Addison's Nuova Italia satisfies with solid takes on traditional dishes

The name might mean "New Italy," but nothing could be more traditional than the menu at Addison's Nuova Italia.

Ermal Zaimi and Antonio Lettieri, cousins-in-law, launched the Italian restaurant in August 2007. Both the Italian-born Lettieri and Zaimi, from Albania, trained as chefs in Europe and worked in restaurants there. For now, Lettieri principally oversees the kitchen, while Zaimi handles the front of the house.

The spacious dining room offers white tablecloths and wooden chairs, and the adjoining bar area boasts a wall of wine bottles, showcasing a selection big on Italian and California bottles.

At this time of year, you can't do better than starting with bruschetta, a well-crafted version featuring toasted Italian bread topped with nicely seasoned, diced fresh tomatoes.

For another excellent late-summer appetizer, try the insalata frutti di mare, an ample salad of chilled seafood over mixed greens. The selection of seafood we got, including small shrimp and tender pieces of octopus and squid, varied somewhat from the list on the menu, which I take as a good sign: Someone in the kitchen is choosing what's fresh rather than pouring the seafood out of a freezer bag. It certainly tasted fresh. The salad comes simply dressed with olive oil, and wedges of lemon for you to squeeze onto your taste.

Other starters include fried or grilled calamari, baked clams, steamed mussels, carpaccio and Caprese salad.

Dinners come with your choice of soup or salad, so light eaters might want to skip appetizers. The minestrone seems a bit lighter in body and add-ins than the best examples of this soup, but tastes very traditional. The house salad offers a nice mix of greens in a tart vinaigrette.

Your meal also begins with a basket of warm bread, including a tomato focaccia, served with grated cheese and olive oil, or butter if you prefer.

Pastas include house-made gnocchi, bucatini with pork-neckbone sauce and pasta Al Capone, a unique dish of penne baked with beef tenderloin in a pizza crust. There's also a daily risotto.

I loved the rigatoni boscaiola, tubes of pasta in tomato cream sauce with mushrooms and crumbled, fennel-laced Italian sausage.

Gorgonzola turns up in several dishes, including pasta, beef tenderloin and veal scaloppini. If you order the scaloppina asparagi gorgonzola, a rich, rich dish of sauteed veal medallions and cut asparagus in a lake of creamy gorgonzola sauce, you might want to ask for some plain pasta on the side. It's a shame to let all that nicely pungent sauce go to waste. Other veal options include saltimbocca, layered with prosciutto and cheese, and fiorentina, with spinach.

The Italian dishes might be traditional, but when it comes to Chicago classics, they get it a little wrong. All the chicken dishes start with boneless breast of chicken, including the chicken Vesuvio, and that's a shame. Vesuvio ought to be made with chicken on the bone. Breast of chicken is boring.

Order pork instead. Utterly satisfying, a thick, meaty, grilled bone-in pork chop comes drizzled with a balsamic reduction and served with roasted potatoes and grilled vegetables.

A variety of daily specials, including fresh fish, supplement the regular menu. Portions are generous.

House-made sweets include very good, chocolate-chip-studded cannoli and dense, almost flan-like, vanilla-infused panna cotta, drizzled with caramel. The sauce makes this eggless custard a little too sweet - I'd have preferred a tart fruit sauce, but it really needs nothing.

Nuova Italia's offerings might not be really "new," but the restaurant offers solid Italian classics.

• Restaurant reviews are based on one anonymous visit. Our aim is to describe the overall dining experience while guiding the reader toward the menu's strengths. The Daily Herald does not publish reviews of restaurants it cannot recommend.

Nuova Italia

Facts: 32 E. Lake St., Addison, (630) 832-2130, nuovaitalia.net

Cuisine: Italian

Setting: Spacious, white-tablecloth restaurant, just east of Addison Road

Price range: Appetizers $5.95 to $13.95; entrees $13.95 to $28.95; dessert $4.95 to $5.95; wine $6 to $13 by the glass, $24 to $220 by the bottle

Hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday; 3 to 11 p.m. Saturday; 2 to 9 p.m. Sunday

Accepts: Reservations, major credit cards

Also: Full bar; free parking; private party room