Nicola’s Italian Restaurant: Omaha, NE
Nicola’s Italian Restaurant, or Nicola’s in the Market as it is listed in some places, is a nice little Italian food restaurant in the Omaha Old Market district. (By the way, that’s nih-KOHL-uhs).
The menu is smaller than the wine list (which is one of my basic measurements for how good a wine list is, so this is a good thing). The decor is simple and out of the way, kind of a nice trim you may or may not notice since the real display is on the table.
Nicola’s hasn’t married itself to the concept that portions must be ridiculously large for it to be Italian like so many Italian American restaurants have. Instead, Nicola’s serves an excellent portion size for you to enjoy an appetizer, salad, entree and dessert.
Gone are the non-Italian items that litter so many menus in Italian food places these days, and this is especially true of the appetizer menu. Which consists of a few different varieties of Antipasto. On this night, we tried the Antipasto Rustico, featuring a broad, thin slice of genoa salami with buffalo mozzarella, roma tomato, cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, calamata olives and a shard of asiago cheese. Also we had an appetizer featuring a piece of cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto and covered in shaved asiago. Both were just excellent.
The salad came out next, a simple small house salad of baby greens with a thin, sweet vinaigrette dressing.
Finally, my entree.
Now, I love shrimp scampi. The garlic, butter, herbs, the plump juicy shrimp…decadent. However, my favorite part is that squeeze of lemon on top that mixes its acidity and tart/sweet flavor with all of those other flavors to just make them sing in your mouth.
So, you’d think that looking down at a plate of shrimp scampi stuffed ravioli, I would be missing that lemon. But, you’d be wrong, because Nicola’s in their infinite Italian Food wisdom serves it in a lemon cream sauce. It was absolutely as good as it sounds. The fact that it was topped with additional jumbo shrimp just makes it that much more, Oh My God.
I savored each and every bite, washed down with a glass of Danzante Pinot Grigio, which added a sharp, tart kick to the sweet lemon cream and shrimp.
While I looked around in curiosity at the Spinach Stuffed Ravioli, Lobster Ravioli and Fettuccine Alfredo of my dinner companions, I never once felt like I had ordered anything but the perfect choice on the menu.
The Roma tomato and olive oil Bruschetta it was served with was also a very nice, true Italian touch to the meal.
One of the deviations from true Italian was found on their Dessert Menu. While Vanilla Cannoli’s and Tiramisu were there, the Dessert that caught my eye was a Kahlua and Walnut Brownie with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream, a warm brownie with toasted walnuts on top drizzled in a warm Kahlua sauce with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream.
All in all, Nicola’s was a great experience.
Nicola’s Italian Wine and Faire
521 So. 13th St.
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 345-8466
