Bella Vista: a hidden gem in southwest Oklahoma City
by Tim | April 19, 2008 | 17 Comments
(votes: 14, average: 4.07) 
Loading ...Bella Vista is located at 5801 S. Western in Oklahoma City (map). They are open Tuesday through Sunday from 10am to 9pm. Call them at 405-631-1717.
This one’s a “must try.” In fact, you may want to stop reading right now and make your way to Bella Vista. Alright, I’m getting a little carried away, but I just get so excited whenever I find a new “hidden gem” to share with you. I have to thank a friend at my workplace for recommending Bella Vista. I had never heard of it before, but I know I’ll be going back soon.
Bella Vista is a small, family-owned, family-run Italian restaurant in Southwest Oklahoma City. It is humble, casual, and the food is incredibly fresh. They claim that everything is hand-made daily, and I believe it. They have a special olive oil bottled for them from Vasiliko Di Kalamata (I don’t know where that is, but it sounds impressive). They bake their own bread. Every sauce is cooked fresh each day. This is Italian comfort-food and I have not experienced anything else like it in Oklahoma City.
The place is very casual. Come in jeans, shorts, or whatever you like. From the outside, the building doesn’t look much like a restaurant. Inside, they have made an effort to add some Mediterranean ambiance, but it’s definitely nothing to write home about. Yet, it’s comfortable and warm.
The food is what I would imagine home-cooking is like in Italy. It’s nothing fancy, but it is so extremely fresh and flavorful. I ordered the spaghetti and meatballs ($8.95 at dinner). It’s common, I know, but I really like to judge any Italian place by this staple because you can tell so much from the way they handle their marinara sauce. I also ordered a dinner salad ($1.25 extra with a dinner) with homemade Italian dressing.
The salad dressing was absolutely perfect. Whatever special olive oil they claim to use was extremely effective. The dressing was so light, yet with a great mix of spices and some Parmesan cheese mixed throughout. Though the salad itself could have used a little more interest (it was mostly iceberg and a couple of tomato / cucumber slices), it pretty much just serves as a canvas for the dressing, so perhaps plain is better to really let the dressing stand out.
After that, my pasta came out. A very plain-looking plate with a heap of noodles covered edge to edge with sauce and two meatballs sitting on the side. When they placed it in front of me, I was overwhelmed with the aroma of fresh vegetables from the sauce. Now, the sauce was completely smooth, but you could still smell every bit of produce that went into it. It was unbelievable. Not sweet and overly heavy like a lot of commercial sauces. This is so light and so fresh. I can hardly describe it.
They say the meatballs are made fresh each day and slow-cooked for four hours. They were so tender and smooth. Again, nothing fancy, just basic Italian food done extremely well. I could eat it at least once a week, I think. Too bad it’s not closer to my office.
At lunch, they offer a special. For $6.95, you can choose from any of their basic pastas such as spaghetti alla marinara, arrabiata, bolognese … etc., or other favorites like baked ziti, manicotti, lasagna, eggplant parmigiano, or chicken alla parmigiano. The price of lunch includes a salad and their homemade bread. I consider this a tremendous value and I wish I had the time to get down there for lunch more often.
I have heard that if they get crowded at lunch, the food can take a while to come out. I didn’t experience this at dinner, but thought I’d pass it along. One thing my friend recommended is to call ahead at lunch time and they will start preparing your order in advance. I may have to try that some time as the drive, for me, would take up a good chunk of my lunch hour.
The menu has even more to offer than I’ve mentioned here. There is a large selection of appetizers, salads, soups, pizzas, calzones, sandwiches, and specialty dishes like chicken picata, marsala, scaloppini and a host of other specialty sauces. With so much to try and food that is so fresh and fabulous, I look forward to becoming a regular here.
I hope you’ll give Bella Vista a try soon. It’s local, unique, and very, very good. Let me know what you think in the comments.
(4.75 out of 5)
We want to hear from you!
So far, 17 people have responded to this article. Won't you join in?April 23rd, 2008 at 11:58 am
Wow after a review like that who wouldn’t go, it is on my to go list…..Thanks for the review
April 28th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Heads up! I tried to go there today for lunch and it was shut down. Something on the door about a Greek holiday. I’m sure it is temporary but call before you go.
Olive Garden really sucks when you are hoping for/expecting Bella Vista!!! I guess it sucks anyway but it was my daughter’s birthday lunch and I got out voted.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Okay…I’m more than a little bit challenged. As you may have figured out, I tried to go there on a Monday. Sorry….feel free to delete my stupidity.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Paul, I didn’t even make that connection until you just pointed it out. Ha. No big deal. This will just be a good reminder to everyone to make sure they go Tuesday through Sunday.
May 3rd, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Today at approx. 1 in the afternoon we went to Bella Vista and lets say we’ll keep this our little secret, the food is simply marvelous, if you go don’t be in a hurry the dishes are made to order, my wife had the clams in red sauce and I had the raviolie with sausage, the bread is homemade and dense and flavorful and prices are very good for the amount of food and the taste, well let say I licked my plate shamelesly, I recommend this place with the highest regard and I will be going back for seconds,third,fourths well you know what I mean…Thanks for the tip Tim and keep them coming
May 3rd, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Thanks for the report, Mark. I’m glad to hear you liked it as much as I did.
