Don’t go to Bella Napoli after 10pm. Or, better yet, give it a miss altogether. Because while we believe it is possible for a restaurant to “have a bad night,” we suspect that what we experienced on a recent evening was the rule, not the exception. And this makes us sad. Bella Napoli was arguably the first “real” Italian pizzeria in Bangkok, paving the way for numerous Luigi-come-latelys all over the city. When the humble joint opened four years ago with just a dozen tables, we couldn’t stop talking about the place, couldn’t stop thinking about the pizza, and in the early days we ate there two or three times a week. The pies were made from freshly tossed dough, the crust perfectly crisp yet chewy, with burst bubbles slightly singed by the wood-fired oven. The sauce was light but bright and perfectly balanced with just the right amount of mozzarella. The pastas were also quite good, cooked in the kitchen then finished in the oven in a ceramic bowl covered by an edible “lid “ made of pizza dough. As were the satisfying homestyle meat dishes such as osso buco that began as specials and were added to the menu. This is what we had in mind when we arrived on a recent weeknight, famished, later in the evening, like we had so many times in the past: a perfect Margherita pie, then some pasta, then a hearty piece of meat. But from the moment we stepped into the pizzeria we sensed things were no longer so “bella.” Even with the Gypsy Kings in the background the atmosphere seemed uninviting, not at all like the old days when the restaurant was packed and lively until closing—and the expressions of indifference on the faces of the staff didn’t exactly help matters. We thought about some antipasti, but the sad salad “bar” didn’t look at all like we remembered. So we launched straight into the pizzas, choosing a couple of favorites, the basic Margherita and a Diavole pie with Italian sausage. In the old days there was a sweaty, hot-blooded Italian in the open kitchen making the pizzas; on this night it was a couple of dishwashers posing as cooks who looked like they couldn’t wait to go home and didn’t mind if the customers knew this. These pizzas were not made with passion, and it was obvious from the first bite. The crust was soggy and lifeless, with not a bubble in sight. The sauce was too thin and spread unevenly across the pie, the balance of ingredients and flavors was all wrong and the pieces so limp you didn’t dare lift them with one hand. Remaining optimistic but starting to wonder, when we finally were able to drag one of the waitresses away from her gossiping, we sent one of the pizzas back for reheating. She made a face, as did the flunkie in the kitchen who returned it to the oven for all of two minutes, not nearly long enough to make a difference. We could hardly believe this was the same trailblazing pizzeria we had fallen in love with. By this point we were seriously wondering whether we were still hungry for spaghetti with seafood, let alone osso buco. And when the owner starting yelling and throwing things at one of his staff, we decided we no longer had the stomach for our once-loved haunt. Bye, bye Bella.
