Davanti Enoteca — Restaurant in Naperville

I just walked in the door from the restaurant. We were celebrating my Dad’s 82nd birthday. This was one of the best restaurant experiences I’ve ever had in my life! Our servers name was Henry, He is maybe the best server I’ve ever had in my life. Calamari as an appetizer and you can get good calamari anywhere, but I was impressed with the portion Sometimes nicer establishments skimp on the calamari and try to fill up the dish with garnish, not here. I had a hard time, deciding between the saffron scallop risotto, and the linguine with shrimp, clams and scallops. I decided to go with the linguine and I didn’t feel like having red sauce and I can’t eat chili flakes, but Henry said we could customize the pastas with any sauce we liked before I even asked I just had garlic and olive oil FANTASTIC!!! My father, who has Had far more experience in nicer establishments than that I have was in agreement and we both crushed our entrées and record time. Even my sister, the vegetarian was able to find several choices. She got the roasted cauliflower and was impressed. I decided to have a taste of it that will get you to eat your veggies!! We could’ve left it there and been completely satisfied. I am not much of a dessert person generally speaking , but I had scanned the menu online and the descriptions of the deserts had me eager to try one. My father was given a complementary tiramisu for his birthday, which was nice. My sister and I decided that we would split the brown butter Blondie!! My first spoonful stopped me and mid sentence and something like “hoohoohoohooo!” Came out of my mouth. Do you remember that old episode of The Simpsons where Bart and Homer were snapping each other with towels And Bart got him real good with a final towel Snap? Do you remember that noise that Home made? Yeah, that noise!My father got a box for his tiramisu and started eating my blonde! He’s lucky it was his birthday!! If there’s a better dessert out there, I don’t wanna know about it. We were so satisfied with our experience, I shook hands with Henry and told him to Give our compliments to the chef. We ended up giving him the compliments in person because he came out to our table. His name is John and he couldn’t have nicer! We even had a mixup on one entre and honestly, I think it was probably our fault But even if it wasn’t, we didn’t care!! Because we were so pleased with the service and the food. To wrap it up if you’re in Naperville (or on earth) and you want to sit down and eat This is where you go!! I would say, should there arise any negative review that review is suspect! We will definitely be back...

I'm sure this restaurant will survive for a while. They have an amazing location downtown Naperville and a kind, attentive staff. However, there were too many smaller things that the clientele I think they are looking for will not overlook nor bother to return for seconds. We had this spot on our list and finally dropped in on a cold wet day. The seating area is inviting, romantically lit, and divided. We ended up being seated in the back near the bathrooms and rear entrance. There was only one other couple back there and we get the spot right next to them. They were friendly but why was privacy not the first option? Just after the most amazing whipped ricotta and egg yolk toast appetizer, staff members started delivering the wine to the bar through that rear entrance. We were there at 5. And I know that's early but two appetizers in would make it at least 5:30, and this place was not prepared for service. Our server was trying to get the staff all in as soon as possible. But this was a fool's errand because he'd be off and here would come some other staff members through that same rear door. One of these mini frozen parades included a giant stock pot that I estimated to weigh 100lbs. It was amazing to see the man wrestling it to the kitchen. Speculating if the contents would spill across the dining room or would he be successful was a welcome diversion from the cold. The website states that they offer a contemporary twist on rustic Italian cuisine. While I'm suggesting you go for those above mentioned apps you can skip the entrees because I think the contemporary twists were blown out the kitchen one of the times the back door was wide open. The linguine alle vongole tasted exactly like a linguine alle vongole. Their bolognese was a bolognese. The halibut was prepared well but as far as some interesting twist on this fish dish, nope. For dessert we were given a beautiful cheesecake that gets topped with a peppercorn honey. That was a twisty dish. It was free because the kitchen must have missed the fire time for the fish and there was about a 40 minute wait for that course. The front of house was the one who noticed we were sitting for a while and checked in with us. It was a kind gesture. So, will they do well in Naperville? Yes, there'll be plenty of visitors for those one time visits. Will they build a large clientele of fancy foodie regulars? I don't think so. When I spend almost 200 for the two of us I...

Our entire experience here was a rollercoaster.

In short: the waiting staff and bartender were amazing, but the manager really needs to reevaluate his communication skills and professionalism.

I will start out with the good: by the end of the night, we were fortunate; we had an amazing waiter, David. He really went out of his way to talk to the manager and make our entire stay so much better. He was so sweet and helpful that I cannot thank him enough for saving our celebration.

But before all of that, we had reserved a table well in advance and confirmed it multiple times before hand as well as on the day.

Upon arrival, the manager informed us they forgot to put a reserved sign on our table and gave it away to another party who was still finishing up, saying they would "get them out of here" as soon as possible. (We called 45 minutes before to confirm, and they said we were all well and good and we were the last party to be seated at that table.)

It went from 5 minutes to 10 minutes to 15 minutes to an hour of waiting. Our entire night's plans got messed up over this dinner.

When asked by a member of our party to potentially make it up to us, he informed us that he "came on too strong" and "if the woman asked me, I probably would have done it." The entire exchange was absurd, and he went on to say more out-of-pocket things, which I will leave out.

Outside of this interaction with the manager and his extreme lack of professionalism, I do appreciate the rest of the staff who helped us...