Review of Buca Di Beppo Restaurant in Cherry Hill, NJ: An Excellent Restaurant Chain Found All Over the U.S

My husband, Nick, and I took a vacation last year to California and the last night we were there we ended up at the City Walk at Universal Studios. There were a lot of fun restaurants there, but we weren't in the mood for Hard Rock Cafe and several other places that we had already been to. We wanted to go somewhere different - Buca di Beppo lured us in. We thought it was a place unique to California, but later found out the chain has locations all over the U.S.

Being that we were never there before, they took us on a tour of the kitchen. I liked that idea since many places like to keep the kitchen a secret. I felt like they had nothing to hide and everything looked really clean to me. Next we went whirling up stairs, around corners, and through several dining rooms before landing in our booth. It was a huge place! And if felt like we were in Old World Italy. The floors were carpeted with brightly patterned, gaudy red prints, and the tablecloths were plastic with red and white checkers. The walls were "wallpapered" with all types of picture frames with different photographs and prints. I mean they were literally covered from top to bottom.

But enough about the decor, let's get to the menu, yet another huge thing about Buca di Beppo. They have a lunch and dinner menu and both are rather extensive. And the best part? You can order many of the meals as an individual portion which is large enough to eat and take home for tomorrow's lunch or dinner. However, this menu is somewhat limited to about 10 to 15 menu choices. Or you can choose from rest of the menu, filled with a variety of different pastas, veal, seafood, and more. They come in family style portions, meant for sharing and there are two options. You can either get the small portion which serves two to four people or the large portion which is ideal for four to six people.

When I visited the California location I choose an individual meal of pasta in a fettuccine sauce with peas, ham, and shrimp. It came with a gigantic basket of bread, and I had a nice glass of Californian wine to go with it. The quality of the food was so good, we jokingly asked the waiter if there were any other locations and assumed he'd say no, that this place was unique to the City Walk. That's not what he said, though. He brought us a brochure covered with Buca di Beppo. Started in the basement of an apartment building back in 1993 in Minneapolis, Buca di Beppo now has 93 locations, with at least three of them being within just a few hours from my house. One of them was even in our state, somewhat "in our area."

For a chance to reminisce and have a good meal, my husband took me to the Buca di Beppo near us for Valentine's Day Dinner. The style of the restaurant was similar, but they had fake flowers planted in the ground outside (how very old school Italian!) and had a booth that could seat eight right in the middle of the kitchen. I guess this was great for families with kids. You could entertain and educate them on food preparation while they ate. What a great idea.

The food was just as good this time around as it was in California and it really brought back memories. This time I had a small portion of the Linguine Fruitti Di Mare which was a huge mound of linguine covered with shrimp, clams, calamari, in chunky tomato sauce (or gravy as I like to call it!) surrounded by mussels around the outer edge of the plate. And it was piled high. I knew when I ordered this that it was going to be a lot of food, but it was what I wanted and it wasn't on the individual portion menu, so I got it. I am perfectly fine with leftovers and ended up serving it a few nights later. For $19.99 I ate that night at the restaurant and had enough food for my husband and I for an entire other meal - not too shabby. By the way, the description of the dish says it's spicy, but don't let that turn you off if you aren't into hot foods. I don't think it was spicy at all and I am a bit sensitive to that. I thought it was really good and it was even better with a squirt of lemon over it.

Nick had in individual portion of Veal Parmigiana and I swear it had to be enough for two, however, he almost licked the plate clean. In his defense, I think I gave him a rather skimpy lunch that day. No wonder why he devoured his dinner!

Now we didn't have dessert because we were stuffed, but the Dolce Platter sounded so good. This dish, meant to be shared, was $30 and consists of double dark chocolate cake, homemade cheesecake, Tiramisu, and a seasonal item. I love the idea of getting several different types of goodies so you can try a little bit of everything. Maybe next time.

It's worth mentioning that this is one place that accepts reservations. I made reserve a table for two at 6:00 and we only had to wait a minute or two before they took us to a table. Quite unfortunate for everyone else who had a 40 minute wait! I'd highly recommend making a quick call and reserving a table.

Visit a Buca di Beppo near you for a great meal.