Bellaggio Cafe: Italian brunch in downtown Vancouver
Still working on my backlog of places to review… 🙃
Today’s post is on Bellaggio Cafe, a cafe that serves Italian dishes like pastas and pizzas, but also brunch in the mornings. They are located in downtown Vancouver right by Vancouver City Centre skytrain station.
I came here with my fiance for brunch back in February. Here is everything we tried!
The vibe
Bellaggio Cafe was bustling when we arrived on the Saturday morning. Almost every table was filled and the atmosphere had a lot of energy and chatter.
The inside of Bellaggio Cafe has a nice European or French look to it actually, with dark green lower wall panelling. They have a few booth tables with brown leather booth chairs and a marble bar. For a medium-sized restaurant, they pack a lot of tables inside so you are sitting quite close to the next table.
For a table of 2, we are seated at a small wooden table and chair duo.
Food review
Here are all the things we ordered from their brunch menu. All prices are in CAD and rounded to the nearest dollar.
Meatballs ($15)
Ok I lied – this is actually from their regular lunch menu (which you can also order off of from 11:30am – 5pm). Kelvin is into meatballs so he wanted to try it.
You get around 3-4 meatballs and a slice of crusty bread to dip the tomato sauce in. Overall, I thought the meatballs was decent and the sauce is nice too with the ricotta, but I just don’t think it’s worth $15.
Truffle egg croissant ($19)
I believe this is actually no longer on their signature menu, but it was there when I went back in February. I love croissants so I was excited to eat one and this croissant was so good 🥰! It was huge and had that flakiness I was looking for.
Inside the croissant, they stuff it with scrambled eggs, arugula, mushroom and some grana padano cheese. I did taste the truffle inside this scrambled egg omelette and it went well with the mushrooms too. My only gripe is that the entire dish is vegetarian, so it was lacking some sort of substance for me (but a good vegetarian option!).
The breakfast potatoes are handmade (that’s what it says on the menu but I’m not sure what that really means 😅 – maybe it means hand smashed?). Anyways, the potatoes were really good – crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. It mostly filled me up.
Ricotta french toast ($20)
Lastly, we order the ricotta french toast. The bread is coated in a cinnamon egg custard, then topped with fresh berries, some candied walnuts and their house syrup.
I’m more of a savoury girl when it comes to brunch, but I did like this french toast quite a bit. It had a bit of a lemony flavour to it from the ricotta, so it made it not too sweet.
Final thoughts
Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
We had a nice brunch at Bellaggio Cafe. It really felt like a great start to our day with the warm atmosphere, good service and good food.
For brunch lovers, there are a lot of choices on their brunch menu (also lots of vegetarian options too). I also like that you can order from their lunch menu as well if you come after 11:30am, so there are even more options.
I really liked my croissant, but I kind of wish I had ordered a different croissant sandwich because the egg and mushroom just felt a little bland to me, even though there was some truffle flavour. Personally, I just need a bit more meat in my first meal of the day. Everything else was delicious.
Price-wise, I would say it’s on the pricey side. I got a croissant with egg and potatoes and it costed me almost $20. Likewise with the french toast, although delicious, you get like 3 pieces. I think because Bellaggio Cafe is located downtown, you will expect to see a higher price. And actually, if you compare it to other brunch places downtown, it’s not considered that expensive (e.g. you can find chicken and waffles or eggs benny for $25). But for the things we ordered, I think it is on the pricier side.
I may return to Bellaggio Cafe to check out their regular Italian offerings. But for brunch, I will give them 3 stars for a decent meal.
Sincerely, Loewe