Something tells me a plan needs to be made and soon…
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In a word: Go!! An upscale restaurant that far surpassed our expectations in every respect – and only a stone’s throw from our house!
We arrived promptly for our 8 p.m. reservation(via OpenTable) and were seated immediately in one of the two dining rooms. The interior has been totally redone: very attractive décor; widely-spaced, capacious tables; and really, really comfortable chairs!
The printed menu was the same as the one on-line but, of course, with prices. (More about them later.) The prawns, pictured above in this thread, were available, so we started by sharing them. From the pastas, we split the tagliatelle with Bolognese sauce. For the mains, Mr. RBI had decided at home that he would have the filet mignon. I had originally thought I would share it, but when our server told us that one of three specials was the chef’s version of veal piccata and he described it, I ordered it.
Because he knew he was going to have beef, Mr. RBI brought an Italian red. But we discovered that there’s no need to bring our own wine glasses because they are providing Spiegelau (used in many high end NYC restaurants like Daniel), unusual for a BYO.
There were three types of bread offered: rye, wheat, and focaccia. I chose the wheat while Mr. RBI had the focaccia. We asked for butter since we prefer it to olive oil; however, we were urged to give the olive oil a try. Very high quality and flavorful.
Those huge prawns were amazing. Succulent and seriously delicious. Split for us in the kitchen, the tagliatelle with its incredible Bolognese sauce blew us away. Even split, the portions were overly generous, so to leave room for our main courses, we each ate half the pasta and took home the rest.
The 10-oz. dry-aged filet mignon was cooked precisely to Mr. RBI’s specification – rare. He was very pleased with it and with everything else on the plate. As for my veal piccata, instead of scallopini slices, there was a hefty veal ribeye, grilled, and topped with a gigantic pan-seared sweetbread. Other accompaniments were a horse mushroom and broccoli di ciccio. Traditional lemon sauce with lots of capers finished the dish. The veal was juicy with excellent flavor, and everything else on the plate was to my liking with one minor exception. I prefer sweetbreads that are small and have a crispy exterior. There was absolutely nothing wrong with how this sweetbread was prepared, just not my preference. Generous portions being a theme at Il Nido, so as not to miss out on dessert, we took home some of our main courses.
Mr. RBI’s favorite dessert is ice cream or gelato, so his decision was easy. His three scoops of gelato came with a waffle cone. All of the desserts sounded good to me, so I was having trouble making up my mind. I asked our server, Steve, what he thought, and he recommended the olive oil cake. Great suggestion! The tasty cake came with delicious olive oil gelato, whipped cream, and blood orange slices. The perfect end to a spectacular meal!
Kudos to our server, Steve, who had a pleasant personality and did his job in a professional manner.
With regard to prices, they were akin to what we are used to in many of the upscale places in NYC where we dine. I jotted the following down: The salumi board is $19, $34, or $49 depending on the size. Antipasti - $13 - $17. Soups - $9. Salads - $11 - $16. Pasta - $21 - $28. Mains - $29 - $34. Vegetables - $7. Steaks: for 2 - $92, Sirloin - $45, Filet Mignon - $54, Ribeye - $55. Desserts - $10. Gelato - $2.50/each.
Prawns - $19
Tagliatelle - $23
Veal Piccata - $45
Throughout the evening, we had conversations with the owner and the chef. When I told the owner that it was wrong not to have prices on the website menu, he said that would be fixed.
I must note that our desserts and Mr. RBI’s cappuccino were comped.
Needless to say, we’ll be back! And often!
The photo set for this meal can be viewed on my Flickr here.
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Dayuuuum. That veal is calling me, as are those prawns…
For whatever reason, I could just tell! Can’t wait to try it.
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Wow, nice report! I’m glad this place came through. There is a lot of competition in the Italian restaurant world around here. Great pics. I hope Jeff and Michelle have a nice time as well if they get there tonight.
Did you happen to catch the price on the wagyu per ounce?
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Thanks for the compliments, @corvette_johnny! In our view, there is zero competition for an Italian restaurant of this caliber. And that includes our (former) favorite, SamVera. But we haven’t been to Nettie’s yet, so we’ll see…
There is no waygu by the pound on the menu.
@CurlzNJ, Since the prawns and the veal were daily specials, they might not be available when you go.
I just looked at the dinner menu and they took the waygu off. That’s a shame. I wanted to try it
I honestly don’t remember seeing it on the website. The chef told us he’ll be making changes to the menu regularly. I asked him if that meant seasonally, and he relied, “Weekly.” So maybe he’ll put it back on at some point.
