Bella Marina offers a great view — but its food needs work

JOHN STARK

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BELLINGHAM — Bella Marina, at the edge of Squalicum Harbor, offers its patrons a wonderful view that captures Bellingham’s special qualities.

From every table in the upstairs dining room, the eyes of patrons can wander over a harbor full of fishing boats and yachts, and a sweeping view of the bay and the hillside neighborhoods and forested islands beyond.

But on our recent visit, the gap between price and quality was too wide. This place is going to need to narrow that gap if it is to succeed in a restaurant spot previously occupied by Sensa and Lucci’s.

BELLA MARINA

Address: 2615 S. Harbor Loop Drive.
Phone: 332-2505.
Hours: From 11 a.m. Wednesday through Sunday; closed Monday and Tuesday.
Dinner main course price range: $15-$30.
Reservations: Accepted.
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Our dinners started well enough, with a bowl of rich Italian wedding soup and a salad. Soup or salad come with dinners. The soup contained seasoned chunks of pork in a chicken broth with pasta, and the salad was a more-than-generous portion of perfectly fresh greens.

For our main courses, we chose charbroiled halibut and prawns, $27.99, and a 10-ounce New York steak, $23.99.

Both dishes came with a big slab of garlic bread, overcooked broccoli sprinkled with lemon juice, and bland, soggy rice. The halibut was nicely seasoned, but the fish was either previously frozen, overcooked or both, at a time of year when fresh halibut should be available. This broiled halibut suffered badly in comparison with the fish we enjoyed during our most recent visit to the Cliff House.

The steak also had a nice zesty seasoning, but the meat itself was undistinguished and it arrived closer to medium-well than the medium-rare I ordered.

Since this restaurant is so new, I’m not going to rant about the pace of the service. It no doubt takes awhile to get a new restaurant up to speed, and it was actually quite pleasant to wait and wait and wait while enjoying the view of the harbor and an extended conversation with my favorite dinner companion, my wife.

A lot of people would love to see a successful restaurant in this special spot, which should be a showplace for out-of-town guests. But it’s not 1985 any more.

Local tastes have gotten a lot more sophisticated. A view alone is not going to keep patrons coming back at these prices. There are too many other choices in Bellingham today, with a number of fine-dining choices that manage to combine a fine view with food that lives up to the price tag.

The Bella Marina bar offers casual, less-expensive fare such as burgers, sandwiches and fish and chips on the first floor, where the view will be a bit less dramatic but there will be less of a disconnect between price and quality.

Let’s hope that Bella Marina gets its act together quickly and takes advantage of its wonderful setting to give Whatcom County another outstanding dining option.

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POSTED: Thursday, May. 22, 2008

Bella Marina offers a great view — but its food needs work

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