Scala Del Nonna

Love this place! The décor is simple but elegant. They bring out a small appetizer plate consisting of olives, bruschetta and a creamy cheese as you order. For appetizers the mussels and scallops are my favorite (though the scallops are a little pricy for the portion, they’re delicious!). As for the main course, I can’t say I’ve ever had something that wasn’t great be it pasta, veal, risotto or chicken. The sauces the chef makes are absolutely phenomenal. Desserts are also amazing! My personal favorites are the ricotta cheesecake (I typically stay away from these because they’re so dry, but this one isn’t! You won’t be disappointed) and the zabaglione. Furthermore it’s a BYOB so what more can you ask for?

Very good to excellent. We were lucky to get a reservation only a few days out for a Saturday. Appetizers: wife had the diver scallops, I tasted — outstanding! I had the pork and veal meatballs — also outstanding. the sauce they were in was especially delicious. Should have already typed that they brought us out a small comp antipasto plate; little things like that go a long way with me… it’s amazing how much goodwill you get with a few olives and some tiny bruschetta…
Main course tripped up just a tiny bit, and it’s the main reason I went 4 instead of 5 stars. I had the chicken zingara; it was good, but just short of great. could be that I’m a bit picky… also, basically one tiny roasted potato on the side is not enough. Wife had a pork chop entrée special which was supposed to be served on the bone, but was not. We couldn’t confirm whether it was cooked on the bone or not. To be clear, these were both still pretty good.
Desert was a comeback because the ricotta cheesecake was an 11 out of 10. Wife has a flourless chocolate cake — very good to excellent.
Room is a bit stark, crowd was a bit older (on this particular night). Overall, I’d say Scala Del Nonna is roughly on par with Osteria Giotto, LuNello, Prime 151, insert another top Italian in the area! Bravo!

Everything was terrific on our first (but definitely not our last) visit. We were three couples and even though the restaurant was packed, the noise level wasn’t terrible and the service was excellent. The BYO policy is of course an added bonus. I had the pork chops which were cooked to perfection and the gnocchi appetizer was exceptional.

Second review– 2 years later and still going strong:
We have been patronizing Scala del Nonna since it’s opening in late 2013. Our first visit was New Year’s Eve of 2013. There are many reasons why we continue to return, bring our family, friends, and recommend Scala to anyone within our circle. As with any restaurant, food is KEY. Scala del Nonna has never disappointed us. They have delivered consistency and excellent service at each one of our visits.
Aside from having Michael Cetrulo as owner– executive chef, another asset Scala posses is Sally Cetrulo Gildea. As co-​owner, she is a smart business woman who displays genuine warmth and delivers gracious hospitality.
On this 2015 New Year’s Eve visit we enjoyed our usual favorites:
Mussels in red sauce with fennel
Pasta Fagioli
Gnocchi with sausage and mushrooms (hubby’s favorite)
Pignoli crusted salmon
Snapper with garlic and rosemary
Dessert sampler
I will add that Sally makes many of the desserts of which the ricotta cheesecake and walnut tart are stellar treats.
With so much competition in Montclair, Scala del Nonna continues to deliver an impressive package of wonderful food, service and ambiance.

Love this place! Sally is very professional and accommodating. Same great ambiance feel as Scalini but without the liquor license (which we prefer). Great menu. Wonderful open air feel when the weather is nice with a wall of doors that allows the restaurant to spill out onto Church Street offering outdoor seating as well. Never disappoints!

Great addition to the Montclair scene. We’ve been here numerous times and it’s always a great experience. If you go and William is serving that night, your experience will be even better; he’s a witty and great guy who wants his guests to love everything. As for the food, I’ve never had a bad dish there. Rock shrimp, appetizer, diver scallops, fish entrees, all fresh and very tasty. Highly recommend.

Outstanding… We go once a month, a must GO! Recently went to another restaurant near by, we couldn’t stop comparing the two. We’ll be going back to Scala De la Nonna.

