Casa Nostra Italian Bistro — Restaurant in Caldwell

Heard about this place from a local online newspaper. High expectations as we arrived; they have only 8 tables and are open Tuesday - Thursday 5-9 pm. Extremely limited availability calls for making reservations. The building on the outside is low-key and the restaurant seems almost hidden.

The space inside is what you would call cozy. Seats on the beaches have pillow cushions. Tables are topped with cheap looking olive oil and salt grinders. With labels peeling off and brand names placed on the table, it looks cheap. Disappointed from a restaurant with such hype and cloth napkins. Menus are paper and curling. The specials menu was hand written in sloppy cursive and some words were hard to read. Seems lazy. The spot should invest in some menu covers to slide the paper menus in and out of since it often changes.

When the server was pouring tap water, she immediately noticed a fly in my glass before I could. She rushed to replace my glass and water. The attentiveness is appreciated.

They placed bread on the table but no butter. We used the olive oil on the table and poured it on the bread plate and made ourselves a dipping plate

The food was quite good. The zucchini flowers were quite literally the flower from a zucchini plant. Stuffed with goat cheese, it was paired with a creamy pesto sauce that made us want to drink it from the plate! Very delicious. We ordered the Shrimp Risotto and Shrimp Scampi. Both had no complaints. Extremely delicious and the shrimp was huge- generously placed on the dish. The shrimp scampi dish looked significantly smaller than the risotto in portion size. My partner was done and still hungry after while I still had plenty on my plate and we eat at relatively the same speed. More pasta please!

Espressos were ordered for dessert and it was smooth and rich. We ordered limoncello cake and cannoli. The server said they made the cream filling differently and asked our opinions and that was probably the best cannoli I had in my life. They placed biscotti on the table as well.

Overall a great experience. Being Italian, I felt at home hearing the workers in the back speaking Italian and having authentic Italian food in a very Italian town. ...

My friend and I are always looking for new restaurants to try and keep a log of places we see on Facebook or Instagram. Casa Nostra was next on our list to try and we were not disappointed. The place is small and cozy, we called to see if we could get a reservation since it was a Saturday evening, they were able to accommodate us at 7:30. When we arrived we did not have to wait to be seated, the table was ready. The server provided us with menus and asked if we needed our bottle of wine to be opened. Server came back with bread for us and apologized that they were unable to warm it, explained and apologized that they were having issues with the bread warmer. The bread was fine as it was. The owner (chef) came out to take our orders we ordered the special fig appetizer to share, the portion was certainly large enough for 2 people and was very good. For entrees we had the Shrimp Risotto and Lobster Ravioli both were extremely good and nice sized portions. We were too full for dessert. One nice thing about this restaurant was that they did not rush you - there was adequate time between receiving the appetizer and entree which I thoroughly enjoyed as many times the entrees come out way too close to the appetizers. I will definitely be...

Nothing is more true authentic Italian than this place. Came in at 8pm on a Wednesday where they sat us immediately (kitchen closed at 9pm). We had the beets and goat cheese salad and the stuffed artichokes as an app. The beets and goat cheese sat on an orange that was juicy and sweet, it perfectly balanced the flavor. While the artichoke had just enough breading and was a garlicky goodness. For entre I had the pancetta mushroom gnocchi in a cream sauce which melted in your mouth. The salmon in the pesto cream was cooked to perfection (and I am very picky about how salmon is cooked) over a bed of sauteed spinach. The veal rack was delicious and the mixed seafood had a wide variety. My favorite being the grilled octopus. We finished off dinner with the best tartufo with vanilla and chocolate ice cream covered in a dark chocolate shell. And sliced pineapple with crushed pistachios and a drizzle of honey. The best time to come is during the week but if you come on the weekends, you must make a...