Napolita Pizzeria & Wine Bar, Northbrook — Restaurant in Northfield Township

UPDATE:

We’ve had good experiences here in the past so we met friends here on Saturday and it was their first time.

Our server was present earlier in the evening but then vanished about 5 minutes after our guests arrived. After sitting for thirty minutes and no one came by to offer drinks or take our order; we asked the hostess if she could find our server. We watched her walk all over the restaurant and then even disappear into their outdoor area. Ten minutes later, our server miraculously resurfaced ad helped two other tables before attending to us. She took our orders, replenished drinks, and promptly disappeared again. We never saw her again. We think the front-of-house manager then helped us the remainder of the evening. One person ordered pizza well done (meaning crispier crust) it came out floppy and soggy. He sent it back stating he wanted it well done. It again came out wet and floppy. We asked our newish server what the issue was and he said that all their pizza is 50% wet and floppy. It was inedible - it would have been nice if our original server mentioned this when he originally asked for it to be well done. My wife and his wife shared the chicken piccata. His wife had potatoes on the side and my wife opted w pasta on the side. I also got the chicken piccata with potatoes. Our food finally arrived and the chicken was flavorless and barely room temperature. The potatoes were well done and piping hot. My wife’s pasta was cold. I think the newer waiter/manager knew that our original server forgot to bring out our food, but nothing was done. We didn’t complain, but the restaurant didn’t adjust our bill either. We’re never going back. So they lost two people who dined with them at least once and month and list a pair of potential new customers as well.

——- This is one of three Italian restaurants in downtown Northbrook and is by far my favorite. I wish I had visited this place before a couple weeks ago. They are always busy and they do not take reservations (unles you're a party of 8 or more) at their Northbrook location. The do take reservations at their Wilmette location.

We went there on a Saturday night just the two of us and were able to get a table inside. They were exceptionally busy and do a brisk takeout mainly for their pizza.

They also just opened an outdoor back deck and that was booming.

They have a large bar area with a couple televisions and then the kitchen area is all up front so you can watch them make their pizzas. The rest of the kitchen is separate.

We ordered drinks and a caesar salad to split. They bring our drinks and then they bring the salad pre-split for us. It was a crisp salad and the dressing was light.

I ordered the chicken piccata (which I tend to base good or bad Italian restaurants on) and my wife ordered their cheese pizza.

Let me tell you...this is hands down the best chicken piccata I've ever had. There were three decent sized chicken cutlets. The sauce was extremely flavorful and not creamy at all, just well made and enough to help sauce the chicken, but not so much where they're drowning in sauce. The chicken was incredibly juicy and had a medium thickness to them so as they weren't dried out either. The dish came with roasted potatoes which were also crispy on the outside and soft on the inside (meaning they were perfectly cooked) and had the same sauce on them. YUM!

The pizza was equally delicious. Crisp crust, nice flop, great cheese to sauce ratio. And we got to bring some home.

Napolita's is definitely now one of our go-to Italian restaurants and can't wait to go back with...

I celebrated my 21st birthday on Saturday 8/31/24. I made reservations a little over a week in advance and everything went very smoothly and the person I talked with was very nice. When my party got there at 8pm the host was very nice and told us our table would be ready shortly. I work in service and completely understand that it was a Saturday night and the restaurant was very busy. I had no issue waiting. We were able to sit down at our table 30 minutes later making it 8:30. Our waitress was very nice and all of our food came out fairly quickly considering there being 10 of us. We ordered drinks and the waitress brought me out a tiramisu for my birthday which I thought was very sweet! Up until that point I thought everything was great. As we were packing up to leave I needed to use the restroom so myself and 3 others went to the bathroom really quickly. As We were in the bathroom we hear voices outside saying “can they fing hurry up and a couple of “b*itches” being thrown around. As curious as we are we left the bathroom to see what was happening. To our surprise we see 3 waitresses standing by the glass doors that lead out to the patio staring at our table. I understand it being 10pm on a Saturday night and everyone was probably tired from the busy day but comments like that should definitely be said after the party is gone. I made direct eye contact with one of the waitresses and they continued to give us dirty looks as we were packing up to leave our table. I think it’s extremely rude and unprofessional to make your attitude that present and aware to the customers. It’s not like we stayed after close and there was still 30 minutes of the restaurant being open by the time we left. While I do find sympathy for wanting to relax and go home after a long busy day, we were seated 30 minutes late, it would be unreasonable for a party of 10 to leave within an hour of being seated. We weren’t even given a goodbye as we were leaving. I really did like the food and the atmosphere but no one should be treated in that manner and especially just wanting to celebrate my birthday with friends. I will not be coming back and I do hope no one else will have to...

We’re hoping the next time we go to get it right. There needs to be a serving utensil that’s wide to transfer pizza from serving platter to your plate. Using only our small fork doesn’t work—our toppings and cheese slid off trying to get it onto our plates. When we asked for a serving utensil we were told they were on order. The two entire pizzas slices were so limp that you couldn’t hold a piece up to eat it—only option is a knife and fork to eat it. We overheard a waiter telling another table that the sogginess is the authentic Italian style pizza. When we asked our waitress about it she said this is the style of pizza. I asked if we could’ve requested a well done pizza bottom she said we could do that next time. Honestly wish we’d been aware before ordering. Also when our bill came the pizza was less expensive than listed on our menu. So I went to their website to see what prices were listed and happened to notice that they have happy hour pricing between 5-7pm and pizzas are a lower price. That would’ve also been helpful to be informed before we ordered—I think people might order more food if they know it’s less expensive during 5-7. Seems like there could be better communication all around. Also today I see you can sign up for Napolita rewards—no one mentioned that. Ambience was good except be prepared for noisy kids/family tables if you’re on a date and would like to have some conversation. I would take out the wall of pizza boxes in the front window so people driving by can see there’s movement of people inside. I would’ve enjoyed the view more from inside of the pretty lights outside rather than boxes. The service was pleasant and fast, the flavor of pizza was very good—just need to inform customers about items mentioned above so people aren’t surprised about the sogginess of the pizza, if that’s not what they’re used to. Also, make a mention of happy hour pricing and the rewards program too. We’ll come back and try requesting “well done”...