North Italia — Restaurant in Austin

Came in for a quick lunch/dinner before a concert at the Moody Theater and couldn't be happier with my decision. I can safely say that North Italia is going to become a staple in my dining routine. There were 3 of us in my party (one of which was vegatarian), we sat at the bar and split all of our food family-style. Total order was 3 Small Plates, 1 Small Salad, and 1 Entree.

The first Small Plate was the Cacio E Pepe Arancini, which is basically extra-crispy fried risotto balls, they come 5 to an order so if you have more than 5 in your party you'll want to order 2 of these small plates. They are truly delicious, and the Pesto Aioli really jives with them.

The second Small Plate was the Wild Shrimp Scampi. It was perfectly cooked and came with some Ciabatta bread to soak up the Scampi sauce, which you're also going to want to do if you believe in important things like self-care. 😃

The 3rd Small Plate we ordered was the Heirloom Tomatoes & Burrata, which may have been the best one of all. I may be biased tho8gh, because if how much I love cheese... It comes with fresh Croutons to spoon the Burrata onto, in a beautiful presentation which looked as good as it tasted.

The Little Gem Caesar was the perfect amount of roughage to go around for the 3 of us, it was like a perfectly crafted little salad with the exact right amount of dressing & parmesean on each little leaf of greens. Every bite was exactly like the Lord intended.

And last but not least was the Chicken Parmesan Entree. The chicken breast was pounded out to the perfect thickness, the breading was as good as I've ever had, and the marinara & cheese on top was perfect. It also came with a delicious pasta in a light cheese sauce that reminded me of a homemade bechamel Mac & Chz. It was the perfect pairing, with the cheesy goodness of the pasta serving as an ideal compliment to the out-of-this-world chick parm.

Everything was filling and delicious, but light & clean enough food that I didn't feel overly full or hate myself afterward.

The service and atmosphere were also TRULY amazing. Not joking about making this an (at least) once a week stop, so many good things left to...

Food 4/10, Decor 5/5, Service 3/5

Food is superb, and the best reason to come here. The decor is open, airy, comfortable, spacious, interesting, subtle. A great addition to the food.

The service was odd, but it was apparently opening night. I think the most notable characteristic of the staff was that there was almost no chemistry amongst them.

Food runner poured my beer at the table, and it was a heady beer (Independence Liberty Lunch), no big deal. The quarter master oversaw this heady pour and chased him down, to presumably critique his pour, and brought me a fresh beer and apologized for the aforementioned pour. I asked what was wrong with it. She said it was heady, I said the pour was fine, it's a heady beer, but I'll take that open beer. She obliged, so that was nice.

Our server was obviously new to serving, but she also obviously cared about her performance, and she was friendly and attentive. We saw the quarter master critiquing her at least twice about relatively minor inconveniences.

I have two gripes here. First is that we noticed these things, they shouldn't be so damn obvious.

Second, micromanaging. Both of these people were killing it last night (I observed food runner consistently putting in work, he's no slouch), and they made our experience significantly better, even if they made mistakes.

What did not make our experience better was the quarter master. Why is she all in their biz? Let them work.

I spoke with manager Kevin. He was clearly busy as hell the entire time, but I managed to get a minute in and we thanked him for all the great stuff and said we were kinda bummed out by the quarter master. He was friendly and thanked us, introduced himself and we left. I'm not sure if he was busy or disinterested, but we did joke that maybe he praised the quarter master for keeping the workers in line.

In the end we decided we really enjoyed this place, but if we had to choose between this and Italic we would definitely choose Italic. It's more rustic, the staff is on point, it's a little quieter, and the menu is smaller (personal preference).

I still think you should go here...

What a terrible experience. Me and a group of friends were on our way to a concert and wanted to have dinner prior to our event. Didn’t have a reservation, but we were thankful North Italia had open tables because several restaurants in the area had a wait. Now I know why. Our server started out great, talked about the specials, asked if we’ve been there. We ordered a round of cocktails and appetizers to start. My friends enjoyed their drinks, I didn’t care much for mine, the pomegranate mule. Took awhile for the waiter to return to take our order, it took the table to flag him down for us to get our order in. Server explained the pastas are a nice portion, and he stated, he himself can barely finish a bowl of pasta, so some of us decided to share. We figured, along with the couple of appetizers and what we ordered, it would be perfect. As we are ordering, my friend and partner ordered the soup special and the waiter stated, “that’s it.” As if he was upset we weren’t spending “enough money.” We explained we would all share since the pastas are “a large size.” At this point, we are still waiting on our appetizers. A long time passes, and still no appetizers in sight. We asked the server if he had an idea on when the appetizers would arrive. He scurried off to the kitchen, ran other food to another table, came back and said, “oh I forgot to put them in.” I will give him the credit of apologizing and owning up to the mistake, but since we were on a time crunch we had no choice but to continue the night without the appetizers we were wanting. Maybe if he had remembered our appetizers, he would have then felt like “we ordered enough.” Food arrived, had to ask for silverware, food was subpar but no one would have known since the server never asked how the food came out. Server only came back to drop the check, and that was it. No amends for forgetting half of our order, no manager came by to apologize, they didn’t even offer bread/dessert, nothing. Too many other great Italian spots to...