The Best Of Everything Italian Fun Unpretentious Buca di Beppo serves up family-style platters. sauce reeking with the sweet odor of favorite or maybe does have some sort un dining with a lot of mushrooms. of interest. atmosphere, good food and This is the first Buca di Beppo Each of the rooms have colored service ... If there is any- restaurant in Michigan ... There are lights and the same menu ... with pas- thing more a person could about 25 around the coun- tas, veal, chicken, pizza, salads, want in a restaurant it would probably try ... The concept is the etc. listed on the walls. be price. same at all of them, but no Its garlic bread signature The reasonable pricing, with Italian two are alike ... Although item is a delicacy that over- food served Sicilian immigrant fash- the name means Joe's base- flows with cloves of fresh ion, is also a feature at Buca di Beppo, ment, the one in Livonia is garlic. Six Mile Road between 1-275 and hardly a cellar ... situated in Opened on June 15 this Haggerty in Livonia. a free-standing building of year, Buca di Beppo with seat- Recipes of corporate chef and dining fun ... When the ing for 246 here, has taken off Calabrian native Vittorio Renda are lobby is crowded, a gal goes faster than a tumbleweed in a served family style, with the large por- DANNY around with a sign capped sand storm ... People flock tions always enough for two or more RASKIN by green, white and red there every night for the good people ... In the Southern Italian tra- Local Columnist plumes ... calling out the time and good food. dition, all Buca di Beppo menu offer- name of those next in line. The crust on its pizza is ings come on oversized family-style The Buca di Beppo "person- amazingly thin ... It's almost platters, in portions meant to be ality" from the initial concept to the like the paper in your hand ... The shared. food and experience delivered to pizza trays are not put on pizza stands, So if two or more folks enjoy the guests is all about "living large" ... It is but on two cans of Mancini roasted same dish or dishes, they can get away serious Italian food, tongue-in-cheek peppers ... interesting and different ... with a quite reasonable evening. fun, and value few restaurants can This is about the closest an employee Buca di Beppo, open only for din- match. gets to a can ... So much is homemade. ner ... Monday-Thursday, 5- FOOD MAY HAVE been a big 10; Friday, 5-11; Saturday 4- thing again at the recent Arts, 11; Sunday 4-10 ... is a collec- Beats and Eats in Pontiac, but take tion of very interesting rooms nothing away from places like ... All have a boisterous, unpre- Gallery Function Art, where a lot tentious atmosphere that seems of the 500,000 or so who came for to bring out the Italian- the second annual Labor Day American supper club charac- Weekend shindig got quite an ter of the 1940s and '50s. education. The circular Pope's Table, an They saw sculptured art the likes area set off by several of which haven't been seen around Romanesque columns, has seat- these parts in many a moon ... So ing for parties of 18 in Sistine many one-of-a-kind items to make splendor ...- It is a big favorite any home decorator drool. and available by reservation About the food, it was much only. better than last year ... with almost The Poster Room shows off all vendors well satisfied by their posters and framed pictures on sales results ... and a sure indication the ceiling ... The Wine Room that next year at No. 3, restaurants has wine bottles on the ceiling Buca di Beppo's executive chef is Matt Churchman, will be in line to have a booth left, and Debbie Norman is manager. instead of posters ... A table for there. six is in the kitchen ... The Siniikaung Steak House in Grotto Room seats between eight and Traverse City's Soaring Eagle Casino, Southern Italian dishes, a stamp 10... A Cardinal Room has seating for won the Best Entree award with its of the immigrant kitchen, include a up to 24 with a large table for 12 and roasted sirloin on parmesan bruschetta signature version of spaghetti and decorations that include official ... The dish also took Best of Fest meatballs, with two-and-a-half Catholic Cardinal vestments. honors ... Best Dessert went to pounds of durum semolina pasta, Throughout the restaurant in halls Rattlesnake Club for its white choco- and three large-sized meatballs, and the various rooms are about late ravioli. slow-cooped in its homemade mari- 1,800 pictures ... humorous, satirical, Entree second place went to Water nara sauce ... and a delicious chick- political, Hollywood, family, etc. ... I Lily restaurant at Soaring Eagle for its en cacciatore that features an entire don't think Sophia Loren has a piece shrimp with black bean and corn salsa roasted chicken, fresh garlic mashed of Buca di Beppo, but her pictures are ... and Morels was third, serving potatoes and ladles of cacciatore everywhere ... Either she's somebody's lir Novemb All S Sept. 22, 23, 24 Dec. 14,15,16,17 .1 "