If restaurants were only about what's on the plate, they would do fine with take-out windows instead of dining rooms. But it's the entire dining experience that earns restaurateurs their gold stars in heaven, if not in the Zagat or Michelin guides. At Bella, they've certainly taken this attitude to heart.

The dining room is simple -- a framed travel poster here and there, tablecloths covered with bistro paper. Frank Sinatra greeted us as we entered, softly crooning over the speakers. Bella doesn't have the gilding and glitz that would attract the diamond pinky ring set. Nor is the place noisy, thanks to the carpeting and the widely spaced tables.

Although the waitstaff sports black vests and bow ties, one look at all the Italian comfort food on the menu shows this is a restaurant that would rather please than impress. Chicken soup is offered daily, and while a long list of intriguing specials greets you at the door, the regular menu sticks to tried-and-true fare, from standard-prep fried calamari to four versions of veal and five of chicken. For the kids, mozzarella sticks and chicken fingers join the appetizers.

It didn't take long to be pleased by the service, for which Bella has an oft-mentioned reputation. Lisa, our server, was friendly without being obtrusive. It was clear that she had been trained to help make a diner's experience more enjoyable and was given the latitude to make this happen. Hearing Johnnie and I waffle about whether to get the regular chicken soup or the creamy version ($3), Lisa brought us both kinds, the extra one gratis. She was similarly generous with a house salad for my counterpart, whose main dish didn't ordinarily come with one. Plates were removed promptly and used flatware replaced. By the time our table was cleared, I knew a crumb scraper was coming.

We chose the antipasti caldo misti ($7.95), a hot mixed sample plate, and weren't disappointed. It included bruschetta burdened with chopped vegetables and cheese, two littleneck mini-clams casino, and crabmeat and cracker stuffing in two nicely undercooked mushroom caps and in scooped-out artichoke hearts zippy with lemon.

The main courses were even better. Some of the prices are ridiculously low, such as $10 for pasta with sausage and meatballs, and $9.50 for half a chicken -- with pasta and salad. Johnnie snubbed the fancier dishes for the simple gnocchi Sorrentina ($12), which included a tasty marinara sauce. It featured kitchen-made ricotta gnocchi instead of the heavier potato version.

The most expensive dish was my lobster special, which is often offered, at $24.95. It was served over choice of pasta, although I could have had it with potato and vegetable. There was also a choice between a seafood broth-based red sauce or a cognac-Alfredo. The latter was so dreamy, as well as creamy -- velvety and almost smoky with flavor -- that I forgot to taste the lobster until halfway through my rigatoni. (Lisa says that if you fall in love with a sauce at Bella, you can request it even when it's not on the menu. So much for the necessity of unmerciful "No substitutions" policies.) The lobster claw and half a tail, cooked to perfection, were accompanied by squid rings, a couple of shrimp, and cherrystones, plenty of scallops, plus a row of mussels. My only quibble: I would have preferred for the kitchen to crack the sauce-slathered shells, rather than sending the dish out with a nutcracker, bib, and a pile of napkins.

Most of the desserts are made in-house, such as my ladyfingers over banana pudding ($5), but not Johnnie's peach sherbet ($6), which was served in a frozen peach. The former was smothered under a milk chocolate sauce, to not overpower the bananas with dark chocolate, and the sherbet had none of the perfumy artificial flavoring that you sometimes find.

Making the rounds was the man who sets the tone and the standards at Bella, Giuseppe Calapai, whose son, Giovan, works the kitchen. Giuseppe owned and operated the Blue Grotto, a Federal Hill institution, for 18 years before going on to do the same at the Valley Country Club in West Warwick and Gio's in Coventry. The big, amiable man, originally from near Messina, in Sicily, says his philosophy as a restaurateur boils down to one word: hospitality. A lot of things can spoil a meal, and Giuseppe wants his staff to make sure that this doesn't happen.

How was your dinner? "Bella, bella." What a fitting name for this restaurant and all that it represents.

Bill Rodriguez can be reached at billrod@reporters.net.

Issue Date: November 23 - 29, 2001