Nina’s Trattoria

Four and a half stars.
I’ve been here a handful of times for normal dinners, once for brunch, and twice for big birthday group dinners, and Nina’s never fails me (THANKS NINA’S!!!)
Love the location– the Italian Market is my favorite place in which to pretend i’m Italian. The restaurant itself is cute and cozy, with a spacious upstairs area for private parties. Most recently, we had a group of 17 here for my boyfriend’s birthday, and service was impeccable. Not the longest or most creative menu, but solid options across the board nonetheless. Prices are reasonable for the portion sizes, and loooooove me a good BYO, too.
Definitely worth a stop in if you’re in the area!

My bf and I had a lovely date here on Wednesday evening. We came with the tasting menu groupon and sat at one of the two tables on the sidewalk. We started with my favorite dish of the night, a salad with palm hearts, walnuts, and blue cheese. The other starter was also good: warm artichokes with sauteed spinach, onions, red peppers and tomatoes. My entrée of rigatoni with mushroom cream sauce was decadent and there was plenty left for lunch the next day. My date’s gnocchi in meat sauce seemed undercooked to me, but he enjoyed it. Dessert included a pretty average slice of cheesecake and a surprisingly delicious tiramisu. The service was spot on all night, although I’m sure it helped that there was only one other table dining at the time.

The pizza was delicious, especially the white with mushroom and Gorgonzola. The chef suggested adding fresh arugula to the pizzas and it was a much-​appreciated addition! We also had the Heart of Palm salad (meh) and the gnocchi with Gorgonzola (DIVINE). All-​in-​all, a bit pricey but definitely delicious. Plus, you save on the booze. Will return!

Came in at 730 on a Sunday night to find an entirely empty restaurant. Should have been our first clue compared to the occupied eateries up the block but gave it a shot. We ordered meatballs and mussels for appetizers. Meatballs 2 for $ 8 were mediocre if you’ve never actually had good beef, pork and veal homemade meatballs. Too much breadcrumbs, not enough lucatelli cheese and kinda mushy. Mussels were also skimpy in portion and they were the smallest I’ve eaten in years. Definitely not PEI. The fra diavolo had a good flavor to dip the hoagie roll «garlic bread» in.
Coming from an Italian family I found several issues with the food. The sauce is certainly not homemade by any means. It is extremely thin and the tomatoes are straight out of the can like the cook couldn’t bother to break them up. Taste was sub-​par but this was a turn off when eating in the mecca of Philly Italian food. The menu was quite small only offering 6 – 8 entrees. I guess to keep the level of quality high. Right. There was not one chicken or veal dish offered, no bracciole, broccoli rabe, long hots etc. I was in the mood for scallops but again, nothing.
I ended up choosing a homemade gnocchi in a truffle cream sauce with mushrooms. This was a solid dish but heavy and I couldn’t finish it. The sauce did need black pepper in the worst way but the homemade gnocchi made up for it. The hubby got rigatoni bolognese and after 2 bites stated he could make it better. This was disappointing. He covered it in red pepper and romano cheese to give it some flavor.
The server was nice and very attentive but I don’t know how this place is still open. I wouldn’t go back simply because the food was something we could have gotten in a pizza shop without paying $ 60

Enjoyed a wonderful Tasting menu using a groupon. Food was excellent. First course we were served two enormous meatballs in red gravy and a serving of grilled artichokes with sautéed spinach. Main course was two pasta dishes. Spaghetti with truffle cream sauce was ridiculously rich. Penne with a spicy red sauce and shrimp was good. Dessert was tiramisu and cheesecake. Everything was well prepared. We were one of only two tables at 8 pm on a Thursday night, though. How long can they work that way?

This review is only for customer service, since I decide not to try them ever after speaking with a staff person on the phone regarding my reservation. I bought the groupon and planned to tried to make a reservation via open table ahead of time a few times. Quiet often, they often called me and told me that the time I m looking for was not available for using groupon (but open for regular menu). So have to cancel my appointment and reschedule. Last time I booked a reservation via opentable with mentioning to use my groupon, the staff cancelled it directly without even confirming with me over the phone 5 days after I put in my reservation. I called back, and a staff person called Patrick said, «while u cancelled four times before, so I don’t think u are going to come anyway. «It’s a very negative customer experience for someone talk to you like that over the phone. I understand that there are limitations of using a groupon, but this Patrick person’s attitude is horrible to be in the service industry. He claimed him to be the manager. I don’t like giving one or two stars, but having a manager like him really drop the ratings.

