Lombardo's Bistro & Bar
Hoppen Hierarchy:★★⭑
District: Legacy
Italian Cuisine & Steaks
Perfect For: Date Night; Happy Hour; Drinks; Casual Dining
Standout Dishes: Calabrase Flatbread; Shrimp Farfalle
Sometimes when you’re restaurant hunting, a solid meal is just what the doctor ordered. You don’t need a five-star dining experience or a menu flooded with dozens of options.
Sometimes, especially on a beautiful Nebraska night, all you need is a patio and some classic Italian food. And on those occasions, Lombardo’s Bistro & Bar has you covered.
Housed in the corner of a strip just off 132 and Maple St. in Omaha, Lombardo’s is a casual Italian eatery with a fun, upscale atmosphere. The restaurant has a classy but inviting feel. It’s not all at stuffy, and it welcomes diners in suits or those in gym shorts and a T-shirt.
The menu has a sandwiches, flatbreads, and a number of meat entrees, such as braised short ribs, a pork flat iron, and Tuscan Salmon. The highlights are the 14 pasta dishes, ranging from an enormous brick of lasagna to granchio (fresh crab and Alfredo), and pollo vodka.
I highly recommend kicking the meal off with one of Lombardo’s flatbreads. The crust is thin and crunchy, just a bit doughier than the texture of a cracker, giving the flatbreads a light feel. They’re liberally covered with cheese, but not overwhelmingly so. The toppings are well distributed.
The Calabrase Flatbread is my personal favorite. The Italian sausage is slightly spicy and tremendously flavorful. Caramelized onions and the crushed tomato sauce both bring a hint of sweetness. The surprising treat is the green olives, which provide nice salty, slightly bitter pops that pull everything together.
Other options are BLT, Steak and Bleu, Sausage & Peppers, Margherita, and Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken. If you want a lighter appetizer, Lombardo’s offers mussels, ravioli, truffle fries, and more.
The best entree, in my opinion, is the Shrimp Farfalle, pictured in the header photo. The farfalle pasta is cooked to tender perfection, and the cream sauce adds fat and flavor without dominating the dish.
The spinach and mushrooms are secondary characters that don’t add a ton, but the sneaky addition is the sun-dried tomatoes. They bring nice pops of acidity and deliver a sweet, tart flavor. This is a really solid dish that had both my wife and I singing its praises.
The Frutti di Mare is more similar to most of what we’ve experienced with the rest of the menu. A pasta dish with spicy tomato sauce, mussels, clams, and shrimp sounds pretty darn good on paper. And Lombardo’s delivery is a respectable; it’s good, but I’m not rushing out to get it again.
The “spicy” tomato sauce has little spice and doesn’t hold nearly as much flavor as the sherry cream sauce on the Shrimp Farfalle. But the seafood is flavorful and tender, and the linguine is cooked just right. The sauce on the dish just needed more flavor; adding some heat to it would have elevated it quite a bit.
That’s the theme I’ve experienced at Lombardo’s. Everything is good, but it’s just missing that extra pop that would take it to the next level. But if you’re just looking for a nice Italian meal that won’t disappoint, Lombardo’s is a fine option.