The restaurant community on Esplanade near City Park is a bit more bohemian than others, and features a little bit of everything. Here's the Italian restaurant in the neighborhood. Nonna Mia is primarily a pizza-and-pasta house, with a basic Italian menu just a shade above the ones you might find in a good shopping mall food court.
Musa Ulusan, who owns other pizza restaurants in the Middle Atlantic states, opened Nonna Mia ("my grandmother") in 2009 in the former location of the Pacific Cafe sushi bar (and quite a few previous restaurants before that.)
The two dining rooms are half of the former double parlor and dining room of an architecturally interesting early-1900s house on Esplanade Avenue. The other half of the parlor is the bar, with the kitchen more or less wide open, right next to it. The bar functions to some extent as a neighborhood hangout. Graphics on the walls and in the menu seem too slick and commercial for either the building or the neighborhood. Tables are also outside on the porch.
Ask for the thin crust on the pizza.
| Attitude | 1 |
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| Environment | 1 |
| Hipness | 1 |
| Local Color | 2 |
| Service | 1 |
| Value | 1 |
| Wine | 0 |
