Nuovo Restaurant — Restaurant in England

First time eating here, having booked less than an hour beforehand. Not easy to recognise from the exterior as you have to enter via a lit but not bright passageway off the main pedestrian street which you could easly miss. There is a courtyard with table's and chairs plus greenery sofly lit with little string lights and a old vespa nicely painted, nice to sit having a cocktail in this part before entering the main restaurant area. The main area is quite dark with a little bar to the left reasonably busy for 9.15pm quite a few larger groups of around 6-8 persons. We were seated quickly and had a menu thrust at us and asked about drinks. We ordered an Aperol spritzer which was very nice plus a draft beer again very good. We purused the menu and noted it was little Italian plates which we like similar to tapas but larger. A selection of dishes ordered all quite delicous especially the grappa salmon and beets and goats curd, scallops cooked perfectly ( most places overcook them not here though) pork belly hubby said said grea; the tomatoes and fresh pesto with parmesan shavings very nice my only dish not liked was the pasta with shaved fish roe and lemon the lemon overpowered every part of the dish.I must add that I eat gluten-free(gf) and the pasta element was changed to penne from linguini and the breadcrumbs omitted. We ordered water for the table but this never came. The waiter was defensive when told about the pasta dish he went on to say basically it had been amended because of the gf thats why it was different. A change of pasta makes little difference the problem was the lemon overpowered the dish. I also pointed out that the menu was misleading because the beets dish should have had croutons as the dish clearly marked as gf again he stated defensively that the croutons weren't gf thats why they took them off and he would get Stuart to talk with me who is the owner and chef after we had ordered a selection of gelato and sorbets, which were sublime mocha and berries my favorite. Stuart came over and listened and explained the gf and lemon issues we had with a couple of the dishes and very kindly took them off our bill. Overall a nice place with a great choice of dishes lots of cocktails and wines to choose from we will definitely...

We came in as a walk-in, an unplanned trip to this restaurant, so we were dressed quite casual. We were seated and we pretty much decided what we wanted to eat within the first five minutes. I am used to Italian food, so I knew what I wanted quite quickly.

We ordered drinks, two cocktails. The waitress then asked if we were ready to order food, and of course, we said, "yes, we know what want to order". She responded, "okay, I'll be right back". We waited patiently for 20 minutes for her to come back. By this point, our drinks still hadn't arrived and we were still waiting to be served. It was not a busy night either, with plenty of staff on the floor.

With absolutely no apology for the delay, she came back and asked us again, "are you ready to order"?, in which I responded, "yes, we were ready to order 20 minutes ago". She completely fobbed us off and said, "oh, I didn't know that".

Five minutes later, our drinks had finally arrived.

We ordered the bruschetta, arancini, olives, risotto funghi, rigatoni peperonata, melanzane fritte. The food was fine, above average but we didn't fall in love with it. Perhaps oversalted in the risotto.

In general, we did not feel very welcome and felt at least one of the staff members were unfriendly and unwelcoming. Don't know if it due to our appearance, but prejudice is not an excuse. Customer service is something we find just as important as part of the whole experience of dining out. With this said, we probably will not go again because of...

Oh. My. Goodness. I'm damned if I can remember the names of anything I had, but I can honestly say it blew me away. Best meal I've had in Northampton by a country mile. I started with a little cocktail ... a 'something' julep, which was sweet and very alcoholic. I would have had another but at 9 quid and on an empty (for 24 hours) stomach, probably a tad unwise. Having just googled the menu ... I had 3 cicchetti (small plates): Insalata di Gamberoni ... the smoked paprika aioli was delightful and the balsamic gel is pure genius. Fazzoletto ... so wonderfully tangy with a little chilli kick. My favourite dish of the three. Luganica e fagioli ... a curly sausage on a bean cassoulet. That little sausage has fennel fireworks built in to it, which explode in the mouth. The last course was washed down with a glass of primitivo... soft and perfectly dry, but hearty enough to go well with the dish. A tad warmer than I would have liked, but it didn't spoil my enjoyment of it. Very friendly and helpful staff, (my waiter was just as lovely as the food! ... I know I'm not supposed to say that, but...) Three plates and two drinks were £35, so not exactly cheap, but worth every single...