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| - Nando recently opened in Champaign and I thought it would be perfect for a Valentine's Day dinner with my significant other.
We made reservations for early at 4pm on Sunday February 14th.
We got there about 5 minutes early and were seated immediately along the south wall, at the half-booth, half-table. This was good until the place started to fill up, my date thought it was a little close quarters, but I know from experience this type of seating is common at Italian restaurants.
The inside of the place is super nice. Clearly an upscale restaurant, beautiful wooden tables, some really nice décor, and plenty of natural light from the big windows in the dining room.
Our server, Deanna, was accommodating and patient with us as we took quite a long time to finally get our order in. She recommended several dishes, described the ones we had questions about, as well as very generously let my date sample not 1, not 2, but 3 different wines before deciding which one she wanted a full glass of. We ended up going with a class of the sweet Morando red, and I got my favorite variety, Chianti, which was called Ghibello. Both were very tasty, and a fair pour for over $10/glass. We structured our dinner in a 3-course fashion, which Deanna got 100% correct and came out in the proper order. Service was excellent, no complaints at all! The owner even came by to briefly say hello and ask how everything was, nice touch!
The bread, oil and olives on the table were delicious. The bread is apparently made in house, and it was fantastic. The oil was of noticeable high quality and tasted wonderful.
We started with a salad. We went with the insalata valentino, which was a simple arugula with a citrus dressing and some grated cheese. I thought it was okay, but both felt was lacking something. My date suggested an element of texture, perhaps something like dried fruit, nuts, or tomatoes. We decided between this salad and the Caesar, and probably should've gotten the latter.
We decided to split an appetizer from their special Valentine's Day menu. We got the burrata bollicine al tartufo. This was quite good, it was orange and regular beets with a dollop of a very creamy cheese (marscopone?) and a few pieces of truffle and caviar. I saw "truffle" and "caviar" on the description and had to have it, but there wasn't that much on there. Bummer. Still very good, but at $20 I thought it to be a little pricey.
Our main courses were just single entrees for the both of us. She got the lobster and crab ravioli and I got the cod livornese. My cod wasn't bad, but I really wasn't as impressed with it as I thought I'd be. Perhaps it was the sauce, which was kind of just a red sauce with onions, olives and polenta. I was debating on getting the cod or the pork loin, and should've gotten the pork. At $22, I feel like there were much better items on the menu, including my date's ravioli. If she hadn't decided to get that dish, I probably would have gotten it myself. The raviolis themselves were to die for. Fresh lobster and crab in a rich, creamy sauce. A must-try if you like seafood ravioli like I do.
We opted to take our dessert home. We got a cannoli, and thought it was just alright. The filling was good, but I thought the shell was a bit too crispy/hard.
Overall a good experience at Nando. This restaurant brings authentic Italian food in an upscale atmosphere to downtown Champaign, which I feel is a great fit for it. I honestly felt like I was eating in Chicago, which is host to so many great Italian restaurants that emphasize quality.
My only minor gripes about Nando would be that it is pretty expensive. The portion size varied, our salad was a decent size, our burrata was understandably small, my date's ravioli I thought was a small portion for the cost ($26). My fish dish was huge.
Either way, the food here is excellent and of high quality. If you know anything about great Italian food, Nando is it. I guess you're paying for the convenience of having such fare in a more rural area like Champaign.
Definitely coming back here.
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