I may be going here tonight. If so, I’ll post my take on it. I’m passionate about Italian cuisine, so I’ll be honest and fair.
Please do let us know… I’ve heard a lot of good things, but nobody I know has been in the last 1.5 years.
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I had a reservation about 8 weeks ago but a little mishap forced me to cancel it. The really good food reviews outweighed some of the old banter about service issues - which for me is big.
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Went to Nettie’s last night for my wife’s birthday, so I can give an up to date review of the restaurant.
Our reservations were for 8:30pm, we walked in and we’re immediately seated. The place was pretty packed, and noise levels were moderately high (not a criticism, I actually enjoy a degree of noise). Decor is cute, somewhat rustic, our table had a bench seat which I like (I’m not a spring chicken anymore and I need a little extra padding or my back is killing me).
They have a big staff, and they weren’t standing around at all. Service is what I’d call “relaxed” - they aren’t up in your face every 10 seconds, which I prefer.
Point to note - everything is a la carte, which can be a blessing or a curse, depending on if you are frugal (like me). Our server noted this to us, and that presented us with some nice ordering dilemmas (a lot to choose from that we wanted but we are trying to keep it reasonable).
Our server was great (I think her name was Ang). She was sincere and gave us time to look through the menu. My wife ordered a White Negroni for a drink and I ordered a glass of Chianti. Nice that they have a liquor license but alcohol ordering always gets me in trouble, because it really adds to the tab. 4 drinks for us was $60, more than I like to spend but given the occasion, we said “you only live once”.
We were asked to order everything (starters and entrees) at the same time, normally something I don’t like to do because some places will bring out your entree too quickly. No issue with that here, seemed more just logistics management which is fine by me.
We ordered fresh mozzarella and Golfetta salumi for apps. The server brought us bread, which was warm and really nice. The fresh mozzarella was very good and I’m a huge parmagiano reggiano fan, there were nice chunks on the salumi.
Main course I had the hot vinegar chicken. My wife had the fresh spinach fettuccine. My oldest daughter had the cavatini and zucchini, and my youngest had the flat iron piccata.
My youngest is a picky eater, she cleaned her plate. Portion wasn’t huge but just right for her. Steak was cooked medium rare, not over cooked. This is how we eat it, so she was happy with how it came out.
My other daughter loved her dish. My wife thought it was the best of the four. She finished hers as well.
My chicken was very juicy and moist, the jus was tasty and had a little heat. I read somewhere on this thread that it’s a take on Chicken Savoy, which I’ve never had. I thought the dish was well cooked and well prepared, thumbs up from me.
I had a side of the chopped broccoli rabe, which is definitely a different way to prepare it. I loved it, it was seasoned well and tasted great. For me, being able to just spoon it on to my plate with no mess and not having to cut it was well received. I also like bucking tradition a little, so it was a thumbs up.
I should also point out that my palette leans towards salty food. What I think is seasoned properly might not be everyone’s taste, but my wife is much less into salty food, she loved the broccoli rabe.
Her spinach fettuccine was very good. The place has low lighting, and my eyesight isn’t the best, it looked like a big plate of spinach, which wasn’t spinach at all - it was the actual pasta. It looked kind of cool, the pasta was prepared with roasted garlic, olive oil, and cheese. Pasta was cooked just slightly past “al dente”, but not over cooked.
We also had a side of fried mushrooms - I’m not a big fan of mushrooms but they were nicely prepared and crunchy which I liked.
Desert was orange cake for my wife and cherry ice for my kids. They finished all of it. I’m not into sweets but the cherry ice was good, as was the cream with it.
We probably went a little overboard ordering all sorts of things, and in the end that added up. Entrees are reasonably priced (I’d say on average around $30), but adding 2 apps, 2 side orders, 2 desserts, and 4 drinks pushed the bill up quite a bit. It would be unfair to say that it’s a little pricey, but as I said earlier, it’s a la carte so you have to keep that in mind when ordering.
I would definitely go back here. It’s worth paying a visit. Food was very good, and our experience was pleasant. I was happy to see that business was strong, looks like they have good word of mouth and likely repeat clientele.
I screwed up taking pictures, I was only able to find that I had one of the broccoli rabe and one of the salumi with parmagiano reggiano. I think there’s a picture on the thread of the chicken, looked the same as what I had.
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A friend just reposted this from Nettie’s IG account, so I’m sharing just to share. I’m sure there are plenty of people who will be thrilled, others who will be upset, and then those (like me) who are neutral on the topic.
netties.house.of.spaghetti
We love kids. We really, truly, do. But lately, it’s been extremely challenging to accommodate children at Nettie’s. Between noise levels, lack of space for high chairs, cleaning up crazy messes, and the liability of kids running around the restaurant, we have decided that it’s time to take control of the situation. This wasn’t a decision that was made lightly, but some recent events have pushed us to implement this new policy. As of March 8, the day we return from our winter break, we will no longer allow children under 10 to dine in the restaurant.
We know that this is going to make some of you very upset, especially those of you with very well-behaved kids, but we believe this is the right decision for our business moving forward.
Thank you for understanding 
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I am on the fence. I have sympathy for the parents but think it better to discourage children rather than ban them. Have seen places that do not have a child menu and have also worked somewhere where the child meals were $15.
Talking mostly about smaller independent restaurants with limited seating for families.
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yup
I appreciate the fact that they explained WHY it’s difficult for them to accommodate younger kids. That said, I have nieces who were taken to appropriate restaurants by their fun aunt starting at young ages, and that’s how they learned to be “restaurant girls” and that “restaurant girls” don’t put their heads on the table (do YOU see a pillow?) and don’t scream (or they get to leave) and if they behaved well, they’d get dessert AND they’d get to go out to MORE restaurants. When I was on eG I had a quote from my then…10? yr old niece where she loudly exclaimed “Wow! They bring you more water here and you didn’t even ask for it!” Where were we? At Tabla in NYC. Chef Cardoz (may he rest in peace) got a big kick out of that one. Kids don’t learn that stuff without exposure.
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Restaurant with kids name bans kids. Good one.
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Lol’d at this one
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I love this , it’s goes back to when they used to ask “Smoking or non smoking” & my reply was always no children. Still is ! Lunch or a kid friendly place it’s sort of expected to have to deal with people’s problems with being unable to control their rugrats . Glad to read this & hopefully it becomes the norm.
I’d like to see how they enforce this with customer walk-ins. Of course, parents will claim it’s never their kids.
This comes up every so often, there was the epic thing at Alina in Chicago a year or two pre-COVID. I think much depends on the venue.
I particularly liked the meme “Unattended Children will be fed Sugar Bombs & taught to swear before being returned to their parents”
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Every child will be 11 or older. They just look young for their age lol
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Yeah, hungry children don’t deserve to eat anywhere.
Pretty clear there are impolite people of all ages.
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Also given espresso and a puppy!
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Narrator voice: “in fact, he never went back…”
I loved the concept, I carried their water in the great hubbub of '19 when they came on here. There were too many other solid options for me to take a flyer again for the few times we go out for Italian. Then Covid hit and I was not in love with a lot of their social media (a la the Block) and it turned me off. Now the kid thing. It is their place and their decision to make…but again, it could have been handled a million times better.
Now, regarding parents who let their kids be animals. They should be drawn and quartered.
Our kids were not perfect, but zero chance they ever impacted another diner’s experience. On the off chance a bigger mess than normal was made, the servers/busboys were happy because the tip reflected that.
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There’s plenty of kid friendly & family friendly restaurants in this particular area.
Maybe the parents will become more aware of their kids behavior & be a bit less self indulgent
The kids won’t starve
