*****  Bella Cucina Wood Fired Pizza, 4208 North Lakes Boulevard, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida 33410 (561) 799-7779.

Bella Cucina is a casual-moderately priced Italian joint, which plays the “wood fired” card…its pizzas are cooked in a wood-fired oven… and a number of its chicken-meat-seafood dishes are prepared on wood fired grills.

On a recent “outing” I stuffed my face with… ” margharita” pizza, lobster ravioli ala vodka, linguine with white calms sauce, steak pizziola and veal parmigiana. The food is very good. The portions just right. The service is as friendly as can be. The decor, modern pizzeria. The prices, neighborhood pizza joint prices.

I have to tell you, that I especially enjoyed the wood-fired margharita pizza…fresh mozzarella, basil and tomato sauce. Not to thin, not to thick, just right in the “crisp and sweet” department…absolutely delicious.

Just a brief thought…when I was growing up in Brooklyn in the 1950s-1960s, there was no such thing as a “margharita pizza.” It was either a “pie” or a “square or Scilian pie”…never heard the term margharita, ever. Did you?  Now, it seems everyone and their mother has “margharita this and —- that pizza”…what I do know, is that pizza is suppose to be, “dough-tomato sauce-mozzarella cheese” and if you want to get fancy, just maybe you top it with pepporoni, or sausage or meatballs…All of these weird combinations that you see joints serving today, are destroying the pizza-concept. I don’t care what anyone tells me, pineapple doesn’t belong on the top of a slice.

Bella Cucina makes some real-good stuff… the menu has a full lineup of appetizers, soups, salads, pastas, pizzas and meat-chicken-seafood entrees…and like I said before, a ton of items are “wood cooked” which adds a nice change of taste to many of the old standards.

Bella Cucina is open Monday-Thursday 11am-10pm, Friday 11am-11pm, Saturday 4pm-11pm and Sunday 4pm-10pm…you can wear your tee shirt and shorts’ ensemble.