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| - I have been looking for a great Italian restaurant in Madison, which is why I chose Nostrano for dinner. We started with two appetizers, the salumi board and the bruschetta. We enjoyed both, and they came out pretty promptly. For entrees, we chose the whole wheat pappardelle in a pesto sauce and the shellfish bucatini. These took quite a bit longer to come out, to the point of impatience. The pappardelle was delicious and I ate every bite, but the shellfish bucatini was really unimpressive. The sauce sounded awesome as it included lobster, fennel and oregano, but I found it very bland. It needed a little spice or something to make it more interesting, but it fell flat and I wished I had ordered something else. We ordered desserts, which also took a while to come out. Both the Meyer lemon mousse and the baked chocolate ganache were flavorful and beautifully crafted.
All and all, the food itself probably earned four stars, but I was not very impressed with the service. It was a long, drawn out meal (more so than your average nice meal), and though our server was nice, we had to point out that we needed refills on our beverages more than once.
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