He also told us they will begin offering the Monthly Epicurian Menu (aka tasting menu) on April 1st. Each month, there will be a different theme. April’s is the area in Italy where the owner’s family is from. (Memory lapse re: which it is.) In May, it will be Spain. And so on. We’re very excited to try them.
By the way, I had a feeling that we both had the spelling wrong, so I looked it up. The correct spelling is “wagyu.”
Michelle and I had a great dinner here last night. The chef clearly knows what he is doing and the quality of the food is very high.
The new decor is very nice and as Roz said, the chairs are very comfortable. We did have some service issues, however it is the first week they are open and every table was full last night, probably for the first time. They did handle the issues properly and I hope with the passage of time the service will rise to the level of the food.
I asked about the dry aged prime rib which had been on the pre-opening website menu but was not on the the menu last night and was told it was removed because it had unresolved issues and they needed more time to get it perfect. They said the menu is changing frequently at this point and to watch for its return.
We started with the small salumi board which comes in 3 sizes. It was huge, almost a foot and a half long with 5 kinds of meats, chicken liver mousse, five cheeses, preserved vegetables and grilled bread. Everything was of high quality. It was $19 dollars, most places give you half the amount of lesser quality for $20-$25. They said the selection will change every couple of weeks. I can’t imagine what the size of the medium and large boards would be. Note the fork in the picture is a huge serving fork, not a regular size fork.
We then had the beet salad and and the scripelle (cheese filled crepes in broth) both of which were very good.
For entrees we had the Porchetta and the Tacozelle (sheets of housemade pasta with Veal and Mushroom Ragu, Saffron & Truffle. Both of these were outstanding. This is way above the level of restaurants around here.
Desserts were pistachio cake with pistachio gelato and a pear tart with ginger pear sorbet.
We were VERY pleasantly surprised (even though with the review from Roz we expected good things) and will definitely be returning. The bill before tip including one coffee was $110 but didn’t include the $19 for the meat board which they comped.
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I just realized tonight that I know the owners of Il Nido. I had been seeing the wife posting for weeks about it and thought, “Wow, she must really like this place!”. Call me blissfully ignorant.
I have not been to Il Nido, yet, but I can say that the owners are very kind people. I once hosted them for a paranormal (ghost hunting) event at the museum I volunteer at. They made a very generous donation to the museum, and when I was writing a book about my experiences, contributed again to the cost of printing. It has been a few years, but I am indebted to them. Very nice people and I wish them luck!
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Wow, beautiful! This is really close to us and I can’t wait to get here any try it out.
Any chance you saw kids? We take my little one nearly everywhere for early dinners but some places are straight up not conducive (Nicholas and Grand Tavern come to mind. Sadly, Heirloom but we may try an early Sunday dinner again with her. The staff adores her.)
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Thanks, @gracieggg! There were no kids in the room we were in. Since you eat early, I imagine there would be no problem going there with your little one though I would suggest you go midweek if you can when it would be less crowded than on a very busy Friday or Saturday. They told us that in a few weeks, they will start being open on Sundays, so that could be a good option for you. Also, if you need a high chair or booster seat, call and ask if they have any.
Edited to add: There is a huge difference between Il Nido and Heirloom Kitchen with regard to ambiance. Heirloom has a very casual feel while Il Nido feels fancy (despite not having tablecloths).
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Thank you! Good tips here. We try to be cognizant that not everyone loves kids and not everywhere is open to it. Also thanks for the clarity around Il Nido vs. Heirloom. I’m thinking we will save this for our next date night!
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We saw no kids in either room on Friday night (although a couple of the busboys looked very young).
The staff was very nice and I’m sure would accommodate you if you told them about the age of the third member of your party when you make the reservation.
Based on our one visit so far it’s worth paying a sitter if you have one you trust.
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Here’s a thought… @seal goes to bed early. Let him stay with the baby and we’ll have a HOdown and bring him something in a go bag. 
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Excellent report, Jeff! So glad you agreed with me about the food. Re: the service issues. I presume they apologized verbally? Following up by comping a course is exactly the proper way for a restaurant of this caliber to handle problems that negatively affect the dining experience.
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I brought the issues to the attention of the waiter who seemed not to know how to respond. When the manager came by to check on us and I described the issues to her, she apologized, agreed with my observation that it was the first busy night and a new staff but also said that it shouldn’t matter. She said what had happened was unacceptable under any circumstances. She then checked with us several times to make sure all was well. At the end of the evening she delivered the check (and told us of the comped course) and asked again for our observations on everything and seemed to really want to know. I felt it was handled properly and didn’t expect (and hadn’t requested) any type of comp.
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From everything you are saying it does sound like it was handled properly, I can’t wait to give this place a try.
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