A Piece of Italy

Tucked away on the east side of South Avenue, in downtown Springfield, Bruno's is a traditional-style Italian restaurant. Upon first walking in, the scenery almost looks like a piece of Italy–or, what I would expect Italy to look like, having never been there. The ceiling is raised, coated with Renaissance-style paintings, and is draped with vines–but alas, those vines are all plastic (real vines would have probably been too hard to maintain and with them hanging overhead, would have dropped dead leaves into customers’ food). The counters and tables are all varnished. The aroma of the building hits me as I walk through the door: a sweet herbal scent.

As soon as I enter a waitress greets me, asks how many people are with me and if I would like a window table, or if I would like a table in the middle of the room.

“A window table is fine,” I say. I give the place a quick onceover. The tables are all set with wine glasses and silverware wrapped in cloth napkins. The walls are all painted dark green, yellow and red. There also appears to be a wine bar upstairs, but I didn’t take the time to visit it.

“You have a choice between two tables,” she says, gesturing toward the only two window tables in the restaurant, both vacant at this moment.

I pick one and sit down. When my friend arrives we examine the silverware, which is real silver, and read over the menu. To give the place a legitimate Italian feel, all the items on the menu are presented in Italian. For all of us illiterate in the Italian language, the English translation is also on the menu, under the Italian print.

For the dinner menu, the main course starts at $11.90, and only goes up from there. The most expensive thing I could find was the $24.90 Filetto di Manzo ai Funghi Porcini (beef tenderloin). The most expensive pasta dish, at $17.50, was the Shrimp Linguine. The appetizers cost from $3.90 (garlic bread) to $10.90 (the imported Parma ham). The deserts, which vary day to day, are all $6.00. Because the deserts are so varied, Bruno’s doesn’t have a written menu for them. Instead, the server announces that day’s desert menu to you at your inquiry (ours is kind enough to offer to write the desert menu down on the back of a to-go lunch menu, which we accept).

I have a glass of lemonade, which is $1.90, the same price as all other drinks. Feeling conservative, I decide to order the Spaghetti al Pomodoro (spaghetti with tomato sauce). I also choose an appetizer on the cheap side, and order the Zuppa del Giorno (soup of the day), which is $4.95. Today’s soup is minestrone (mi-nə-ˈstrō-nē).

I sense a familiar smell when the waitress brings the minestrone to my table; its aroma reminds me of alphabet soup. When I inform the waitress of my finding, she jokes that I’d figured out their secret. “We try to pick out all the letters before we bring it out to the table,” she says. “Maybe if you look hard enough you’ll find an ‘O’ in there somewhere.”

Though its smell resembles alphabet soup, the taste is hardly close. It’s a thick brown broth, filled with beans and a bit of herbs floating in the top of it. I also notice the lemonade is not Minute Maid, which is a good thing. I like a little originality in my food if I pay the big bucks for it (and yes, I consider a $1.90 lemonade high dollar).

I barely have enough time to finish my soup before the main course arrives. I’m sure the turnaround for orders drags a bit more during really busy occasions, such as a weekend, but I can always appreciate a quick presentation of my food. The spaghetti is good; it doesn’t have that mass-processed look that you get in other restaurants. It actually appears to have had real sweat put into it–although, you don’t taste the sweat.

When it comes time for desert, I decide to have the chocolate moose pie. They don’t use an Italian name for the deserts, because they are not on a fixed menu and the employees are American and don’t speak Italian for real. Nonetheless, the cake is very delicious and extremely filling.

With the drink, appetizer, main course and desert, my meal at Bruno’s rang up a grand total of $26.75. This is a lot for one person, but if you want to take someone on a fancy dinner to impress him/her, this is a good spot for it. I do want to mention that, though our waitress was very careful to ensure all our needs were met through most of the dinner, there was a period of time toward the middle where she could not be found. When a group of people showed up at the door, she appeared briefly to seat them, then disappeared again for a few minutes. Other than that, she was very considerate and helpful.

If you want to try their food but don’t want to shell out a lot of money go during lunchtime, when their food costs about half as much as their dinner menu. Their lunch appetizers range from $3.70 for the garlic bread, to $6.75 for the spinach and artichoke dip. Their lunch pastas range from $8.20 to $9.45 and the most expensive item on the lunch menu is their chicken tenders, which is $9.55. I’ll also note that their lunch menu is written in English, and not Italian. They must not be trying to impress anyone during the daytime.

All jokes aside, this is a very eloquent restaurant that seems to bring a little piece of Italy to downtown Springfield. I will keep this place in mind anytime I want to go somewhere fancy, but I don’t see myself eating here often because of the prices. Bruno's is located three blocks south of the square, on South Avenue, close to Pershing Street. Their hours are Monday through Thursday, 11 am to 10 pm, and Friday through Saturday, 11 am to 11 pm.