I've been back to Cafe Italia a half dozen times or so since my initial review. I am still a fan. The service has been off at times but not terrible by any means. However, I have never had a bad meal here. I've since had the salmon, Genoa tuna paninni, arancinni, and a few other dishes. All of it has been very good. Based on other reviews, some people have had dissapointing experiences here, but I have always been pleased.
Review Source:They must've convinced their buddies to write the other reviews -- because my party's food was overwhelmingly mediocre. The sugo tasted like canned tomatoes (not the authentic long-simmered sauce we'd expected from the other reviews), the pizza crust was oddly spongey (frozen dough rounds!) and the gelati tasted chalky. Â
The decor was nice and the bathrooms clean, but I don't believe any authenticity claims written here -- my server couldn't even pronounce "gianduja".
Owned by two transplants from Italy/Sicily by way of Brooklyn, NY, the menu has a Northern Italian and Sicilian flair but you can also get Southern staples as well. Pretty much can't miss here on anything but definitely try some of their homemade lemoncello after dinner with some Hazelnut/Pistachio gelato for dessert. Lunch paninis are solid choices and filling as are any of the pasta dishes or soups of the day. Decor and dress are semi-casual. Staff is friendly and attentive. Good place for a night out with family/friends or a romantic dinner with a significant other. The also have a room for private parties.
Review Source:Caffe Italia is such a charming restaurant. It's the kind of place you hope to find only a few miles away from home, where you can go over the course of many years with friends, family, or even just for a drink at the bar.
I have to commend them on serving authentic Italian food. The portion sizes are perfect. Read: the portions are not supersized - with the exception of the cake slices. Â yikes!
I don't really eat bread, but it does smell delicious here. The house salad is so good I would eat it everyday. It's simple and comes with the perfect amount of dressing. I tend to order the salmon here which is very tasty. They also brew lavazza coffee.
The restaurant is very well organized with partitions that make the space feel cozy. The back patio is very nice, as outdoor eating can sometimes be hard to find in Bloomington.
The service has always been good in my experience. The staff knows the menu well and is proud of what they have to offer. I hope Caffe Italia stays in business for a long time; they certainly deserve your patronage.
We've been once and are planning a return trip for lunch this week. Â We had pizza, salmon, gelato, and limoncello on the first trip and absolutely loved all of it. Â The pizza was light and delicious, and the salmon perfectly cooked. Â The gelato and limoncello were out of this world, and are homemade. Â This week's trip will be specifically for pizza and salad (and more gelato), so I will update this if I find anything inconsistent with this review. We had a reservation and had no trouble with service; the owner heard we were new to BloNo (and had spent significant time working in Italy) and came out to say hi and welcome us.
Review Source:First Visit: Stopped in to Caffe Italia during their first week of business and since there were no tables available, my friend and I sat at the bar for lunch. The bartender acted miffed that we were bothering him but took our order. After waiting 30 minutes for our food, we asked what the holdup was. My food came, but my friend's didn't. (She had ordered a salad.) Finally she asked for it to be put into a to-go container. The entire time we sat there, we got no attention from the bartender or the owner. No hello, no refills on our drinks, nothing.
Second Visit: A few months later I was willing to excuse the first visit to it being their first week. We called and asked for a reservation at 6:30 and they requested that we make it 6:15 instead. We arrived at 6:15 to an almost empty restaurant. We were seated and kept sitting for 15 minutes without acknowledgement from ANYONE. Again, no water, no servers. Nothing. We left and won't be back.
Just got home from Caffe Italia. The restaurant was busy with a couple of parties, but we got right in.Our server was very prompt.
Special of the evening was Chicken Parmesan. It was very delicious. My husband got pasta with tomato cream sauce, which was excellent.
Desert was gelato, which was a nice finish to our evening.
This is such a wonderful restaurant for Bloomington Normal. Great food, service and a friendly staff.
