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.