Buca di Beppo; Italian for Big Plates, Booze, and Birthdays
Written: Oct 14 '01 (Updated Feb 04 '03)
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Pros: Big food and big bottles of wine.
Cons: Big food is bland.
The Bottom Line: If you’re looking for great authentic Italian food in San Francisco – look elsewhere.
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| megugrrrl's Full Review: Buca di Beppo |
-- OK, not really. Buca di Beppo actually translates to Joe’s (Beppo) basement (Buca)… but if I was forced to sum up my experiences at Buca di Beppo in a few ideas, it would be Big Plates, Booze, and Birthdays.
Big Plates
Everything is served family style – as in jumbo Southern Italian extended family style. Dishes are designed to be shared with others. When you place an order of pasta, you get two pounds of it. TWO POUNDS. Our party of 15 ordered two appetizers, one salad, one pizza, two entrees, one pasta dish, and two desserts. (We also got two 3-liter bottles of Chianti.) We left stuffed. Stuffed and tipsy… and happy.
Don’t expect a menu to be placed in your hands; there are huge red-lettered signs posted on the walls for all to see. For antipasti I would recommend the Bruschetta ($10.95). It shows up at your table looking a lot like a pan-style pizza; it’s huge! Instead of slices of a baguette-type bread, they use a large flat house loaf of Italian bread and smother it with diced red tomatoes, fresh basil, onion chunks, garlic, and olive oil. True to bruschetta, the flavors are intense and the portion is satisfying. The runner up appetizer is the more conservative Mozzerella Caprese ($12), with diced tomatoes, blobs of fresh mozzerella, roasted yellow peppers and fresh basil. Their Fried Calamari is worth mentioning – crispy on the outside and not overly greasy. All appetizers are actually large enough for a meal. Buca di Beppo also offers four of five types of salad, including a standard green salad, Ceasar, and the signature Di Beppo 1893 Salad ($13) which is lettuce topped with mortadella, pepperoni, and pepperoncini . All their salads are humungous-sized, expect to take some of it home.
The Pizza Bianca ($15) we ordered, came on a 2X1 foot slab. Our food server placed two tall tomato sauce cans to rest the pizza on, which made it look like an offering to some pizza gods. Loaded with gorgonzola, provolone, mozzarella, and romano cheese and topped with pieces of delicious caramelized red onions. The hand-tossed dough is thin and crispy on the edges. Pizza Bianca is my favorite thing to get because of the sweet onions on top – they don’t have a strong onion taste, they leave just a little sweetness which goes well with the cheeses. With a few drops of the chili-flavored olive oil, I was set. There are several types of pizza, including pepperocini and marinara (that’s sans any cheese), but try the Pizza Bianca.
Deciding on just one pasta dish for our party of 15 was pretty hard. Some kids wanted the Spaghetti Aglio Olio but others complained about already having their garlic fix from the bruschetta. We couldn’t get any “homemade” cheese-filled Ravioli al Pomodoro because it came with a meat sauce that the vegetarians made faces at (though I’m sure they’d serve it with marinara sauce if you asked.) We settled on plain ol’ Spaghetti Marinara ($16), which was probably the most boring thing we got. (The Country-style Rigatoni, with beans, onions, sausage, and broccoli is something to pass on – too mushy.)
I learned that the only dish that won’t feed a party of 15 are the entrees. It didn’t’ really matter though because most of them were vegetarian anyway so each omnivore got an extra huge helping of both the spicy Chicken Cacciatore (they give you the whole chicken and serve up garlic mashed potatoes) and Veal Parmigiana ($19.95). Both entrees were not surprisingly mediocre. Palatable, but still nothing exciting.
The desserts also come large – you can get a slab of Spumoni ($6) to share or three really long pistachio, chocolate and vanilla cannoli which are really sweet and delicate. Of course there’s also tiramisu – with marscapone and lady fingers served in a giant white bowl (the size is more impressive than the taste) and this insane bread pudding log-like dessert, loaded with raisins and chocolate chips, served with a side of caramel to drizzle over. It tasted pretty good but at this point we were all stuffed silly. My husband offered $20 to anyone who could finish the monstrosity. It sat there until we left.
The verdict on the food? It is definitely not the best Italian food I’ve had (what do you expect from a chain?) but it’s not quite as bad as the Olive Garden. This is a place to be with friends and silly decor. If you’re looking just for a nice Italian meal, skip this place.)
Campy Décor That Goes Beyond TGIFridays
The main reason I like Buca di Beppo is the ambiance. This place gets two thumbs up for their campy décor - plastic grapes, plaster statues painted gold, Christmas lights, and lots of eclectic picture frames on the walls holding images of Italians, Italian-Americans, cleavage, popes, soccer, and one baby giving the bird. I like the kitsch, even though I know it’s not really kitsch anymore because it was a corporate decision but still, it’s nice.
The restaurant has different sections, each having its own theme. The Wine Room, for example, has lots of plastic grapes all around and empty wine bottles resting on metal racks above your head creating a glass canopy. The best room is the Pope Room, where the walls are adorned with pictures and paintings of the Pope and where you and your friends can sit around a table with a lazy Susan. On this Lazy Susan is a plaster head of his holiness, encased in plastic even. Your campy servers will rest stuff on his head.
Buca di Beppo in San Francisco (CA, not SF, WA as they want you to believe) also wins the award for best neon sign for a chain restaurant – a giant bottle of Chianti dripping down a retro neon sign out front. I am not ashamed to say I like it.
Birthday, Anyone?
The last time I went, I swear they sang “Happy Birthday” over a dozen times. The nice thing is that they do the traditional version and make the room sing, rather than getting all the bussers and other food servers to stop what they’re doing to come clap out a funny birthday chant. I hate funny birthday chants. In addition to a hearty song, you get to blow out the candles from a big, gaudy candelabra your food server plops in front of you and eat free dessert – usually a slab of spumoni. Buca di Beppo’s ain’t bad for a birthday.
Service
Waitstaff is efficient, friendly and fun, but in the “I-want-a-big-tip” kind of way.
Damages
For a party of 15 – our bill came to around $325 bucks – VERY CHEAP considering we spent half of that on Chianti. Our food, appetizers, entrees, and dessert, came to $10 a person. $10 a head especially for dinner at a sit-down restaurant in San Francisco is obscene.
Recommended:
Yes
Kid Friendliness: Yes
Vegetarian Friendly: No
Notes, Tips or Menu Recommendations Be sure to make reservations. Get the Pope Room.
Best Suited For: Large Group
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