Bella’s Boys Italian Kitchen and Food Shop
250 Greenbank Rd., Unit 12, 613-695-1900,
bellas.ca
Open:
Monday to Thursday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., closed Sunday
Prices:
pastas $12 to $14, paninis $8 to $11.50, mains $16
Access:
no steps to front door
A year ago, I was all set to write a glowing review of Bella’s Bistro on Wellington Street West, which after two decades was still going strong and serving its much-liked and comforting Italian food to packed houses.
But the review, which would have included special kudos for chef-owner Raffaela “Bella” Milito’s gnocchi with prosciutto and mushroom cream sauce as well as her classic tiramisu, never made it into print.
I had missed the memo that Bella’s Bistro needed to wind down its business. After 23 years, the restaurant closed last Dec. 31, in advance of condo construction at Mizrahi Developments’ 1451 Wellington, which one day will go up where Bella’s stood.
All of this is backstory to a fine lunch I had last week. It consisted of gnocchi with prosciutto and mushroom cream sauce, followed by a block of tiramisu, all as good as what I’d had at Bella’s.
But of course it was. I had just lunched at Bella’s Boys on Greenbank Road, which is run by Milito’s three sons, Rob, Nick and Andrew.
The Militos opened their eatery, which focuses on take-home foods, catering jobs and eat-in lunches, in early September, not far from where they grew up. Their mother herself, who launched her own restaurant only after cooking in the 1980s at the Ritz on Elgin Street, still toils away in her boys’ large open kitchen, as does her husband, Gino.
Rob says that after his mother’s restaurant closed, she “was bored out of her mind. She was just going stir-crazy.
“This is what they do. This is what they love doing,” he says of his parents, who are in their 70s and work as much as they want to with their sons.
The second generation’s business lacks the intimate, old-house atmosphere that made Bella’s Bistro date night central for its regulars. However, the Bella’s connection is visible, with the bistro’s front door hanging on the food shop’s wall and the sign from outside of the bistro, also salvaged before it was torn down, mounted above the fridges at the back of the shop.
Those keepsakes aside, the sons’ place is bright and utilitarian, a newly equipped commercial kitchen with just a few more than a dozen seats at small tables for its lunch crowd. The Militos and their staff are clad in black ball caps and T-shirts. While dine-in customers order at the front cash, their food, on paper plates, will be brought to them at their tables.
On my first few visits to Bella’s Boys, I was wowed by its panini sandwiches, which are not of the grilled variety but instead are distinguished by perfectly fresh and fluffy rolls that you wouldn’t want to ruin by compressing them.
The bread that Bella’s Boys uses is from the Bakery, a matter-of-factly named business a few stores away in the same Greenbank Road strip mall. These rolls were perfect for receiving tender, fresh meatballs ($8.50) or chicken parm ($9), both bathed in fine red sauce.
At Bella’s Boys, everything but the bread, Rob said this week, is made from scratch on the premises.
The kitchen’s pastas have consistently won me over with their freshness and balance of clear, clean flavours.
I’ve always opted for stuffed pastas here, and found the spinach and ricotta manicotti ($14), beef and veal ravioli ($14) and beef and veal cannelloni ($14) to be well-made, toothsome winners that delivered all of the necessary comforts.
When it comes to lasagna, I have something approaching a phobia due to too many shoddy, self-destructing lasagnas I ate at my university’s cafeteria years ago. The meat lasagna at Bella’s Boys ($12) eradicated that horrible memory with its tender flat noodles and substantial, zesty, meaty sauce.
Gnocchi ($13) was as fresh and tender as expected, and its enjoyable sauce was sufficiently rich and creamy that I was scraping every last bit of it off its paper plate.
All of these pastas were favourites at Bella’s Bistro, Rob says. The same goes for the food shop’s two chicken-based main courses, he adds. The “chicken honey” ($16) was a perfectly cooked piece of chicken breast served with a creamy honey-mustard sauce of smack-you-in-the-face quality.
There’s a dessert counter beside the cash, and its contents also cast back to Bella’s Bistro. That tiramisu with all of its components in the proper proportion and a slight boozy tingle was best, while coconut-y Hello Dolly bars packed a smaller but sweeter punch.
Rob says that when the Mizrahi condo building opens, a Bella’s business will be in it, although he can’t say whether it will be Bella’s Bistro 2.0, as the developer has mentioned, or a take-home shop along the lines of his Greenbank store.
But until Bella’s in some form returns to Wellington Street West, its old and new fans know that the trip to Greenbank Road will be well worth it.
phum@postmedia.com
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