North Italia, Irvine CA

It's the only place I will recommend for authentic italian cuisine if you are in Irvine. Exemplary service, the tastiest desserts and melt in your mouth pastas the finest pizza, the best latte, and more to appreciate. Do yourself a favor and enjoy a fine brunch, lunch or dinner at North Italia with your loved ones.
It will be worth it!

If you want to come here for a birthday dinner, the manager Chanel will ruin it for you. Right before my friends and I could even sit down and order we were asked to give our IDs to our server (he was great) so Chanel could go in the back and “scan” them. She came back being super disrespectful saying ALL 6 of our IDs were fake (we are all of age). To make matters worst, when we asked to see the scanners she said she isn’t “legally” allowed to show us. Later we found out from another manger that there WAS NO SCANNER and she had lied to us. I’m sorry but how is she a manger if she can’t tell if our IDs were real. We are so LIVID. I have never experienced discrimination like this from a restaurant- it was unacceptable. After trying to prove our age, she asked us to leave if we wanted to drink because she didn’t feel comfortable serving us alcohol (she said our IDs didn’t feel real). We offered to call the cops to scan it for us but they thought it was a bit excessive? Okay so we were being excessive when Chanel judged us right when we walked through the doors and literally rejected 6 REAL IDS because she thought they were fake. Let me add that before we even said anything about ordering alcohol she already wanted to card us in a restaurant with no age restrictions. She ruined my friend’s birthday and made us all feel really uncomfortable. If it wasn’t so late we would have left the restaurant with all the dirty looks she was giving us when we were eating our dinner. Never again. The most rude and disappointing birthday dinner I have ever experienced. Do better.

Yesterday, my group and i were utterly disappointed and disgusted with one of the managers, chanel.she had rejected 6 REAL ids and refused to serve alcohol to our table claiming that all 6 REAL ids were not scanning.she then told us to go to another location if we were unhappy with her decision.we were celebrating my friend’s birthday and after this interaction, we wanted to leave and eat somewhere else but it was already too late.later, we found out from another manager, jacob that there are no scanners in the restaurant and we had been lied to.we were all very uncomfortable during the whole dinner with chanel giving us VERY dirty looks.this is POOR management and i don’t understand how she can be a manager when she discriminated against a group of girls wanting to have a nice dinner to celebrate their friend.there needs to be a change.

Very bad place.
They charged for parking, very noisy inside, and the waitress was not nice at all. Nothing special about the food.

It was my friends birthday dinner at this restaurant and the manager decided she needed to check me and my 5 friends IDs after already taking our drink order. Our waiter Xavier was a sweetheart and felt bad about what was happening but had to comply with her and take our IDs to the back. The manager Chanel then came out and it the most condescending tone told us all of our very very real IDs were fake and she could not sell us alcohol “by law because our IDs did not scan”. Us being confused since we were all of age inquired about our IDs being called fake. She then told us repeatedly that they “didnt scan” and when she scanned then they came up as fake. We then questioned how well their scanner worked since it was blatantly wrong and she told us we were “more than welcome to leave and go somewhere else. ” I cannot stress enough how we DID NOT insight and argument or do anything to deserve this tone and condescending untrusting treatment we were greeted with after sitter down for a total of 10 minutes. I then asked talked to the second manager who informed me that the restaurant doesn’t even have a scanner for IDs. So she blatantly lied to us. She decided that we were too young in her head I guess, she saw us, judged us, and then when we questioned her and explained and proved with our passports that the people at the table were not lying about their age and proving the realness of our IDs she still said that our real IDs “feel fake” to her and would not serve us. I don’t think it is ever okay to judge a group of people and then once proven wrong, dig your heels deeper into this judgement. It’s unacceptable to say the least. What is more proof of your age than you Government Identification Card. The second manager (Jacob) was extremely apologetic and tried to make our experience better after this woman, first of all verbally attacked us and then discriminated against us. He still could not serve us alcohol because she wouldn’t let him. She came at us like we were all criminals or something. To whoever promoted this woman Chanel Horn or hired her made a grave mistake or miscall in judgement. I’ve never met someone more inhospitable and outright mean and offensive. It takes a mature person to manage a business and if I were North Italia I would reconsider her employment as she turns away business and money. In a business of hospitality you have to be hospitable, but Chanel is discriminatory, labels the customers and then cannot admit when she is wrong. There is nothing more real or proof of your age than your IDENTIFICATION CARD. Also I might add that someone who doesn’t know how to tell a real ID from a fake should not be in any business or line of power in the restaurant or bar business. Genuinely, she ruined my friends birthday dinner and our night as a whole. I would like HR to reach out to me as soon as possible to make this right. Your employee is either racist or discriminatory, please reach out.