Same owners as Scalini Fedli in Chatham or NYC, but minus the liquor license (BYO) and the Prix Fixe menu. Consistently amazing food and top-​notch service. We have never been disappointed by a dish or experience. A few standouts,
— If they have Ricotta Gnocchi as a special app (they typically do), you get at least one, perhaps 2 depending on your group. Usually is tossed in with various tomatoes (cherry, sundried) with a basil pomodoro and topped with goat cheese.
— Lentil soup — Not my typical choice since soup bores the hell out of me, but this is no ordinary soup. Pureed creamy lentil soup with black truffle and mini ravioli.
— Whatever meatball they have as an app! We had lamb meatballs topped with fresh ricotta last night, but any meatball app they have as a special is also a must-​have. Always moist and packed with flavor. Clearly there is a theme here to try the specials!
— Walnut Torte with Vanilla Gelato… Typically I never eat dessert, however, I never leave scala without eating this one. Warm walnut buttery and flaky pastry topped with vanilla gelato is a serious home run.

This place is very nice. Came here for a friend birthday dinner and everything was a hit. We were seated upstairs as soon as we arrived, even though we were running 10 mins late. For the App we had the meatballs which were amazing. The bread and olives here are just delicious! For the entrée we had the spaghetti Bolognese, the salmon, filet medallion in Gorgonzola sauce, and the Gnocchi. All were very decilious. The salmon was a a bit undercooked for my friend perfrence but they took it back and recooked it. My steak was perfect! For dessert we I had the walnut honey torte and it really good. Loved this place.

Scala del Nonna is a large BYO that provides plenty of space between tables. There is the main dining room on the first floor which has a prep bar along the back wall where they plate the complimentary and very tasty bread with a shmear of homemade ricotta and focaccia-​like bread with caramelized onions and olives. There is also an upstairs loft with additional seating which can be reserved for private parties as well. The noise level can get pretty high with the high ceilings and it did become challenging to hear our friends across the table. That was disappointing. We were seated in the back of the restaurant with no other tables to the back or side of us, so I can only imagine it being louder of we were in the middle of the restaurant… upstairs is probably a better spot for reduced noise.
The food is very, very good. We all had different apps including the risotto, scallops, pasta special, salad and they were all amazing. For dinner, we had the salmon, the chicken zingara (extra spicy), pork chop special, chicken scarpariello, veal sorentino and another fish special — not one plate had a crumb left on it at the end of the meal. All the dishes were prepared well and were very flavorful. Dessert was pretty standard — a tiramisu, a couple of gelatos, a chocolate mousse and phyllo filled with chocolate. All were nice endings but none wowed anyone.
The service here was great. The waiter was informative and attentive and the co-​owner, Sally, was super nice and chatted with us when we first arrived and then again later in the evening.
Dinner (apps, dinner & dessert) came to $ 115/​couple.
Overall rating breakdown:
Food — 4
Ambiance — 3
Service — 4

Full disclosure, I went to SDN for a pre fixe business occasion. Nice interior, and the food was good. They did a good job with the occasion. I’m not running back because the menu seemed less than innovative. There’s no shortage of high end italian in NJ. Here’s one more.

Can a 5 Star restaurant be even better the second time? Let me spare you the mystery– absolutely yes, for sure!!!
Once again warmly greeted by Sally and promptly seated honoring our reservation– preceded by a welcome confirming text one hour before which is very helpful in getting there on time.
Ron, our tried and true waiter once again did a terrific job explaining the specials to our adult children who joined us, he paced the meal perfectly and once again his personable self came shining through.
Having totally enjoyed our dinner last week, we thought we’d try somethings different as well as some of our favorites. The special salad was perfect with many interesting and tasty ingredients, fresh off the farm or so it seemed. The Pasta Fagioli was different and better than we have had in other restaurants.
The double pork chops and pasta bolognese were major hits with two of our diners, my daughter reported that her chicken scarpiello was the best she had and my shrimp far diavolo was once again a winner and personal favorite.
I must confess we pigged out on desserts with three choices for the four of us, all outrageously good with the walnut based crumble being the best tonight followed very closely by a banana Nutella combination that was fabulous and the tried and true lemon custard dessert totally delicious– all were garnished with fresh berries.
Yes, portions are large, service is great, the restaurant is beautiful and the food as good as it gets– so, how does one rate a place with more than 5 stars– try it, you’ll see what I described.

