Lucrezia Italian Ristorante

Went tonight for the first time. This would have been a five star review, but it was too noisy. Part was not the restaurant's fault (we were seated next to a ten top of women who thought they were on a Real Housewives reunion show - they were so damn loud and kept getting louder until i told them "go home - you're drunk"), but one part was definitely the fault of the restaurant. You see, they serve bread at each table. And the bread is sliced. But - THE SLICER WAS 10 FEET AWAY FROM US! In the dining room! LOUD. So annoying.

The food was outstanding. The balsamic vinaigrette on the house salad was very good and not overpowering. I had fettuccine Alfredo with chicken, and it was amazing. And I don't even like chicken. My husband has the linguine pescatore, and said it was fabulous. They added just enough crushed red pepper (on request) to give it a kick without it fighting back. My mother ordered the salmon, and said that everything on her plate was outstanding, from the salmon, to the green beans to the rice. We ordered tiramisu, and I'd swear there were chocolate shavings in the layers. That was practically inhaled.

The staff was fantastic and very attentive and knowledgeable. The one thing I'd change would be to get rid of the bread slicer - put it in the kitchen. Hell, put it on the porch. Just get it out of the dining room. We weren't rushed, we weren't in a hurry. We just had a nice, long, leisurely dinner with our courses evenly spaced out at reasonable intervals.

We waited a short while for our table (they do not accept reservations), so maybe next time we'll get there around 7:30 as the place seemed to have quieted down by then in the waiting area.

Overall, excellent food and service!

That second star is there only because our server was so friendly. Ditto the 25% tip I left. Otherwise, this was a far beyond mediocre (in some cases, possibly rancid) food experience at a price quadruple what the food was worth.

The best part of the meal was the bread and olive oil. Well, until we got that final tin of bread that appeared to have mold on it. Otherwise, it was all terrible.

The calamari appetizer was SO fishy tasting and rubbery we could barely eat it. Some pieces were so tough it couldn't be chewed.

The creamy vodka sauce on the Sacchetti dish was so salty it pretty much ruined the joy of the otherwise tasty porcini pockets. I got used to it eventually, but it was blah.

When we read about the rigatoni with "Smoked chicken" we were expecting large pieces of chicken breast or some other form of fresh chicken. Instead, after hunting through the sauce, we discovered what looked like chopped up deli meat. Say what?

The cheese/custard part of the Tiramisu was good, but the ladyfingers were over soaked and grainy.

Also, everything was lukewarm. I got the sense that they're passing off frozen and/or previously cooked microwaved food as fresh. I kept imagining Gordon Ramsay spitting it all out and yelling.

Overall, this was a bad food experience. Had I not been using a gift card given to me by a family member and had not been too exhausted to argue, I would have complained. Instead, I'm chalking this up to yet another lackluster NWI dining experience in a restaurant that is inexplicably considered fancy and delicious here but would never hold up in a town where people really know anything about good food.

I have only been here twice. I would love to go more but alas, you can only eat so much. I ordered one of the specials on both occasions and loved it. (Once was a blackend fish, the other was a pistachio crusted fish). The POLENTA....try it. It's awesome. For three of us, ordering one appetizer, 3 dinners, a bottle of wine and a dessert to share the bill was $100, I found this to be quite reasonable. Everything we ordered was great.

Service was great both times (we never touched the wine bottle to refill our glasses) and I love that it is kind of a fancy place (waiters in tuxes, ambiance, food, etc.) but you don't have to put on your fancy pants to go there.