Nicola's Ristorante Restaurant — Restaurant in Springfield

I only come here with my parents.... it’s too nice on my budget to get great food paired with ridiculously amazing wine.... but I do come here often and unless it’s my birthday we all always get the same thing.... my dad and I always get the wedge salad that just defines the wedge salad, the bacon, the sweet basalmic glaze, the dressing, the tomatoes, and of course the Gorgonzola cheese.... I don’t often make a salad a regular part of my meal but here I do it! It’s amazing! For my main course I normally have the calamari dish with polenta spinach and a calimari steak drizzled with this amazing sweet and savory sauce . I always get this and it’s always **ing amazing.... I have had other things.... the duck entree I only get on my birthday when I go there.... the red wine sauce I’m still trying to remake at home and years later I can’t get right..... It’s just something you can only get at a few places in town. My mom usually splits a pizza from the bar with my brother or her friends.... the pizza is the same awesomeness you can get at Mazos a few seconds walk down the same strip mall.... my dad gets the pork shank that is just nothing but decadent.... my fiancé likes the pasta more.... which honestly I must say is the best in town.... she loves the pasta Gilardi.... the spice she swears by.... whenever I’m here with my dad and Nichola is there he always says hi and shares the love.... I used to work at the sushi bar a couple doors down when Nicholas just opened and I can tell you this man had put his heart and souls and his abundance of love into this place and you’ll never forget it.... My 4 year old daughter loves the meat balls and to be honest we all did....Their servers may be new but they know how to be friendly and even when my dads being a jerk they fix everything and know what’s going on..... I cannot recommend this place high enough.... a local fine dining gem.... It’s something Springfield...

We Arrived 10 minutes early for our 7 o’clock booking for 7 people. It was our daughter’s 31st birthday and she wanted to go here. When we arrived the blonde maître Dee said it would just be a few minutes because the party before us was just leaving. As we were standing there, waiting, another crowd comes in, and several other couples and the couples were seated. The owner comes out and speaks with someone from the other big group. Shakes hands and said, don’t worry they can handle it. Long story short when our table was done and ready. A young man maître de came out and gave the group our table. They apologized to us. But we still stood there for over 45 minutes. Our grandson fell asleep on the floor. Finally, after several complaints from us. They got an empty table. And we still had to sit and wait another 20 minutes before we got water and bread. Finally, our waitress came around got us drinks and we ordered food. After arriving at 7 o’clock. It was 835. We got bread. And not till almost 9 before we even got our appetizers. We ordered the bruschetta was not thrilled at all about it. They also stated that they had ran out of mashed potatoes. My husband, daughter, and son-in-law, all ordered steaks. And my husband and daughter got mashed potatoes but son-in-law did not. He got pasta on the side. When he was the one when we ordered said that’s about the only thing he’ll eat is mashed potatoes. The vegetables were undercooked, and all steaks were rare when two were ordered medium rare, and one well done. I had the pasta and seafood. And it was very good and tasty. Overall for the prices that they charged, this was not worth it at all! Very disappointed on service and food...

I've eaten at Nicola's five or six times and have always enjoyed the food and the service, at the bar and in the dining room. My wife and I and two other couples were there on 2/3/18 and sat in the bar. Our server was MIA a lot during the evening, to the point where we had to go up to the bar and order our drinks more than once (I don't know the bartenders name but she was great, as usual}. We all ordered appetizers; bruschetta, seafood cakes and the mushroom cap. All were excellent! After sitting around and talking for awhile we realized that it's been 45 minutes or more since we ordered. After trying to locate our server, to no avail, we asked one passing by if she knew how our food was coming. She told us in a snooty way she didn't know because she wasn't our server. We explained to her we hadn't seen our server for so long we forgot what she looked like, and we were hoping it was her. Eventually our server showed up and apologized for the delay telling us there was a problem with the ticket. When our food finally came it was just OK. My chicken parmesan, which I look forward to each time I go there, might of been breaded but was basically a chicken breast with melted cheese. Instead of on a bed of angel hair pasta it came with a side of spaghetti. The two orders of lasagna came in a bowl and actually had peas in it. We laughed over that thinking it must be some type of Italian pot pie. All in all, we could of gotten the same quality of food with better service at Zios for a fraction of the cost. Even after this, because of past experience,...