Hate to say it, but I was so completely underwhelmed by this restaurant. The service was abysmal… the waiter, rather abrupt, acted like he was doing us a favor. The grilled romaine salad was very tasty, but the lamb chops, ordered medium rare were closer to shoe leather than rare. The meat was seasoned well & the supporting mushrooms & vegetables were fine, it was disappointing. The consensus was a resounding «eh» for this meal. The hostess tried to make up for slower than slow service & our waiter assuming we wanted an additional bottle of sparkling water, by offering desserts. We were not anxious for more food, but she sent one over anyway… that was very nice & you could see she was really trying. She also took off the charge for the unsolicited bottle. again, very nice & not requested.
Perhaps they are just trying to push out too many plates & have yet to find the right serving staff? Too bad, these owners are reknown for top-​top quality. I hope they work out the kinks. it’s a great location

Going in I knew they owned Scaleni Fedeli so I expected a lot. It didn’t disappoint. Our server William was polite and on the spot. He constantly made sure that our party of six had everything it needed. The entire wait staff was tip top. My wife and I had the salad special and it was delicious. I had the pork chop special and it was fantastic. A generous portion of two large chops. My wife had the snapper and loved it too. The desserts were typical but very good as well. Overall a great dining experience. We’ll be back! :)

Don’t know why it took me so long to try this place?! The pre-​dinner bites with the olives, bread, cheese were great. The star of the dinner for me was the appetizer of 2 diver scallops with perfectly diced and roasted fennel and sweet potatoes. I asked for them medium rare, which they were and the sauce was some sort of buerre blanc with saffron. Definitely up there on my greatest appetizers list. I had the risotto pescatore as my entrée and realized that this was the best risotto that I’ve ever had. It was stunning because it had such a subtle hint of saffron, but over the course of eating it I came to the realization that I’m just not a fan of risotto. The scallops were a little overcooked for me and they were cut in half; the shrimp was good, but I would have preferred them without such a deep butterfly cut.
Overall a great dinner and I can’t wait to try other things on the menu. Less expensive than I had imagined…$ 80-​ish for 2 apps and 2 entrees…

