La Nonna: review of Italian dining

This is a review of La Nonna, an Italian dining establishment in Holland Village, Singapore.

I really love Italian food. Thanks to the AMEX Platinum charge card, with came with  Love Dining benefits by American Express, a friend and I got to dine out together at 50% off.

La Nonna – the restaurant

The restaurant resembles the kind you find in an Italian countryside. There is an outdoor seating area.

While the main floor indoors is kind of cramped and doesn’t appear to hold more than 20 people, the second floor has more seatings and can accomodate larger groups. Love the dark wood decor.

On the main floor is a traditional bronze oven. The pizza-making area is an open one, so patrons can see the chefs flipping dough and tossing pizzas into the oven to bake.

Menu

Featuring unpretentious home-made Italian fare, La Nonna has all the traditional Italian starters, mains (pizza and pasta anyone?) and dessert. 

Click on the images below to enlarge the menus.

Alternatively, check out La Nonna’s website for their menu and ongoing food promotions. 

Starters

To start off, the servers brought a complimentary bread basket along with a dish of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Nothing really to shout out here – it’s a standard expectation for Italian restaurants. Though it was nice having something to munch while waiting for the dishes we ordered.

Shortly after, we got our first official starter.

Behold: Arancini: deep fried risotto balls.

Piping hot, these were filled with buffalo mozerella cheese and served with pomodoro sauce on the side. The cheese all but slightly melts when you pull the balls apart. Slight crunch on the outside and starchy on the inside, there’s something about the carbs + cheese + tomato sauce combo that makes it so very comforting. 

Mains

Speaking about the carbs + cheese + tomato sauce trio, the same combo  (and more) reappeared in our first main dish.

Meet ‘La Nonna’ – The Signature Pizza. 

Topped with tomato sauce and two kinds of cheese – mozzarella and parmesan – and graced by asparagus, egg and black truffle paste.

Oh. My. God – this was so good.

The base was perfect – neither too chewy or crusty, and truffle paste seeped everywhere and gave that extra touch of sophistication to every bite. Yet it wasn’t overpowering – balanced with egg and asparagus, we could just taste the parmesan and truffle slighly ahead among everything else – does that even make sense?

I’ve had pizza at many places before. For comparison’s sake with other Italian restaurants that also have the Amex Love Dining benefits, La Nonna hands down beats the pizza at Prego (at Fairmont Hotel) and is much better than the ones at spizza. In terms of uniqueness I personally rank this on the same level as La Brezza (St. Regis Singapore) or Basilico (Regent Hotel) , but La Nonna comes with a smaller price tag.

Expectations  were certainly set high after that pizza.

With eager anticipation we dug into the other main dish: Risotto (Italian Rice).

More specifically: Risotto allo zafferano – Italian rice and saffron served with char grilled King Scallops, Caviar and Herbs.

The very-yellow rice hints that saffron has flavoured the entire dish. In Singapore at least – you don’t often come by dishes with saffron (the most expensive herb in the world, said to be worth its weight in gold).

Here, the joy of having juicy grilled scallop literally bring a taste of ocean, drowned in the creamy richness, and topped with slightly-salty caviar – it’s pretty much unrivalled in terms of how good risotto can get. 

Between the two main dishes (and starter), I don’t think i can choose any clear winners. We didn’t order much overall (and unfortunately we were too stuffed for dessert) but anything we ate that day was pure joy.

Would totally return again.

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Disclaimer: the views and opinions expressed on this page are that of Happy High Life and may not necessarily reflect the position of American Express. Happy High Life is not responsible for any decisions made by readers. The terms and conditions for credit card applications may be subject to change by American Express. Readers are recommended to check with American Express or its partners; the list of all benefits of the Platinum Charge Card can be found here.

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