We were very impressed by this restaurant. Â The food is very authentic Sicilian; not surprising considering the owner was born in Sicily. Â The food and the staff truly made us feel like family. Â
We started with homemade arancini. Â And not the round-kind, but the true cone-shaped kind (a plus in my book). Â Then we had the linguini and clams, and the penne bolognese. Â Everything was excellent. Â Homemade cannoli and limoncello rounded out the meal. Â Didn't get to try the gelato, but it looked awesome.
All-in-all, would definitely recommend this place is you are in the area, or flying through Bloomington airport. Â It's only 1 mile from the airport! Â Thanks and we'll be back!
My wife and I have eaten at Caffe Italia several times and the food has been head and shoulders better than any other Italian food in BloNo including the over rated Biaggis.
Caffe Italia's pizzas is great, I have also had the spagetti and meat balls also very good. The fresh baked bread and olive oil is a must have. My wife loved the tiramisu
Yes the decor is more down to earth than hoity toity Biaggis but the food is better and and a better price. We will be going back to Caffe Italia!
Caffe Italia was one of the most disappointing meals I have had in B-N. It is a pleasant looking restaurant , but it is trying to be something it isn't. Server was pleasant, but that is probably the best I can say about the entire experience. Ordered  spaghetti and meatballs as I assumed they couldn't do that wrong being an Italian restaurant. WRONG! Sauce was flavorless and watery with no hint of Italian flavor. Meatballs were too dense, tiny, and flavorless as well. Two were served with very small portion of pasta. To accompany this meal were two pieces of dry, bread about the size of a silver dollar. I asked for butter for the bread and was told they didn't have any. What restaurant doesn't have butter? My daughter's meal was equally as disappointing. As we sat at our table the hostess was showing two other guests to the table next to ours which was bathed in sunlight so you couldn't  even see one another. She was trying to convince them over and over again that as soon as the sun went down it would be fine. There were many other empty tables in the restaurant and we couldn't figure out why it was so important they they sit there and leave the other tables empty. Meanwhile the guests waiting to be seated were stacking up, the hostess was standing at the register and there were more than enough tables for them all to be seated. I did speak with the manager to let him know of our displeasure. His verbal response was silence and "the sauce is a pomodoro". Wished him well, but we won't be supporting this restaurant. It is trying to be something it advertises, but can't even come close.
Review Source:Our experience was entirely average. Will stick with Biaggis or try elsewhere next time.
It is an unpretentious, pleasant Italian restaurant. There's nothing exotic about the decor or the atmosphere, but it is inviting, comfortable, and family friendly. Definitely a step up from Avanti, Pizza Hut, or Olive Garden.
The service was good generally. The waitress was pleasant, attentive, and knew the revised menu. The food was fine and arrived with remarkable rapidity. Indeed, the food was so fast that the kitchen botched two of our four dishes so they replaced them with even more remarkable speed. Three entrees and two replacements showed up well before the pizza so one of us had to watch everyone else eat for a while. The pizza was not late so much as the other food was over-rushed from the kitchen. The Chicken Marsala was dried out, but otherwise fine. The pizza was fine, if a bit burned on the crust in places. Dessert was an improvement.
The food was fine. Except for the service and the gelato, both of which were good, the experience was average.
Nice atmosphere. Server and staff were attentive and quick. The food came out fast.
The meal wasn't all that we were expecting. The veal was a little on the  tough side and the pizza my wife had was really greasy.
for desert we shared the tiramisu and it was excellent.
Would be willing to give it another chance.