The good: Beet salad with arugula was outstanding. Nice addition of quinoa to give it some heft and and air of healthfulness. Hearts of palm salad was nice. Beef/​gorgonzola risotto and truffle gnocchi were excellent. Pleasant service and good atmosphere.
The meh: The cannoli shell box from the food distributor was visible near the back, as was the box for the cheesecake. Also, our entrees came out before we finished our salads. (Don’t rush me!) Our waiter broke off the top of our wine bottle when he tried to uncork it, rendering it undrinkable. (Luckily, that was only one of three bottles we had.)
Overall:3.5 stars. But given the quality of the entrees and salads and the pleasant staff, I’ll give it four above.

Used our 3 course chefs choice groupon last night and wow it was amazing. The service was great (they asked if we had special dietary requests as it was Friday during Lent and my wife is pregnant) portion sizes were decent, and the truffle linguini is prob the best pasta ive ever had. We’ll def be back!

TLDR food was good. Service/​accommodations were poor.
Went there for a valentines day lunch. I had made reservations before hand and received a call to personally confirm. On the day of the lunch we were running late and I called to move the time half hour later. But I was told that there were no openings later since they would like to close the kitchen early to prepare for dinner. Instead i was offered another day to reschedule to! (Rescheduling a reservation for valentines day is never an option.) We stuck to the original time and arrived 10 – 15 mins late.
To our surprise the place was empty! One party was paying to leave. And only one other party was there who was waiting for others to arrive well into our meal. I didn’t why the waitress earlier couldn’t postpone the time by half hour?
As far as the food it was good but felt incomplete. No bread was provided to begin. My wife asked for a coke/​ginger ale and the only thing they had was diet coke. I’m not sure why on one of the busiest days the restaurant only had diet coke and lemon pellegrino. My wife asked for Alfredo penne and the chef was accommodating enough to make it. I got ricotta gnocchi and both dishes were really impressive. Flavorful, fresh, and tasty.
We didn’t get any dessert and went to The RIM instead for hot chocolate. On our way back almost an hour later that large group was still sitting there.

This place has great food but the service is terrible. Condescending and trite with an attitude of «we are right, you are wrong». The food was right on the money except the polenta that obviously no one tasted prior to serving as it was completely tasteless. We arrived 10 minutes early for our reservation, to an practically empty store and were seated immediately. After 15 minutes a waitress approached us and informed us that she was not taking orders from 6 pm reservations yet and she would be with us in a little while. We them observed the waitstaff drop plates of entrees on the wrong tables, then retrieve them and take them to the right tables. I can only imagine how not warm the food was. All in all a really mediocre experience. Not the first time we have been here but doubt we will return.

Came here on a Sunday afternoon with a friend to use their two course brunch Groupon, and it was great! It’s super tiny and cosy inside. Our waitress was so nice and helpful too!
The food was really delicious! The Groupon was for a brunch, selected by the chef. We actually didn’t know this before arriving, but it was a cool experience. We had no idea what would be coming to the table, was it was all really good! All together four different dishes came out and my friend and I were able to try a bit of all of them.
The first course was the sausage frittata with spinach, tomatoes, potatoes, and ricotta cheese, it was tasty but a little runny in the middle, which we weren’t fans of. A spinach salad also came out with it, it had bacon, gorgonzola, and an onion dressing. I am not the biggest fan of onions, but I loved this salad, so simple yet delicious!
The second course was two pasta dishes. We had the penne mushroom alfredo which was delicious! It was so rich and creamy, I would definitely eat it again. The other dish was pasta with a bolognese sauce. It was alright, nothing special. It was our least favorite of the four dishes.
Overall, it was a really nice brunch and we would definitely return if we were in the Italian Market area again!

I have eaten at Nina’s a handful of times and loved it. I originally bought a groupon and that is how I found the restaurant. Their menu changes often but they usually keep some of the same dishes. The food was always good and fresh. I loved their gorgonzola gnocchi the last 2 times I was in! There red sauce is also delicious. Their meatballs are so good! The restaurant has a cozy feel and the staff is very friendly. My last visit to Nina’s was on new years eve. I was a little disappointed because they changed their menu to the point where there were only pasta dishes. I think there should always be an entrée option of chicken or fish. Our meal was very good but the menu change was a poor choice in my opinion.

Came here this past Saturday night with 3 friends and 3 bottles of red wine, this was sort of a catch up/​holiday dinner. Dining area was bigger than I expected from the outside. The night we came in the restaurant was hosting a large party (60 people) upstairs, and there was a table of 12 or so in the dining room with us. I would definitely say this place is group friendly with a reservation.
They bring bread to the table to start and the bread was pretty delicious. I ordered the gnocchi in a pesto cream sauce, the gnocchi was homemade and very light, the sauce was not bad either. My girlfriend had the penne gorgonzola which was just okay, the blue cheese flavor didn’t really come through. The servers were really great, shout out to Josh.
For dessert we ordered nutella cream cannoli, and an order of tiramisu, I was not a huge fan of the desserts, I would definitely skip the tiramisu, we only ate about half of it, it was very wet.
Basically this place isn’t bad, but I don’t think I will be back with some many delicious Italian options. One weird thing was there were no specials on a Saturday night.

