Buca di Beppo

Like I’ve said before, I’ll be posting about our experiences at all places that serve pizza.  I think this allows for more posts (and more pizza, to be honest).  Realistically, I would have liked to start at some big name pizza joint around town that everyone would recognize, but that’s not how it worked out this time.  Wife and I were given a restaurant gift card for Christmas, and after about 3 days of knowing we could go out to eat there, we couldn’t take it any longer.  This place, as you probably understood from the title, was the Buca di Beppo Italian Restaurant on Hurstbourne Parkway.

First off, this place is awesome.  The walls are covered in Italian and American memorabilia.  Memorabilia is the only way I can describe it; it’s a lot of black and white pictures, old flyers, drawings and paintings, and so on.  It really adds to the genuine feel of the restaurant, as do the table cloths that make you feel like you’re in a restaurant in Italy.  The place is a lot bigger on the inside than you’d think; I’m always surprised at how many tables there are.  When you’re taken to your seat, sometimes they take you through the kitchen to get to the other side of the restaurant, and there’s even a booth IN the kitchen!  It’s extremely different and memorable, which is a big plus in my opinion.  Also, for the gentleman only:  the men’s restroom is filled with memorabilia related to peeing, and it’s pretty funny.  Nothing like a bit of bathroom humor before dinner!

Now, on to the pizza!  I’m including a picture of the pizza, and I’ll always try to include one with a menu or something else to show what restaurant we were at.  (Sorry, I know that isn’t grammatically correct, but saying “what restaurant at which we were dining” isn’t typical of my writing.  I’m doing this for fun, so I’ll be trying to write as if I were talking to you directly in person.)

The first thing we noticed was that the pizza was rectangular, like it was cooked on a pizza stone.  Little detail, I know, but like I said, different is good!  Secondly, it’s clear that this is a very thin pizza.  I don’t discriminate between thin and thick crust (discrimination is wrong), but sometimes you just crave a thin crust pizza.  (You don’t crave pizza?  Why are you here?)  The crust, while thin, is surprisingly soft.  Not doughy or as if it wasn’t cooked enough, it’s just very soft.  If you like your crust crispier, you might want to consider asking them to bake it longer.  

As you can see in the picture, we ordered a pepperoni pizza.  That’s what we’ll be ordering everywhere to stay consistent.  The pepperoni slices were huge compared to other pizza places, which just adds to the feel of authenticity.  There is a decent amount of cheese on it, but it’s not excessive in any way.  (Wife and I are lactose-sensitive, but we love cheese.  Seriously, we love it.  It’s a risky lifestyle.)  The sauce is semi-sweet, but not nearly as much as other pizzas I’ve had around town.  Comparatively, I’d say it wasn’t sweet at all, but I’m a big sweets guy so if it’s not super sweet I don’t even taste the sugar anymore.  The slices were cut in rectangular fashion with the pizza, and it was pretty greasy, so be prepared to use that napkin several times throughout the meal.  

We took two pieces home for the “Leftovers” test.  Katie likes her pizza reheated in the oven, and I eat mine cold (who has time to reheat their pizza? Not this guy.)  I’ll keep this short, because I know this has become a long post already.  Katie actually liked the pizza BETTER reheated.  She cooked it right on the oven rack at 350°for five minutes, and it came out very crispy, which is what she prefers.  As for the cold, it was really good too!  The crust was still soft, which I don’t mind, but it wasn’t tough or chewy at all.  The leftovers test for Buca gets an A+ in my book.

For the short and sweet version, here is my opinion of our experience at Buca di Beppo using the SATA scale I mentioned in the first post:

Service:  Great.  We had a very nice staff that worked very hard to make sure everyone had everything they needed; very polite and not a long wait at all for a weekend meal.  (Grade:  A)
Atmosphere:  Like stated above, different in a good way. I enjoyed being there. (Grade:  A)
Taste:  Awesome!  Only downsides were that it was really soft and pretty greasy.  (Grade:  A-)
Accessibility:  Not too hard of a restaurant to find, and it wasn’t very difficult to move around inside the restaurant.  Not sure how they handle handicap seating or anything.  It can be difficult leaving the parking lot during certain times of day.  (Grade:  B)

Overall, Buca di Beppo is a great restaurant with good pizza.  I’d definitely recommend it.