Such a disappointment! We had heard rave reviews, so we finally got a chance to check it out on 6/23/12...the server seemed either really new or not all there. The menu stated that we couldn't make substitutions to 'help preserve the chef's vision'. Funny - and sad. We have a child with food allergies (who happened to not be with us that night), and I would rather preserve my child's health than the chef's vision. But okay - she wasn't with us, on to ordering. The server did not inform us up front that the kitchen was out of a LOT of stuff. Nor did she tell us what the specials were. However, as we ordered, we found out they were out of ingredients to make one of the appetizers we wanted to try, and one of the entrees. Okay. So we ordered. The server then came back a few minutes later and informed us they were out of shrimp for another of the entrees. Out of shrimp on a Saturday night, when there were several shrimp entrees on their already limited menu. This is when the server decided to tell us about the evening's specials. Great timing! Not to mention that there is no kids menu (at least not one offered to us), and the only dish offered for kids is buttered noodles...for $6. That's on top of the $3 kids lemonade. The food was mediocre, the service was less than. Maybe they were just having an off-night...but our family will not be going back to see if they get better.
Review Source:Went back to Caffe Italia a few days ago. I had heard good things about their pizza, so I decided to try one out. They have several options, as well as a build-your-own type of thing, which I opted for. I went with prosciutto, capicola, and kalamata olives, their regular sauce, and mozzarella cheese.
Best pizza in Bloomington, hands-down. It was piping hot, the toppings were generous, and the crust was perfect. Definitely going back for another.
awesome, awesome wood-fired pizza. pretty decent soup, but i hate they bring soup with your entrees. i want some space in between courses.
I had the chicken marsala on my first visit. I really enjoyed it. It was served on a bed of veggies and the marsala sauce was very good. I was surprised there wasn't a little bit of pasta to go with it. I'm not talking like 9 lbs of pasta like the awful olive garden would do it, but just a few bites so you get the taste.
Their bar service needs some work. My cocktails were watery and we ordered some cordials with dessert. The Sambuca came in a rocks glass, no coffee beans, no snifter. booo!!!! They should know better.
I'm being picky, though. Overall, I think they have good food and in a town without great Italian, I want them to stay and root for them to get better from here. But if they're peaking right now, I'll be disappointed.
My husband & I had a lovely dinner at Cafe Italia this past week-end. I had been there once before for lunch, sharing a pizza with a bowl of lentil soup. Both were very good. We weren't disappointed with our dinners. We each had a small dinner salad, which came with more than the standard slice of tomato. Each was topped with wide shavings of good quality parmesan cheese. My husband had the braised pork which came with quinoa with asparagus, and was wonderful. I ordered the seared salmon. It was served atop a sweet pea puree' and perfectly roasted fresh vegetables. It was very creative and delicious. For dessert, we shared double scoops of gelato. Both the hazelnut and cappacino were creamy and the perfect ending to our meals. The only real complaint was that bread was not served with our salads. When we asked for it, our server told us it would come with our dinners. Otherwise we could order bread for an additional charge. We enjoy bread with our salads and usually don't need it with our entrees. This was a surprising twist to our othewise perfect meal. Realizing that in a tough economy cuts may need to be made, how much can a basket of bread set them back? We'll definitely be back and will hopefully have bread served with our salads next time! Kudos to Kevin at the bar for making a new & custom made martini for me.
Review Source:Decor a little lacking not much going on
Server very good knowledgeable about menu and attentive
Food was a let down ordered the arincine for an appetizer which was dry and not very creamy at all. Â Also ordered the caprese salad which came with very little basil and a ton of lettuce for some reason. Â Figured I would finish the meal with something no one could screw up the margherita pizza but they did. Â The dough was burned and somehow not crispy on the bottom, undercooked on top with barely melted cheese.
Went to Cafe Italia for lunch, and it was great. The atmosphere made me feel like I was somewhere far away from Bloomington, IL. Â The food was real, and the ingredients were fresh. Â Even the bread and oil appetizer was outstanding. I tasted the olive oil by itself, and it was a nice oil without that harsh bite. The freshly grated cheese also did not taste low end. Â Much better than the pulvarized powder you scoop out at Biaggi's. Â
We also ordered this appetizer which came in an order of two giant friend polenta balls with meat inside. Delicious!!!