Went there for a Christmas dinner with my boyfriend. The food was great, atmosphere was great and the price was less than a lot of other italian BYOs in philadelphia. Service was friendly and attentive.
I wish they had a few more food options for entrees but I had delicious risotto, cooked extremely well!

I really enjoyed my experience at this little Italian BYOB, right in the Italian Market. Everything was very fresh, the portions were large and tasty and the service is great and very welcoming. The owner came out to say hello and one point and drop off our appetizers, I never felt as though I was wanting for anything, but it wasn’t overbearing. All in all a great little place with good food, where you feel very comfortable.
The food was very enjoyable across the board, and though I left full, I didn’t feel heavy or weighed down. We got the mini crab cake appetizer and artichoke appetizer, the artichoke was seared, in a light olive oil and lemon sauce and was just so perfectly tasty I could eat it all day. The crab cakes are not mini — not that I’m complaining — they give you two good sized crab cakes which have almost no filing and are perfectly seasoned and topped with a great aioli, and a nice light salad on the side, some of the best I have had in a long time. The entrees were very good too, the flank steak was cooked perfectly and I loved the garlic sauce it came on, and my friend’s pasta was also perfectly cooked, with lots of seafood.
In a sea of Italian BYOBs Nina’s definitely holds its own! I can’t wait to bring others back to this place.

Great spot to sneak off with the love of your life–
So far a great pleace, (our new chill place)
#withmywife #dinner #iloveher

The house made focaccia was my favorite part; crunchy, warm and drizzled with olive oil. The dessert was ok, if we come back we will do dessert across the street at Anthony’s where the tiramisu is fluffier. We did the Groupon tasting menu. I agree with other reviews that otherwise the cost of the meal wouldn’t have been worth it because there are other Italian restaurants nearby that are better. Service was exceptional, however we came at 7pm on a Thursday, and we were the only people there for the first 45 minutes.

Stopped by here the other week while the boyfriend and I were taking a stroll with the baby. It’s a cute café-​like restaurant that serves great simple flavors.
I ordered the Amatriciana which I thought was the best I’ve had since I went to Rome. Not exactly the same as what I had when I was on vacay but definitely better than all other places I’ve tried. I forget what the bf had exactly — had sausage in it– but he said he really enjoyed his entrée as well.
The waitress we had was very pleasant. She was so nice and very helpful with entertaining the baby. I think he had a crush on her! He was all smiles and giggles when she would talk to him.
When the weather is as cold as it has been as of recent — we will be trekking our way back there.

I bought a groupon and went to Nina’s on a Monday night with the boyf for a 3 course tasting dinner.
The good:
The meatballs were perfectly moist and delicious
Both chef selected pastas were tasty, as they should be at a Trattoria. No complaints here.
It’s BYOB
The mediocre:
The first course came with the yummy meatballs and a salad. The meatballs overshadowed the salad exponentially. The salad was a standard green salad with raw red onions tossed with a vinaigarette dressing and nothing to write home about.
The bad:
The desserts here were inedible. The tiramisu tasted like cardboard and the red velvet cookie thing was flavorless. If you don’t get a tasting menu, I would save up your calories for their savory dishes instead.
Unfortunately, the restaurant requires me to take a cab from my house and I don’t know if I
would go out of my way to come back, but if I happen to, I will definitely be trying more of their pasta offerings, as this is truly their sweet spot.

Tried Nina’s with a Groupon for a 3-​course dinner a few months ago and the food was a mixed bag. Service was good. Ambience is also good at this cute little BYOB.
APPETIZERS were beet salad and meatballs. The beet salad was large and satisfying with lots of beets, but the spring mix used wasn’t fresh, as we had some old pieces of lettuce that had turned dark brown. Meatballs were a good comfort food, served with a basic tomato sauce that was not impressive but just fine.
MAIN COURSE: We got 2 pasta dishes. The Penne Amatriciana was uninspired, not especially flavourful or interesting. The highlight of the meal was the tasty Gnocchi, which were cooked perfectly in a flavourful Gorgonzola cream sauce. Generous portions — we had leftovers.
DESSERTS were a bit of a disaster. The banana ricotta cheese cake was okay, edible but not particularly enjoyable, which is pretty bad since I usually love cheesecake. Nutella rice pudding was unappetizing and perplexing. Neither of us wanted to eat it. (I’m still puzzled about why any chef would think that slapping some processed artificially flavoured sugar-​spread in some rice pudding would make a good dessert. Really, it seems like a waste of perfectly good rice.) I hate to waste food, but I could not bring myself to eat more of that rice pudding.
SUMMARY: If you go to Nina’s, you’ll likely get so-​so food of inconsistent quality in large portions. You have a good chance of getting something edible if you avoid dessert.