Without exaggeration, Scala Del Nonna offers up possibly the best of Italian cuisine I’ve ever had.
7 of us met up in Montclair for my dad’s birthday. The restaurant is sizable, featuring a larger dining room on the main floor and a smaller seating area upstairs. We were led upstairs to a table up against the wall (which appeared to have been covered with sections from old wine crates). The servers were quick to come by with fresh bread and olive oil (with fresh cracked pepper), and to uncork a bottle of wine (BYOB a must).
The atmosphere was charming, but the restaurant acoustics diminished an otherwise charming dining experience, making conversation all but impossible and leaving everyone with a faint ringing in their ears. Not much management could do about it.
Then, there’s the food. Oh… the food. The menu is mostly Northern Italian, with a selection of first plates, pastas, and mains (ranging from chicken and fish to beef to pork and lamb). Choosing anything on the menu is an agonizing decision, made more difficulty by a handful of specials. We all had the same plan: individual appetizers and entrees with two dishes of pasta to share for the table. I went with a lamb meatball special and the pork chop giambotta, while the table split an order of the ricotta and sausage gnocchi and the linguine carbonara.
Before the dishes arrived, we were treated to a complimentary plate of olives, rosemary foccacia, and toasted bread with smoked ricotta. The flavours melded well together, with the salty olives playing off the slight smokiness of the creamy ricotta.
Be warned: portion size is ample, veering towards huge. My lamb meatball starter were three large orbs of succulent lamb, well seasoned and served with a dollop of creamy ricotta over a fantastic guanciale and roasted onion reduction. Both of my parents went with the portabella Milanese: parmigiano-​breaded slices of portabella in a mushroom broth hinted with lemon and basil. It was a blast of umami and left you wanting more.
The pasta course wasn’t quite as well-​executed: while the carbonara sauce was pitch-​perfect, the pasta was about a minute shy of al dente. The gnocchi fared much better, with those pillow-​light shreds of ricotta-​infused dough served over a tomato and basil sauce rich with toasted fennel and chunks of sausage.
Then came the main: the pork chop giambotta was a behemoth plate of two 8oz pork chops served with roasted potatoes, roasted root vegetables, garlic, and shallots in a piquant sherry sauce. It was probably the best pork chop (hell, pork *anything*) I’d ever tasted. I wound up taking more than half of it home. The lamb chop (in balsamic and au jus) and the veal limone (in lemon, garlic, and basil) were prepared with the same fanatic attention to to detail and taste. All this was followed by some shared desserts: a bittersweet flourless chocolate torte served with raspberries and pistachio gelato, and a trio of pistacho-​vanilla-​hazelnut gelato with some kind of thin cookie.
Not a cheap meal, to be certain, and perhaps not totally flawless, but you will not find a better Italian meal in New Jersey (except, perhaps, at one of the other locations of the Tribeca-​based Scalini Fedelli family: Scalini Fedelli in Chatham, Il Mondo Vecchio in Madison, and Porto Leggero on the waterfront in Jersey City)

Let me start off by saying my review is based solely on the staff at this establishment. Prior to my latest experience I have enjoyed dinner at Scala about 4 times, and it became one of my go-​to restaurants for Italian. I recommended it to my friends and family who also started dining there as well.
That being said, what a shame. I made my reservation on a Tuesday for Friday night dinner for 2. On Thursday I received a voice mail confirming my reservation, and they said to call to confirm or cancel. Now like most people, I am a very busy person, and normally the only reason I would call back a restaurant after the initial reservation would be to cancel.
That was not good enough for Scala–
Upon arrival, I was scolded by the RUDE hostess– who gave me major attitude asking if they had my correct phone number, and how I have to call to confirm my reservation. I looked at her in disbelief, thinking to myself is she serious– LADY I’M HERE! I didn’t stiff you on a table, and now I’m getting yelled at before I enjoy dinner with my husband! Not a great way to start dinner. how uncomfortable!
We walked out, now you can be pissed because you just lost a $ 120 check… after that I lost my appetite for Scala– apparently you need to have 3 phone calls in order for you to pay for your dinner there. All that back in forth is making my hungry– not hungry enough to ever go back there again…

Average at best. Was going to give 3 stars but waiter was weird and mean.
8:15 reservation. Seated at 8:50. Very annoying. (Attn all restaurants, if there is a reservation for a time, you hold the table, not give it away to a walk in who pop in 30 minutes before.) Sat in top back of restaurant. They gave a small antipasto «apology» free appetizer. Bread was stale. Meats were bland and dry.
Appetizers: All small, bland and overpriced. 2 scallops to an order, soggy grilled romaine, 12 tiny ricotta gnocchi on a large plate, 3 «Ecudorian» shrimp were overcooked, tasteless and chewy. All under seasoned and under portioned.
Fresh pasta was best value. Salmon with pignolli crust was a farce. Light dusting of pignolli nuts and soggy. Worst was lamb chops. $ 33 and 3 tiny baby lamb chops. 1 bite each. All entrees had the same wedding style half a fingerling potato and slice of over buttered but under seasoned zucchini. The only thing that was seasoned properly the entire meal was that half a fingerling potato.
Desserts. Gelato trio was a pleasant surprise. Tiramisu tasted like it had been in the fridge for days. Flourless choc cake was stale and a day old.
Overall a one and done. The atmosphere was nice but filled with geriatrics and very low energy. I wouldn’t eat here if I was hungry, liked well seasoned food or normal prices.
Other weird things. Menu had handwritten prices on it. All bills are hand written and erased, over written, and sloppy. No computer receipt so their math could easily have been wrong. I asked a question and waiter was obnox and explained their entire weird system. Waiter was very loud, monotone and not friendly. Like he was mad to be waiting on us.
Don’t eat here.