I had the Italiano Panino (singular verison of Panini), with a side salad. Awesome!! My husband had the Giardinera Pizza. Equally awesome. They have their own brick oven pizza which fires to extreme heat necessary for true pizza perfection.
I can't wait to come back for dinner. I have previously tasted their gelato and it's to die for. Nocciola (hazelnut) is my favorite flavor.
They have a full bar and an outdoor patio area. Can't wait for summer to sit out there.
Bloomington is very lucky to have such awesome cuisine right here.
Started eating here at the old building. Â It was a very small little cafe with limited seating and very small menu. Â Always had great service and good fresh hot food.
The new building is nice, food seems to have remained the same. Â My favorite is the Italian beef pizza. Â I have also had the sausage pizza which is a new addition i believe.
I am kinda a Pizza snob. Â I like hand tossed crust medium thickness. Â I don't like cracker crust and Im not into deep dish.
Caffe Italia's Pizza crust is pretty good. Â It's on the verge of being to crispy for me, but still very good. Â
The sausage pizza I had my last visit wasn't as good as the beef pizza. Â The sasusage was just itallian links cut up into slices. Â I prefer a fresh ground sausage that is pinched on to the pizza to make small irregular shapes.
Over all a great place to eat. Â Would def recommend checking it out.
This was a small little place with only a few options, now it has become a nice place with more selection and range of prices and foods.
I have had the Italian Panini, the Italian Beef, and the sausage pizza. All have been pretty good. Not exactly the best I have ever had, but pretty good and especially for the price.
The service is excellent and you really feel like they are a high class restaurant but still pay less than $10 for lunch.
I recommend for both lunch or for a nice dinner date.
What a great restaurant! A larger group of us stopped by Caffe Italia on a busy Saturday night. We couldn't be seated immediately so we sat at the bar and ordered drinks/appetizers. The bartenders were extremely friendly and funny. One of the owners came out and told us to try the garbanzo fries (not on the menu).
Once seated, our waiter was attentive and friendly. We loved our food (they were very mindful of those of us that were gluten free) and I hear that if it's not TOO busy, they sometimes make gluten free pasta!
Who doesn't love ending their meal with limoncello and gelato? I'm excited to visit my parents again so we can return!
This is a gem in Bloomington, IL.
The owners of the restaurant walk around and talk to customers. You also get the sense that the employees genuinely love working here.
We had remarkable service.
Wine was decent. Food was delicious and they avoid the mistake so many Italian places make by not mistaking quantity for quality. Great portion sizes.
Also, desert was wonderful. Their sorbet is awesome.
My husband and I tried Cafe Italia for dinner last Friday night. We had heard good things, and pulled in to find a completely packed parking lot, so we had high hopes. Unfortunately, this place is a major fail in my opinion. My husband ordered pasta (Fettuccine Alfredo) and I swear they brought him a kids' size portion. We laughed. I ordered pizza, and it was good size, but boring and flavorless!
While our table service was decent, it was obvious how the place was run by looking around. Most of the staff is college-aged, dressed down, standing around chit-chatting. My husband went to use the bathroom and interrupted a group of them in the hallway discussing Guitar Hero.
The major problem that I had- the bread situation. We noticed some of the tables around us had bread baskets on them, but we were never offered or brought any. My poor hubby, still hungry after his kids' size alfredo, asked the waitress if we needed to order bread? We were told that "They're being kinda stingy about the bread, you have to ask for it. But I'll go ahead and bring you some"
WHAT?!?! How are you gonna allow customers around us to have bread and not even offer it to us? Completely unacceptable and pretty much rude!
I guess I was expecting more authentic since the owners were supposedly born in Italy. What we got was more like Avanti's, but with a bar. At least Avanti's brings you bread though!
I don't know if they've gone downhill since they moved or what, but I can't say we'll be returning to Cafe Italia.
