Avanzare Italian Restaurant - Lombard 667 West Roosevelt Road, Lombard, IL 60148

"Second visit was really great. The food was much better. The braised short ribs super tender without being mushy, mashed cauliflower and vegetables really on point, chicken vesuvio flavorful,"

"I am staying at the Crowne Plaza a 7 minute walk from the restaurant. I decided to go here after searching for best food near me. I am so glad I chose this. I had one of the best wood fire pizzas I have ever had and some amazing fresh bread and olive oil with my meal. This is an authentic Italian restaurant and feel like a place I ate at in Italy. What made it even better were the extremely reasonable prices! This place is a must visit if you are in the area!"

"I don't usually find myself in the position of posting a one-star rating very often. Always try my best to find a positive at all the restaurants I visit. But in this case, I felt I needed to get this out there for others as a warning. GO SOMEPLACE ELSE! My wife and I arrived from O'Hare for a long weekend trip to attend a friend's wedding. We were starving and wanted Italian. Reviews looked decent so decided to check it out. Pulling in the parking lot was basically empty on a Thursday night at 6PM. The place next door (a bar) was packed with patrons. It was hard to even tell if this place was even open. Normally this triggers my flight response but we decided that we didn't want to go hunting for food since we had not eaten anything since before 10AM that day. Entering the dark building and seeing the room full of empty tables was the second warning. Again, we paused and should have run the other way. But we are diehard restaurant people so in we went. We were greeted by a friendly staff member and decided to sit outside on the patio since the weather was nice and the lighting inside was dark. The only redeeming quality of the place was the staff. Everyone was super attentive and friendly. My guess is they don't get too many visitors. A total of four different staff members checked in on us. We decided to stick with the basics... I got the grilled chicken on fettuccini alfredo and my wife got the chicken parm. The food redefines the word awful. The fettuccini was probably made the previous week and was so overcooked it turned to paste. My chicken looked like it was frozen and then microwaved. My wife's chicken parm was beaten to death before it was cooked for so long that it actually looked like wrinkled leather. It was only millimeters thick but was still hard to cut through. She didn't finish it. I should have just pushed the dish away but I ate a bunch of it (I was starving). I feel like one of those TV reality show hosts when I say...seasoning...try it sometime. The dishes had no flavor. The reviews said the Tiramisu was good so we grabbed it to go. It was good but based on the structure of the dessert, you could tell it was sourced from a bakery and frozen. But the worst is yet to come...that night, I spent the evening in the bathroom. Yup, you guessed it...food poisoning. Now just over two weeks later I have recovered enough to start going out to eat again. We managed to make it to the wedding but we left early since I was still sick. This place needs to close down and get cleaned out. Fire the "non-cook". It's been over 25 years since the last time I had such an awful experience going out to eat. Next time, I will listen to that flight reaction and run the other way. McDonalds would have been a better choice."

"We went with another couple to Avanzare Italian in Lombard. Perhaps others have had good experiences there, but--for us--the food and atmosphere were terrible. Where we were seated, the tables were too close together. And they pushed two together for a large and very loud party. We were practically yelling at each other in an attempt to have a conversation. The food, though reasonably priced, was not good. The wormy-looking dish was mine: Cavatelli vodka with asparagus for $17.95. It was tough and doughy, and the overall dish lacked flavor. My wife had the special: linguini with chopped salmon. The salmon tasted fishy. Good salmon doesn't have a fishy taste or smell. This was our second time at this restaurant. Again, if your experience there was good--great, but we won't be back."

"The best of this restaurant is the service. I had 3 waiters come by every few minutes to add water, to remove the plates, to check on us. I love the grilled octopus for appetizer. The octopus was tender and tasty. The salad was lack of dressing. I didn’t care for the seafood pasta. It was too salty. For dessert, I had tiramisu. They used the real lady fingers. But I hardly tasted the rum. There was patio seating. It was pleasant."