Here’s the deal. I’ve been here 2x for dinner. Much easier to craft a review after a revisit. I love the food here! I went back to the amazing pork chop special. It’s just that damn good! I wanted to take pictures of some of the dishes however the table was gobbling the food ! They have a meatball appetizer which was amazing. Also the mussels were great. Great service !! It gets a little too loud BUT that said… Delicious food!

Normally I would not look into Scala Del Nonna so early in the game, especially since it’s just another Italian restaurant in Montclair, but a friend of my boyfriend and I said that she was here for a Medical dinner and the food was really good! So last night we decided to check them out. We made last minute reservations for a table at 5:30pm (opening) without difficulty.
Here’s the breakdown: Your menu is broken up into three parts: Appetizers, Pasta, and Entrees. Judging by the handwritten prices, it seems like they still have pricing issues or just never got to updating their second thought poorly designed menus. I wasn’t too fond of anything under the appetizer section, since all of it looked like fillers (no meat except a shrimp option) and definitely not worth its price. So we decided pasta and entrée would be our best attack. The pastas looked rather intriguing in flavor with varietal selection of shapes. The entrees were simply for protein to strive for a balanced meal.
I chose the PAPPARDELLE CON OSSO BUCCO for my pasta dish and BRANZINO LIVORNESE for my entrée. For my other half, our server had recommended the GNOCCHI and went with it, and the MAIALE AL FONO for his entrée.
The pastas: Both were entrée size which the server definitely didn’t fib about. My parpadelle was al dente, well seasoned, had great meat ratio, and had this little hint of orange zest that was rather surprising. My boyfriend has noticed it too in his Gnocchi which I did have a taste of too. The gnocchi was pillowy! The sage and sausage melted along with gnocchi perfectly together.
Now Entrees. My branzino was great in flavor and perfectly cooked, but unfortunately smaller than what I had expected and poorly presented. My boyfriend’s complaint for his Porkchop was that it was slightly more than medium well and on the verge of toughness and dryness. And the zucchini on each of our plates looked like they were just trying to get rid of it from their stockroom. We must have ate half of our dishes or close it when we decided that it would just be best to take it home.
By the time the entrees had arrived, I was already satisfied, but of course I ate it, I did not care to proceed with dessert (I’m writing a head to tail review here!). I chose the CHOCOLATE PHYLLO and he, the WALNUT AND HONEY TORTE. The torte was definitely the winner of the two. It just had better flavor, better texture, better balance. My phyllo dessert was pretty but rather loose. I wasn’t expecting to see huge amounts of chocolate mousse sandwich between a single layer of chocolate pastry shell. I don’t know if its just me, but when I think of phyllo, I see layers upon layers of pastry and the chocolate flavor wasn’t prominent enough either.
Looking back If I were to change anything, I most certainly would have just gotten separate pasta dishes and just shared an entrée, definitely not the other way around. Their absolute strength as a restaurant is pasta, followed by dessert, and service. Weaknesses are entrees (not entirely) and bread basket (i love me some good bread).
Would I rate them as overall best Italian in Montclair? It would be premature to say since it was my first time here, but definitely top three.
VALUE: 3.75
AMBIANCE: 3.75
FOOD: 4.0
SERVICE: 4.5