The Bottom Line
- Lively, interesting, and colorful environment
- Friendly, upbeat servers
- Food is unremarkable
- Portions large, but not cheap
Description
- Unless you enjoy thickly breaded food, stay away from those items.
- Bread was very good! I wish they would have offered freshly ground pepper with the olive oil.
- No fresh parmesan at Buca di Beppo.
- Even though we had leftovers (we really didn't eat much) I still thought that this food was pricey.
- We deliberately ate early so it would be quiet, and it was. We were told it gets loud around 6 p.m.
- I love walking through the kitchen on the way to the dining rooms!
Guide Review - Buca di Beppo
Basically much of the food tastes the same to us, using the same chunky tomato sauce. Buca di Beppo seems to pride itself on thick breading on many of the items, pretty much obscuring the taste of whatever it is covering. The Chicken Parmigiana was dry. The Veal Marsala was the best (not breaded!) but was too sweet, and the Spaghetti with Meat Sauce included very little meat.
One nice improvement they've made since our first visit is that now they have both small and large entrees. For people who aren't that keen on family style, meaning sharing your food with others, you can order a smaller portion for yourself. That way two of you really don't have to agree on which entree to have. Some of the small entrees may be large enough to share, depending on what else you order. Small salads are definitely enough for three or four people. Your server will help you out with those decisions.
As of this writing, there are four locations of Buca di Beppo in the Valley: Glendale, Scottsdale, Chandler, and Mesa.
