Nonna Emilia Ristorante Italiano

Great experience at Nonna's last night. We had not been there in too long, as I live in Seattle and was visiting daughter in Hillsboro. The restaurant remains to be one of our favorites, and definitely the best Italian food in the area.

Our server, Diane, (29 years at Nonna's was simply terrific. She was extremely helpful with ordering and just a lot of fun. She even offered me her reading glasses as I left mine in the car.

We arrived at 5:15, and there were a few tables open, but they wanted to wait a minute to seat us, and the foursome behind us were told 15 minutes. They were waiting for a server to come on at 5:30. Hmmm?

The food was excellent. My daughter had the Carbonara and I had the Chicken Piccata. The servings were huge, but they will be great left overs. We had the antipasto plate and my daughter had the minestrone soup. I had the house salad and all were terrific. I have heard from friends that they have negative feelings about Nonna's because the antipasto plate and the soup/salad are now ala carte. Oh well, as they are worth it. The scrumptious garlic bread is still included and it was perfect as well. Of course we had to have some Chianti and it was a great touch.

I also wanted to mention that the busser was extremely friendly and efficient. He was always available with a smile when ever anyone needed anything.

Thank You Nona Emilia for a great visit...and we will be back.

Nothing special about this places. It's been around for a long time and maybe that's why it gets busy. The food however is sub par. The last two times I've been in, it comes out cold. Not even luke warm but cold. They took it back to reheat TWICE and it still comes up barely warm. 90% of my large groups food was cold.
Not a lot of flavor in dishes - lacks spice, salt, sauce etc.

The portions are large and a good variety of sauces and dishes.

Minestrone soups as very thick! Not my style. No idea why they have clam chowder on the menu

Amazing Takeout Pizza, Disappointing Dine-In Experience

We loved their pizza! During the pandemic, we frequently ordered takeout, and the pizza was consistently delicious. This recently changed for us.

A Birthday Letdown: We decided to celebrate a birthday with a dine-in experience. The interior felt like a classic Italian restaurant, and our server was friendly. However, the service was slow. The appetizer arrived quickly, but it took an additional 20 minutes just to place our main course order. Throughout the meal, our server was frequently unavailable, extending our visit to over 2.5 hours - much too long for a casual Italian dinner.

A Spoon Short of Sharing: A complimentary spumoni was offered for the birthday girl, a nice touch. Unfortunately, it came with only one spoon, despite mentioning she planned to have cake at home (implying sharing). Finding another server for additional spoons took even more time.

The Real Disappointment: The Marinara: Beyond the service issues, the biggest letdown was the food. Both my (mancotti) and my mom's (eggplant) dishes were served with a marinara sauce that was both acidic and bitter. Neither of us could finish it. Others in our party with cream-based sauces seemed to fare better.

Recommendation: If you're looking for amazing pizza, this is a great option. However, based on our recent dine-in experience, I would recommend skipping the marinara sauce and consider managing your expectations for service speed.

I ordered on the phone for takeout. They have a takeout entrance. Place was busy for both dining in and carry out/delivery.

I ordered the meat sauce with two meatballs on spaghetti. The meatballs tasted like they had been previously frozen. The sauce was okay. The garlic bread it came with was pretty good.

Overall, the food was a solid 3 stars.

This is a response to the owner--

I am unsure of why you are accusing me of lying or exactly what you believe I was lying about when I gave an honest review of my own personal experience. Do you think I lied about how everyone recommends this place? That I felt overstimulated? How the food tasted?

My review is a reflection of my experience. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt-- maybe I caught you guys on a bad night, but from what I see from other yelper's reviews, I don't believe that to be the case.

I always look at yelp to get an idea of what my experience will be like prior to trying a new place and if I see the business owner attacking people who are sharing their bad experiences, it makes me not want to give the place a try. I saw all of the reviews for this place (and your responses), but it was recommended to me countless times, so I still decided to try it out. I didn't come to your restaurant with high or low expectations, I judged from a neutral standpoint, because I saw both the good and the bad.

Robert, as a business owner, you should be taking these reviews as constructive criticism and try to figure out what to do differently so that no one has a similar experience. I have had a number of business owners respond to my reviews; I have been apologized to, I have been invited back to give them another try, I have been offered a free appetizer, I even had a restaurant review video footage of my experience, fired the staff member and then retrained their entire staff so that no customer had an experience like mine again-- and they are one of my favorite places now! I have had 2 business owners who responded to my review unprofessionally and inappropriately, one doesn't have a business anymore and the other person is you. I don't expect you to retrain your staff, fire someone, or even invite me back, what I do expect is for you to look at this review as a second chance to change the things that need to change here (especially how you respond to your customers) and become successful again because you are not going to please everyone who walks into your establishment.

People have negative experiences, even at the best places that has recommendation after recommendation. It is up to you on how you can change that. Have a good day and good luck.

Everything was wonderful. Everyone had leftovers. Service was great. We will definitely come here again.

I heard about this restaurant from co-workers - we finally went there last Saturday. We liked it - - the flavor, portions and prices were good we definitely are going back there and try different items form the menu -

Enjoy eating here very much. The servers are always friendly and the food is tremendous. Large portions that are worth the price. Wonderful place give it a try.

The atmosphere was what I expected - quaint old family Italian restaurant. The service was friendly and helpful. But I have never had more bland food at an Italian restaurant. We had fried zucchini appetizer - needed salt. I had shrimp scampi - needed salt, butter, garlic and better tomatoes. The kids' spaghetti was just fine. And the kids pizza indicated that the pizza might be the thing they do best there. My mom's fettuccini Alfredo also needed salt and wasn't creamy enough. And my wife had a chicken salad that you'd expect to get on an airplane. Prices are what prices are these days. Not much you can do about that. But probably won't go back. Which is a shame. Because I was really looking forward to this place being special.

I love this place especially their lasagna. Wonderful place to take your family out for dinner.