If you want perfectly nice Italian food that’s served Kansas City for decades, whose ongoing existence attests to some baseline level of quality and popular approval, and where you might find a massive table of homecoming attendees or the Ruby Tuesday’s crowd on a nice night out, Garozzo’s and Lidia’s are great options. You’ll enjoy their Italian food and go on with your life. However, if you want a smaller shop that’s not coasting on reputation and is absolutely nailing classic dishes with subtlety and flavor, might I suggest heading over to Bella Napoli in Brookside. You’ll thank me!
The lasagna pictured above captures what I love about Bella Napoli. Lasagna bechamel is one of my favorite Italian dishes. My wife makes a delicious one, and I sop up the extra bechamel from the pot with pieces of white bread. (This is not a healthy habit.) A well-executed bechamel sauce has present but not overwhelming nutmeg and black pepper. A well-executed lasagna bechamel has a present but not overwhelming amount of the well-executed bechamel sauce. I’m happy to report that Bella Napoli nails this on all accounts. You still taste a deep, roasted tomato sauce and the saltiness of the parmesan cheese. And you absolutely taste the bechamel, but are not overwhelmed by it, and when you eat this, you will say to yourself that this is a very talented chef and that this is a very good lasagna that you will remember. So order this!
Another example of well-executed subtlety in action – the following amatriciana di cesare. The use of small cubes of pancetta is voraciously on-point – ohhhh, it absolutely delivers the fatty smokiness that we love from pancetta – but it does so with understatement, with just enough to notice, but never so much to overwhelm the deeply flavored tomato sauce.
Might I also suggest the following Tagliatelle Bolognese, which tastes like it cooked overnight, and I really appreciated the diced carrots in addition to (what I assume were) the food-processed carrots that gave the base of the sauce its sweetness.
We also had a perfectly nice lemon caper fish special and a chocolate fudge cake (an unequivocal richness bomb–great for those who want it).
Finally, if you are looking for an absolutely wonderful slice of Neapolitan-adjacent pizza, I mean, come here just for that! It’s better than Minsky’s!
