Bravo Bridge Street Review

While I prefer a great local restaurant over a chain, there are some chains that I do enjoy. I am glad to see Huntsville starting to have some of the higher end chains opening in Huntsville. There are two new ones at Bridge Street that have recently opened joining P.F. Changs to provide more excellent options for Huntsville diners. These two are Texas de Brazil and Bravo! Cucina Itlaiana. I’ve eaten at other locations of both of these in the past. Lori and I attempted to try Bravo a few weeks back only to be met with a 3 1/2 hour wait – sorry – I don’t wait 3 1/2 hours to eat dinner….

My daughter’s birthday was last week, so she wanted to try Bravo. I went to OpenTable to see about getting a reservation. Well, we had two choices – 3:45 or 9:15 – it looked like an early dinner for us! First lesson – plan ahead, get a reservation. When we showed up at 3:45, people walking in were being quoted at least a 1 hour wait. The other advantage to the early dinner was that the lunch menu is served until 4PM, so our early dinner became a late lunch.

The restaurant itself is very bright and open. The interior is intended to be a “fun, family friendly Roman Ruin decor.” Not sure that’s exactly how I would describe it, but, even though it was busy and very full, the noise was not such that you couldn’t talk around the table.

The Bravo menu is what I would characterize as a “Classic” Italian menu. You can check out the Lunch Menu here. With the 5 of us, we had two orders of lasagna, sausage tortelloni, pasta woozie and chicken caprese.

The lasagna had two sauces in it – the standard marinara, but they also added in some alfredo sauce. This gave it a rich cheesy flavor and the lasagna had plenty of meat in the sauce. This dish included a side salad and we ordered Caesar Salad and shared them around. The Caesar dressing was one of the best I’ve had in town.

The pasta woozie is basically a pasta chicken alfredo renamed. Carly ordered this and she said it was seasoned perfectly – not too much and certainly not too little. She doesn’t like bland alfredo sauces (which so many of them seem to be).

The sausage tortelloni included cheese tortelloni with italian sausage, tomato sauce, pancetta, mozzarella and basil. Again, the pasta was cooked just right and the seasoning was spot on.

The last dish, the chicken caprese, was off of their lighter menu featuring dishes under 595 calories. The dish consisted of sautéed chicken, tomatoes, mozzarella, orzo, faro, spinach with a pesto vinaigrette. Other than being at the mercy of less than fabulous tomatoes this time of year, the dish was again very flavorful and an all around tasty dish. The only thing Lori said about it was that she would love to try it again when really good tomatoes are available.

The dessert menu had what looked like some great options – but, since we hadn’t planned on the early dinner/late lunch, we had eaten some lunch earlier. The portions were enough and we had no more room….

The service was excellent and the staff is obviously well trained. The wait for food was reasonable.

We all drank water and the entrees we ordered ranged from $12.99 to $15.99. With tip, we easily ate for under $20 per person (far from the $40+ per person at Texas de Brazil). Reviewing the dinner menu, there are a few different offerings between the lunch and dinner menus, but for most of the dishes on both, the prices were a few dollars higher for the dinner offering.

Bravo certainly gets a “Come Back” and will be on our list for future visits.

Sausage Tortelloni – Cheese-filled tortelloni, sweet Italian sausage, pancetta, tomato sauce, crushed red pepper, Mozzarella, basil.

Mama’s Lasagna Bolognese – Creamy Alfredo and BRAVO!’s signature meat sauce half portion with side salad. (Note: Full size portion also available)

Pasta Woozie – Grilled chicken, fettuccine, Alfredo, spinach

Not Pictured (Sorry, didn’t get a picture of this one….) – Chicken Caprese – Sautéed chicken, marinated tomatoes, Mozzarella, orzo, farro, spinach, pesto vinaigrette