The food was very good! Service was great! Our server was really sweet~ I wanted a cocktail, but I was not sure what was good and asked for her recommendation. I said I wanted something sweet and she recommended the Fiore Scarletto. As she said it tastes like a tea from Starbucks with alcohol:) We ordered the Bolognese, Squid Ink Tonnarelli, and the Italian Meatball. I really like the texture and the cook level of the pastas. I believe we wanted something similar to the italian meatball at first, but they don't have it on the menu anymore. Still the Italian meatball were really good! I think creamy polenta on the plate was a perfect match with the meatballs. For dessert, we were debating between the butter cake and tiramisu. I believe the butter cake had seasonal fruits that we were not big fans of so we got the tiramisu! Perfect amount of sweetness and crunch from the mini chocolate balls! Thank you for the amazing service and great food:)

Terrific service. Great entrées. Delicious deserts. Restaurant looks gorgeous. Thank you Rachel and North Italia.

Decided to go on Friday evening without a reservation and arrived at around 9pm. Had to wait 15 minutes to be seated which was perfectly fine. The vibe is lively and the crowd is young.
Food is generally very delicious and authentic but the service was a bit strange as we were asked for desert before we had even finished our mains. The check came before we had even had the desert it just felt very pushy overall.
It’s also quite cold inside.
Maybe the aforementioned things are done in order to increase turnover of guests.

Four of us had reservations last Friday and when we got there (5 mins.early) we had to wait outside in the hot sun for 15 minutes! That's not too unusual but the restaurant was only about a quarter filled, so it would have been nice to let us be seated in the air conditioned restaurant!

Cocktails were tasty, but not cold, as would be expected for martinis and a cosmo, nor were they served in martini glasses! They were served in tumblers!? !? !

Our server, Kalannie, was wonderful. Helpful and friendly. When I was served my Argula/Avocado salad.there was NO avocado in it! NONE! Kalannie immediately took it back and brought some back on the side.

The rest of the evening was uneventful. Good food and fantastic desserts! But I just don't think I'll come back. We spent almost $300 with tip, but were disappointed.

Dynamic vibe, incredible food, amazing staff, and classy. Very much enjoyed the experience and always make it a point to stop there when in town.

Eaten here twice and both times have been really good. Pizza, pasta, braised short rib, drinks, and desert are all worth trying. The menu descriptions are actually accurate.

We love coming to this restaurant. The service and ambience is always amazing, and they make sure you have a good time. We are a family of vegetarians and vegans and enjoy the diverse menu here.
Seating inside or outside are both awesome and comfortable! The Italian food here is always fresh and I love that they can customize the dishes to make them fit with our diets.
Today, we had received a piece of meat in our vegan pasta dish, which was very unsettling. But a special thank you to Sean and Simone for making up on this mistake. Sean even decorated some raspberry sorbet for us.
Highly recommend coming here if you want some delicious Italian food, great ambience, and good service!

The main dining room is a large stark and modern. Our server was fine, but we didn’t see him much due to the popularity of the restaurant. It was not easy to get a water refill. It didn’t seem to specifically northern Italian as the name suggests. Our mushroom cheese pizza was pretty good, very oily. The truffle bread was nothing special. Kale salad with grapes was good.

The food has been consistent. That's why we like this place. But we looked forward to arancini but they replaced it with bocconcini which was equally as good. We really appreciated our server John. Meatballs good but a little cool in center but the sauce was hot. The grilled bread was delicious. I had the salmon on the arugula salad which was good. And the chicken Parmesan is delicious the butter cheese penne, yum. My one complaint is our appetizers were all delivered before I got my glass of wine.that drives me crazy. I'd give it less stars but our server made up for it at other times.
Look wise it's a cool atmosphere. But a 2 star because over crowded and loud and even when you have a reservation you arrive on time and you still wait 15 minutes to get seated.

Fantastic service. Outstanding cuisine. The canapés were fantastic. We've never been here with pals before. It was fantastic to have the garlic bread with truffle butter. Our calamari had the flavor of funnel cake breading. The meatballs were excellent.

One of my wife and my favorites for brunch. The food is excellent. The quality of ingredients really shows through. Try the beef carpaccio and even something as simple as the breakfast sandwich and you'll understand. The breads are well prepared and the sauces are flavorful without being overly salty. Worth many return visits.

This place is reliably a good experience and excellent food. I come here all the time for business meetings, and sometimes meet friends for happy hour. Favorites are the Bolognese pasta and vodka rigatoni!

Delicious margherita pizza and drinks, would love to see some more vegetarian options! Beautiful building with clean bathrooms and tasteful decor. Definitely a busy place so if you want a more intimate environment, not the place to come.