Nonna & I

After reading David E review I had to actually write a review myself. I was there on the night he mentioned. The chef came out to our table, took responsibility and apologized on this Tuesday night and explained the situation and blamed no one.
Nonna and i is an amazing restaurant and keeps delivering with ever visit.
The chef and staff care about all they patrons and can’t do enough to ensure that they are happy. Yes it is a small restaurant but the atmosphere is great. The chef coming out to ensure that your meal is great gives it that personal touch.
Highly recommended

I wasn’t going to write a review but the owners response to my review elsewhere caused me to do so. He feels the incredibly slow service was due to patrons arriving at the wrong time. We booked for 7:00 and arrived at 7:00. His response shows clearly that he thinks that problems are caused by customers. They are not. They are caused by the owner. This is the review:
Way too slow, noisy and expensive. For over an hour this restaurant was full of jammed in people with no food anywhere to be seen. The hard surfaces everywhere make it impossible to hear anyone. Go to Parlamentos to see how a proper Italian restaurant works.

It’s hard not to fall in love with the spirit of this new hole-​in-​the-​wall restaurant. It has old-​fashioned romantic charm with its corny Itanlianesque concertina music wafting gently out into little Margaret Street — along with quite a lot of fairly delicious smoke.
The menu is huge and tantalising with variations on classic Italian cuisine. Chef Khalil is visible in the corner kitchen with its wall of hanging frypans. He’s Sicilian and formerly based in New York.
Service is swift and sweet from pleasant young women who, as new as the restaurant, keep popping back to check on orders or report on things not available.
Water and lovely warm bread are provided without ordering. Big tick.
Our starters, Lobster Bisque and Steamed Clams were stunning. The bisque was dense, very creamy, very rich indeed, but of the most glorious, interesting flavours, softly spiced, gently lobstery with small pieces of lobster. The Steamed Clams were lovely Goolwa cockles, perfectly cooked in a wine and garlic sauce. Very, very garlicky and divine, with the sauce mopped up with bread.
Oddly, the menu special steak ordered medium rare was in various slices some of them medium rare and some well cooked. The mushroom sauce was very rich and creamy and probably not advised after the creamy bisque. The Nonna’s special veal dish with aubergine and mozzarella was curious, tiny slivers of veal under a tasty Neapolitan sauce but barely a skerrick of aubergine and just a hint of mozzarella. It was pleasant but altogether a bit skimpy. Both dishes featured half the plate laden with a shaved zucchini, carrot and spinach vegetable mix which was overwhelmed by garlic.
The Dolce selection was small — icecream, crème caramel or Tiramisu. Ordered the Tiramisu. It was unavailable. Big let-​down.
Smoke is a bit of an issue at Nonna and I, but Khalil seems to have quite an exciting slant on the classic Italian cuisine and one figures that the restaurant is just moving into gear.
It was impossible not to like the feel of the place and I, for one, intend to return and explore more of the menu.

Updated review below. The chef was trained in Switzerland and did his apprenticeship in little Italy New York. He has his own cable TV food show. This is the best Italian in Adelaide! The waitresses are lovely but green as, but who cares with this guy cooking!
Brand new cute traditional Italian. This is a proper little authentic Italian restaurant, not a low grade Italian Café like most on the Parade. Other than Ambrosini’s this is the only other one in the area and as Ambrosini’s is Northern Italian I prefer this place (they do dishes from all over Italy).
OK, the photo of the ‘Nonna’ in the marketing is dressed in an Eastern European outfit and I’m pretty sure the chef wasn’t Italian (stop press, he’s half Italian) but he was sure trained in Italy as this place is like being in Italy and everything is made from scratch not out of a tin like the cafes on the parade.
Beware in winter, kitchen isn’t ventilated so when you walk out you smell of amazing food! (In spring the doors open). They now have a license but you can byo $ 5 per person. The wine by the glass was good.
Great flounder, very nice home made pasta, excellent calamari and finely prepared vegetables.