Food is pretty good to be in Bloomington IL. Â I had the Salmon with crusted pistachios and pesto and it was to die for. My friend had a Panini which it was very good too, however kind of small. Â Food quality is good for the price, but the wine glasses are way too small!! Â Dessert is not worth the calories.
The ambiance is OK (I went on a Saturday for lunch) and the decoration is pretty however the chairs are very ugly. Â
Overall is a great authentic Italian food place (hard to find in Bloomington). Can't wait to try the pastas and the gelatos.
I REALLY wanted to like this place....but maybe the expectation from word of mouth reviews created something unsatisfactory. Â The "climatic" end result left something to be desired. First, the greeting was simply uncomfortable. Â Please seat the number you accommodate where you can provide the best service. Â If you have bar option, fine, but we were given at least three different options and it was overwhelming, not appeasing. Â I thought the price was a little high for lunch, I opted for a reasonable lunch price item and got a roasted vegetable panini and minestrone soup. Â My SO got the prosciutto crudo panini and lentil soup. Â Both sandwiches and soups were OK. Â Not something I would take home for leftovers. Â The service was OK, not the best, our waitress was polite, but my SO soda never got filled and our bread took some time to get to the table. The bread was good and I believe they have quality olive oil. Â I wish we would have ordered a pizza. Â A few pizzas were served to another table as we were leaving and they looked delicious. Â I will go back, but only to try to the pizza, as they were also an acceptable price. Â I have a hard time spending 10-14 bucks for a lunch, which were what all the "pasta" dishes were priced. Â Unfortunately, that is what I was really looking forward to, trying the pasta which has been talked up so much by people I know. Until and if we give it another try, I can't do anymore than two stars.
Review Source:My husband and I had a very enjoyable dinner at Caffe Italia last night. Â This is not your standard Americanized Italian fare. Â The owners are from Sicily and their dishes are authentic Italian. Â We started with the antipasti misto which is a plate of mixed meats, cheeses, olives, and marinated sweet peppers. Â We enjoyed the thinly sliced sausages very much. Â I wish I could remember the names of them. Â My husband had the proscuito pizza and he said it was very good - crust was crispy on outside and chewy on inside, just like the classic naples style. Â I understand that they imported their pizza oven from Italy. Â I had the chicken Marsala, served with mushrooms, spinach and carrots and a creamy marsala sauce. Â It was perfectly prepared and delicious. Â They even accommodated my special request to hold the garlic. Â The house merlo wine was very good and reasonably priced. Â In fact, the entire menu is reasonably priced. Â Makes it an easy decision to come back to try more. Â The service could be a bit more polished, but I think they will continue to improve. Â The excellent food and friendly atmosphere allow me to overlook servers who are still learning. Â Next time we cannot leave without having some gelato!
Review Source:Service is not as great as before... that much is true. But I chalk it up to them being only open for a week and they are still ironing things out. HOWEVER, they must get this right or else they will lose many, many customers. It's not great food OR great service. It has to be both. The food is tasty... wish the lunch menu was as interesting as the dinner menu but the pizza tastes great and will be what I'll most likely get at lunch. However, dinner is more exciting and gourmet. The old favorites are still there but there's new stuff that foodies with taste buds are craving. Keep up the interesting dishes!
Review Source:I'm in Bloomington on business for a week. I was looking for a place for dinner and found the very charming Caffe Italia Ristorante. This is my second night here for dinner. Tonight I'm having the Caprese Salad and Spaghetti with Sicilian Meatballs. The pasta was cooked perfectly and the meatballs were very good as well as the sauce. The sauce reminded me of my Grandma's sauce. The meatballs were a little on the small side but still very good. I would have liked either more meatballs or bigger ones. The Caprese salad with it's balsamic glaze was exceptional. Last night I had the Linguini with clams and that was great as well. I unfortunately like a little more salt on my food and added just a touch. If you get a chance to visit Frank and Marcello and their wonderful staff I highly recommend Caffe Italia! I'll be back when I'm back in Bloomington!!!
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