With five awards in this year’s Best of Baton Rouge competition, it’s clear that Shannon and Jason Lopez and their team at Nino’s Restaurant are doing things the right way. The Italian eatery earned the 2025 Gold awards for Best Fine Dining, Best All-Around Restaurant, Best Date Night Spot and Best Wine Selection, plus the Silver award for Best Italian Restaurant, all based on feedback from locals.
“Seeing how our team’s love and passion for food and creating positive experiences has translated to the community is a ‘wow’ moment. It’s quite incredible,” Shannon said. “It humbles you and solidifies our belief that Baton Rouge was craving a different level of care and attention in their dining experiences. We are fine dining, but we’re not stuffy. We’ve worked hard to create a place where people can enjoy themselves and relax.”
Jason said that since he and his wife took over ownership of the restaurant, they’ve tried to strike a balance between maintaining the menu items and cooking styles that people have always loved while adding their own flair.
“We don’t make a lot of stuff for the week. We cut fresh vegetables every day. We do pastas and bread every day,” Jason said. “We always loved that about Nino’s. Our goal was to wrap our arms around that and infuse some of our ideas and passion.”
While Italian classics like carbonara and Bolognese remain customer favorites, Jason said new items like seasonal gnocchis have quickly become crowd-pleasers. For example, a new summer gnocchi has just hit the menu that’s brighter, fresher and lighter than the fall version.
“We’ve always tried to stay true to what Nino’s was and why we fell in love with it, because it truly was a great culinary foundation,” Jason said. “At the same time, we like to roll with the seasons. I go to farmers’ markets as much as I can, see what looks great and figure out how we can use it in a dish. We run specials every day. We don’t have a standard soup on the menu, but we’ll put one together if we have ingredients that we think will work well. We just did a cucumber gazpacho that the guests loved. We’re always changing and evolving and listening to the feedback.”
Shannon said one priority has been to let each shift’s crowd and vibe dictate the environment. The overall goal is to create a place where everyone feels welcome, whether they are a couple on a date night, a group celebrating a birthday or other life milestone, friends out for a girls’ night or just a few folks who want to relax with a nice meal and a glass of wine.
“It’s important to us to let things be organic and not force any kind of experience onto our guests,” Shannon said. “The one thing we want everyone to experience is genuine care from the moment they walk in the door. Sometimes people want to be left alone and sometimes they want to interact with a lot of people. I think our servers do a great job of reading the room and understanding what guests want. It’s important to us that we don’t have any preconceived notions about what a shift will be like. We want the guests to drive the overall vibe and ambiance.”
Jason said there are no plans to make any major changes to Nino’s, since it’s clear things are working well. There may be some adjustments to the kitchen and bar to improve functionality for the staff, but the food and commitment to a quality experience will never change.
As for the Lopezes, they are keeping all options on the table, including the possibility of a second Nino’s location or a restaurant with an entirely different culinary concept, possibly barbecue or Tex-Mex.
“No matter what we do, we’re going to stay true to our core of using fresh local ingredients and making food in-house. That is ingrained in our culture and who we are as professionals,” Shannon said. “We also want to make sure that we’re enhancing the community by caring for the people around us. Baton Rouge has embraced us in an incredible way, so we always want the community to be top of mind.”
Nino’s Restaurant is located at 7512 Bluebonnet Boulevard in Baton Rouge. For more information, visit www.ninos-italian.com.