At Lorenzo’s Italian Village, you will not find extra-virgin olive oil. You will not find shaved truffles. You will not find carpaccio. You will not find osso buco. You will not find buffalo mozzarella. You will not find ravioli stuffed with pumpkin-walnut purée in a sage-butter sauce. You will not find risotto.
You will, however, find fried mushrooms. You will find chicken cacciatore. You will find spaghetti with clams. You will find lasagna, manicotti, cannelloni, stuffed shells, and tortellini. You will find meatballs. You will find Italian sausage. You will find a darned good marinara sauce.
And most certainly, you will find Lorenzo Parente, stationed at the door of his restaurant, just where he has been since he opened the first Lorenzo’s, a few blocks away, in 1975. The current Lorenzo’s, at the corner of Nolensville Road and Thompson Lane, has been in operation since 1980. When asked if he is at the restaurant every night, he responds as if he were speaking to a simpleton: “Well, of course. It’s my restaurant. Where else would I be?”
On some nights, Lorenzo is assisted in the dining room by his daughter Rosanna. His wife, Dina, is in the kitchen, along with his brother-in-law. Lorenzo’s Italian Village is a family restaurant in every sense of the term: Lorenzo and his family run it, and he wants you and your family to eat there. A fleet of baby chairs and child seats lines one wall of the lobby. Waitresses call you “Hon.” As we departed after our first visit, Lorenzo pulled a fish bowl of lollipops from behind the counter. I thought the kids in our party were going to call him Grandpa.
In food circles, arguments rage over the definition of “true Italian cuisine.” Just this past March, Wine Spectator magazine offered a lengthy treatise on the evolution of Italian cooking in America. Wine Spectator was dismissive of the “heavy red sauces, oily eggplant dishes and fried veal scaloppine” that most Americans know as Italian cuisine. Americans think this is Italian eating, Wine Spectator said, because most Italian restaurants were begun by immigrants, many of whom happened to be shoemakers and tradesmen, not professional cooks.
Lorenzo Parente is Italian by birth. He hails from the small village of Chieta. And though he is not a shoemaker or tradesman, he was a professional wrestler—that’s what brought him to America in 1959. He traveled the country, winning more bouts than he lost, but as he grew older he saw the writing on the wall. Apparently, it said, “Lorenzo Parente, open a restaurant in Nashville, Tenn.”
Italian restaurants weren’t unheard of in Nashville in the mid-’70s. Parente recalls that, at the time, Mario’s, Villa Romano, and Ciraco’s were also in business. Of that group, only Mario’s and Lorenzo’s survive, and they certainly represent opposite ends of the dining spectrum—in terms of decor, cuisine, and prices.
Lorenzo’s is unpretentious, clean, warm, and comforting. There are booths against the brick walls, and the tables are covered with oilcloth. White-painted latticework dividers break up the room, which is decorated primarily in reds and greens.
I correctly guessed that the menu had changed little in 22 years, but then I’ll bet the prices haven’t changed much either. Pasta dishes (served with salad and garlic bread) range from $6.75 to $10.95; house specialities from $10.95 to $13.95. Pizza comes in small ($9) or large ($10.95) sizes. Children’s menu items (hamburger steak, fish plate, or spaghetti with meat sauce) are $4.95 each. A very small wine list offers a few Californian or Italian wines; the house Valpollicella comes by the carafe or half-carafe.
With one exception, the appetizers are fried. The kids dug right into the cheese sticks and toasted ravioli served with red sauce. We liked the antipasto, thanks in large part to the quality of the meats—salami, capocollo, mortadella, and pepperoni—and to the homemade Italian dressing, which is also your best choice for the iceberg-lettuce tossed salad. (You can purchase a bottle to take home.) The minestrone was hearty, but its dark broth, chock full of beans, potatoes, spinach, and pasta, is better suited for cold-weather comfort than for light summer eating.
On our first visit, with children, we sampled a pepperoni pizza. Grown-ups accustomed to trendy wood-burning oven pizza will be disappointed, but our kids didn’t mind the pre-made crust. A generous hand with the oregano caused Harry to pause and ask, “What’s this green stuff?” But he ate two big slices anyway.
The spaghetti was of the fat variety. Cooked al dente, it provided a solid base for the thick marinara sauce, which owed much of its tomatoey flavor to tomato paste. There was nothing especially gourmet or contemporary or compelling about this sauce, but it reminded me of the big pots of sauce—or gravy, as they called it—that were always on the stove in every Italian-American household I knew when I was growing up.
At Lorenzo’s, as in those households, the same sauce goes on almost everything Mama cooks. Like the eggplant parmigiana—rounds of eggplant, dipped in egg and bread crumbs, then fried and covered with cheese and tomato sauce. Unfortunately, the eggplant was sliced so thin that we could only taste the bread crumbs.
The same tomato sauce makes a strong showing in the good stuffed shells and the baked pasta dishes, especially the lasagna, layered with meat and cheese, and the plump, pillowy ravioli. We also loved the side order of moist meatballs (two tennis-ball-sized globules for $2.50).
Less successful were the veal picante and the chicken fiorentina. On both visits, our complaint was with the lemon-wine sauce that marred the meat and mushrooms. It had an odd, sour taste that we attributed to an unbalanced reaction between the lemon and the wine used in the kitchen.
If Lorenzo’s has a signature dish, it has to be Lorenzo’s Special Chicken. We really wanted it and were crushed when our darling waitress, Rilla (“Like Gorilla, but without the Go,” she cheerfully explained), told us it would require a 45-minute wait. We didn’t have that kind of time, but we solved the dilemma by ordering it to go. And were we glad we did.
Half an hour after eating a tremendous amount of food in the restaurant, three women of fairly normal appetite were standing at my kitchen counter devouring Lorenzo’s chicken. It’s half a bird, cut up into leg, thigh, wing, and breast portions, seasoned with salt, pepper, oregano, and some secret ingredients, then baked in butter and lemon. Parente says it’s his most popular dish, and regular customers know to call ahead and order. You can too.
Tab for three adults and five children was $88.21. The check for three women (but six dinners) and a bottle of wine was $116.73.
Lorenzo’s is what it is—a family restaurant reminiscent, says one Italian-American-New Yorker friend, of the little places one finds in the boroughs of New York. Like Rotier’s, Sylvan Park, and Jimmy Kelly’s, Lorenzo’s is an institution, a slice of Nashville life the way it used to be, before we got so dad-gummed cosmopolitan. Get you some, while you can.
Lorenzo’s Italian Village is located at 2823 Nolensville Rd. 254-9888. Open Tues.-Sat. 4-10 p.m.
