano tomato, fresh mozzarella, ricotta, sausage, green olives and fresh basil leaves on top...a great combination of flavors. outstanding crust, very light.

oh, yeah. it is byob so bring along your favorite wine for a nice evening.


-----29 apr, 2011-----

not your normal pizza/coffee place...very good. bc is not you normal little pizza shop. carmen, the owner, said he wanted a nicer pizza restaurant that people could sit down and enjoy. he did it!

neapolitan style pizza, with nice thin crust that is tasty and a nice texture. the menu describes the ingredients that include many fresh items. had the sausage pizza that had fresh basil, really nice tomato sauce, real tasty sausage and creamy tasting mozzarella.



it is byob, $5 for wine...can also bring in been @ $3 per person.

surprise to see that it open early in the morning because it has a coffee bar. this seems to becoming more popular of the nice pizza places.

great food, but loud!!!. friends of ours told us how great this place is and we decided to stop by on a friday night when it was only the two of us. we ended up coming to an early dinner - which turned out to be agoodmove on our part as the place is very popular and filled up while we were enjoying our dinner.

this restaurant specializes in pizza. all of the pizzas share the same thin but crispy crust and have many different combinations of toppings that you can choose from. they have about 25 different sets of combinations that you can choose from, but if your tastes are different, they give you the option of coming up with your own combinations. pizza is not the only thing on the menu as there are also salads, panini, calzones, and appetizers available. while this menu cries out for wine to be served with it, the restaurant is byob with a $5 corking fee.

one of the local radio personalities always raves about the place's meatballs, so we ordered them as an appetizer. we got six meatballs with six slices of bread that had a small drizzle of olive oil and some shaved parmesan on them. the center of the plate had a small puddle of tomato sauce to pull everything together. as a dish it worked great! each of the components was well seasoned and tasty, and when you put some of the meatball on the bread which was used to scoop us some sauce - yum!

we also got a salad which was a nice change. arugula combined with apple chunks, craisins, and chunks of smoked mozzarella worked very well together. unfortunately, this was were we were hit with the first snag of the evening. the menu described this particular salad as coming with a mustard-based dressing. once the dish was served and we were eating it, we noticed that we got an oil and vinegar dressing. when we asked our waitress about it, she apologized and ran to the kitchen to get the proper dressing only to return to let us know that they ran out of if, but did not tell her about it.

our pizza arrived and it was delicious. the combination that we ordered worked really well and the drizzled balsamic - fig reduction added just a touch of sweetness which pulled it all together in a wonderful way. the crust was crispy and not greasy which was nice to see, and the proportions were just right for us to share. about the only negative thing that we can say about the crust was that we would have preferred for it to have some herbs in it.

however, there were a few negative spots about our experience. as i mentioned above, the place filled out pretty quickly. once the room was more than half full, it became very hard to hear each other as the acoustics of the room were such that they magnified every sound. by the time the room was completely full, we felt like we were at the end of an airport runway with several airplanes getting ready to take off! we could not exchange any words without screaming at the top of our lungs.

the second problem was that they have almost no parking available. smartly, the restaurant offers valet parking, but with the place being so full, negotiating the traffic in the immediate area of the restaurant was a chore.

we will definitely be going back again, but probably try to make it in the middle of the week to hopefully not have to deal with the noise and traffic issues.

my favorite pizza in the area.goodcrust and unique, delicious flavors. it can get very crowded though so we usually do take out.

awesome pizza!!. the food at c/b rocks. seriouslygoodpizza. love this place.

could've been better. first visit last night after hearing rave reviews. the place was jammed tight, and the noise level extremely loud. there are definitely more tables crammed into the space than their web site shows in the photos. the service was excellent with a menu limited to pizza, sandwiches, salads, and appetizers. everything served looked great on other tables.

the stuffed figs were delicious. the cheese filing overwhelmed the taste of the figs, but the honey drizzled over was a nice touch. the caprese salad was not quite asgoodas home made, but definitely better than most places. the imported mozzarella seemed a bit old. they smashed it down between the halved cherry tomatoes and it was a little too firm to be fresh. our pizzas came separately, and the ingredients tasted all fresh. my only complaint was that they left almost 2 1/2" of bare crust all the way around the 12" pie. i would have preferred the fixings to go all the way up to the edge, or at least within 1" of it. having to eat that much dry crust was a waste, with nothing to dip it into in lieu of more fixins. $16+ for a pie should buy me a little more goodies.

it's byob and we brought our own wine. dinner for two pizzas, one salad, and one appetizer was over $70.

with too much empty crust and the really loud noise level, i'm only giving it 3 stars.

the food is fantastic and the service was prettygoodtoo. i will be back for sure.