May 17th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Hey Tim,
We have differing opinions on restaurants, because I really can’t recommend the place. It is a prototypically bad Italian-American restaurant complete with gigantic portions, and oversauced and overcooked pasta. Did I just hit them on a bad day?
Original post is over here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=112053
May 17th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Hey Chris, if we all had the same opinion, life would be pretty boring, eh? Not to mention there wouldn’t be much need for blogs or forums
Thanks for sharing your take. I’ll hold to my view. I think this place is at the top when it comes to casual, home-cooking, mom and pop Italian. It’s certainly nothing fancy or complex, but I think it’s unique in the Oklahoma City landscape as far as delivering a simple, fresh and delicious product.
I will agree with you that the portions are too big. I’m a big fan of reasonable portions so that is a strike against it. However, I feel the prices are reasonable so at least they’re not just pumping up the portions in an effort to charge more.
Do you have some other home-cooking OKC Italian places that you consider to be better? Let us know.
Thanks again and please leave us more of your comments. We’d love to hear more from you.
May 18th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I only spent a little over a week in the area and mostly ate Mexican and BBQ, so I don’t have any other home-cooking Italian recommendations, but I’m be back soon, so hopefully I can remedy that! I agree that the prices were very reasonable, but I would have been happy to pay the same for half as much food. And I can’t get over the overcooked and oversauced par: in my mind those are criminal failings for an Italian restaurant. Maybe I should go back and have a go at the lasagna or something: that’s harder to mess up on those dimensions. The people working there (I assume the family?) sure were nice, anyway. And the bread was pretty tasty, too.
May 18th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Chris, yeah I read back through the whole thread on your forum I realized you are from out of town. It’s great to have your perspective here. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you’ll continue to do so as you visit OKC more.
I noticed you visited a few other restaurants that we have reviewed here (Cheever’s, Iron Starr, Deep Fork, and La Baguette). I would love to have your comments on those reviews as well.
May 20th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Stopped in after reading all the reviews. Went in about 1:00 p.m. on Thursday and still had time to catch the lunch special. The service was a bit slow considering there was only one other person there, but the food was great. Had the spaghetti and meatballs on the lunch special. For $6.95 w/a salad,the price can’t be beat. The sauce was excellent, well blended and very fresh. Will be going back soon..
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:16 am
I love this place. Just be ready to take your order when the waitress comes to your table. She’s kind of impatient, but not in a rude way, if that makes sense.
In addition to their Italian food, they have excellent pizza and calzone.
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:44 pm
So, back from my trip to Santa Fe I decided to have one last hoorah. I can’t stop thinking about Bella Vista and I’m so full that I’m having trouble typing. We started with the Shrimp Baci, bacon and cheese wrapped shrimp. Nuff said. I ordered the Eggplant Parmigiano $9.25 and it came with a huge bowl of spaghetti marinara. I ate aproximately 6 bites before I even got to the eggplant. At first, I was a little displeased because I kept getting forkfulls of sauce and cheese. Then I realized, how can I be upset when the sauce and cheese is so darn good that I could take a bath in it? I would agree that the spaghetti is overcooked. I prefer al dente, but it was still good and I still took the leftovers home. My date had a small pizza with 3 toppings at $9.25, I had a small piece and he still took half of it home. It was a winner as well. Even after all of that food, I inquired about the Baklava but it had sold out. I can’t wait to go back and explore the rest of the menu. I couldn’t get a read on the waitress because she did seem hot and cold. One moment I felt like that I was annoying her and the next she was warm and friendly. I think that is just her personality.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Went about 5pm and were the only ones there. Not a bad thing but even then the service was slow. The food though slow in coming was hot and tasty. I had the Lasagna and the boss lady had an eggplant dish. We were too full to even think about the good looking desert spread.
I don’t really like marinara sauce that comes off sweet and this one does. I’m going back though, some really good looking pizza on the menu.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
We tried it last night before going to see Spamalot. It was so wonderful and fresh. I have recommended this place to a lot of people. It was a yummy start to a fun filled eve.
October 6th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
We have a group of friends that like to dine at Bella Vista before we go to the Civic Center or when we take our own family out for a meal. The portions are large and the food is great. Our group hasn’t been disappointed with the tuscan pizza, sausage pizza, manicotti, chicken parmesan, eggplant parmesan, spaghetti or lasagne. We haven’t ordered the calzone, but it looks large enough for two to share. It’s definitely one of the best places in Oklahoma City. If you have a large group, call ahead and make a reservation. Allow a little extra time if you do have a large group. We’ve done that several times and had excellent service. Great place to go for an evening out with your friends.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
I went here as soon as I read the review on this site, and the place didn’t disappoint. The food was strongly seasoned which was perfect for my palate. It’s definitely an experience that is unlike any other Italian place I’ve ever been to… anywhere! We went on a weekend evening and it wasn’t that busy.
Please tell us what you think.