bobbi h. & lori c.. this pizzeria is in a neighborhood setting on the border of upper st. clair and bridgeville. it was just as appealing on the outside as it was on the inside. it was decorated very cute and had an old world atmosphere. our first impression was that this was a very quaint little restaurant. this being our first time here all i can say is it was love at first bite, not to mention that the waitress, steph, was extremely helpful and eager to answer all of our questions. she was a very sweet young lady. steph even told us that it would be enough food for the two of us, if we shared a salad and had a pizza. her honesty was greatly appreciated, as i hate to waste food. we even had enough pizza left to take home. we started with a salad called rustica. it was absolutely delicious with a combination of fresh ingredients that complemented each other and our palates. a must try!! we also tried the meatballs...hmmmmm! we finished with a new pizza that the owner, carmen, has been trying to perfect and it was perfect. it was called pizza alla sole. it also had a combination of ingredients that complemented each other that made us feel like we had a healthy meal. it had an uncomplicated menu that gave you a lot of choices. all we can say is that our first impression was agoodone and we will be back.

loud: notgoodfor conversation. having a dinner group with 120 people in it, i went there with 10 friends to check it out tonight... a busy saturday night. the menu was very diverse (mainly with many pizza options) but i was surprised that they didn't have a basic pasta. after waiting 15 minutes for a clean glass to become available for my drink, i started with the wedding soup that was no bigger than a diner coffee cup for $4.99. it had 1 meatball in it and tasted like progresso. definitely would not recommend the soup. the salads were a very nice size and looked delicious... i should have went with one of those over the soup. next, i had one of the calzones that was a verygoodsize and was excellent, although they ran out of red sauce for dipping (as well as silverware). based on the size of my soup, i expected the pizzas to be small, but they were agoodsize as well.

because it was a packed house, it was so loud that you couldn't hear yourself think, much less talk to the person that was sitting right next to you without screaming. every single person was screaming... i have never been in such a loud restaurant in my life... definitely not the place to go on the weekends if you want to talk to the people at your table. i left with such a headache from screaming and trying to hear. i was happy when our server didn't offer us any dessert because i just couldn't wait to get out of there. my ears are still ringing over an hour later.

if it weren't for quality and quantity of the calzones and pizza (at a fairly pricey cost though), it would have been the worst experience i've had at a restaurant. there are plenty of mom and pops pizza joints that are just asgoodfor less cost.

hey, your sauce isgoodenough to put on pasta.. my wife and i went there for dinner on the recommendation of a friend and we had a verygoodtime. the kitchen accommodated our dietary constraints.

we both had salads which weregoodsized. my wife had a calzone which was large enough to take some home. she said the ricotta was very creamy, almost whipped. i had the meatball appetizer which i really liked. the sauce is waygoodenough to put on pasta, so, get with the program and offer pasta. better yet, make your own; it's easy.

for desert, we shared the raspberry trifle with mascarpone cream which was very tasty. and, the coffee was actuallygoodand a real step up from commercial grade which evengoodrestaurants are sadly serving these days.

we're looking forward to going back.

service needs some work. we recently took relatives here for a special occasion. it was our first time and we had high hopes based on the reviews. we did sit near the kitchen which was a bit loud, on subsequent visits we asked to sit closer to the front. the food is quitegoodand a nice change for the south hills. although a bit on the pricey side, well worth it with reasonable bottle fees of $5 for wine bottle and $3 per beer drinker. the one thing that needs work is the experience of the staff. while friendly, they can be absent minded and slow. also timing from the kitchen is an issue. on both trips the main came out within minutes of starters, unacceptable. this place has become quite the spot for the merc and b'mer crowd, let's hope they can improve service in spite of the great press. a must place to eat with great food, just sit near the front. you won't be walking in to a table on sat nite at 6 anymore.

hidden gem. what a hidden gem. my wife and i were coming back from a movie and happened to drive by and saw enough cars and figured why not - this is great place. simple menu with verygoodquality food. we got the meatballs and margherita pizza - they were very good. pizza was light, thin crust perfectly cooked. meatballs were very tasty - apparently the owners grandmother's recipe. reasonable prices andgoodstaff. we will definitely be back

cucina bella rules!. how did i not know that cucina bella existed until now? my husband and i were invited to a birthday last week ( april 18/12 ) held at the restaurant and were delighted with the food, the service, the atmosphere and most importantly, the chef----a genius in my opinion!

since we were a sizable party, we were able to taste a large selection on the menu-----antipasti, pizzas, salads. the range in the pizza selection were really unexpected. excellent dough topped with such a simpatico and imaginative variety of ingredients. our favorites were the arugula, capricciosa and one called
tartufata. i would never have imagined eating a pizza topped with fresh mozzarella, gorgonzola, truffle oil and walnuts of all things---just out of this world delicious!!!!!

the service was friendly and attentive, the ambiance relaxed and a general feeling of fun andgoodhumor
ruled. we have already been back to taste more of carmen's excellent cooking and this time tried the
desserts-------uuuummmmm!

so do yourself a gastronomic favor and head for cucina bella soon!!!!