Trattoria Bolu

Cozy and lively place with high-​top tables, cool lighting and a great vibe. The food is really great — lots of attention to the salads and vegetable sides we ordered. Their house dressing is a tasty, lemony light vinaigrette that works well while still seeming to be guilt-​free. All the greens are super fresh, and sautéed spinach came out with yellow raisins and pine nuts; while broccoli rabe was slightly cheesy and sautéed with hot peppers — so good. The thin crust pizzas are also great and their meatballs are delicious. Nothing is over-​garlicky. Since it was Valentines Day, we also ordered gelato and it was fantastic — particularly the graham cracker variety. There is a high-​end wine store just down the row for BYOB purposes. Good service too. GREAT PLACE!!!

Excellent. The food is all fresh and delicious. The meatballs are homemade and tasty. All the pizza is fabulous, and the ambiance of the place is beautiful, with the stove in the middle. The little plates make for great options. Crab salad is delicious. Highly recommend!

Always good, fresh, wholesome. Our go to place for a weekday dinner when there is no food at home! Wild mushroom pizza is very good, great flavor and crust!

Found this little gem while traveling. All fresh and homemade food. May have to plan a return trip.

Nice lunch spot, conveniently located just off Rt 78 in the Basking Ridge/​Warren area. Décor and atmosphere inside is very nice. Service friendly. I’m sure it has to do with the Basking Ridge location, but prices are a bit high for a casual daily working guy lunch. Prices are even higher if you choose some of the gluten free options like the personal GF pizza. The interior is WAY nicer than Chipotle next door, but lunch for two here can easily run $ 50 – 60 with tip.
The crab salad was the highlight. Delicious, fresh-​tasting crab, mixed with some peppers in a light dressing and a side of excellent greens, incl sprouts & avocado! Nice! The GF Pizza was less successful. Although the Bolognese sauce & cheese were excellent, it seems the GF crust was your basic frozen rice crust, which is pretty tasteless, and having been frozen, got very dark along the edges, and not especially well cooked in the center. Not bad, but not up with the best GF pizzas out there today. This may sound picky, but the thing is, nearly every Italian restaurant has GF options these days, and rice based pizza crusts and pasta is totally old-​school now. Given the prices here and aspirations of the owners (along with very nice décor), I think an upgrade is advised if Bolu wants GF customers to be impressed and not just full.
IF the cost is not an issue and you want a lunch or dinner place that is decidedly nicer than typical strip mall style interior, this may be a good choice.

So my husband and I came here the first time by chance. Making a special trip for the second time we visited and are planning our third trip there The place is about 45 minutes from home but worth the trip it was amazing

Good service but food was below average.

Atmosphere: Busy and loud, but not in a bad way. I like the high tables.
Food: Better than I expected! I really liked the bread and hummus-​like spread that came out before our appetizers. I believe the spread was parmesan, red peppers, chickpeas, and some other add-​ins. Very chunky and great on the crusty bread they served. Between my mother and I, we ordered the Broccoli Grattinato, the Cherry Tomato Bruschetta (YUM), small Arugula Pizza, a large Grilled Insalata. I didn’t love the pizza, but the rest of my meal was very good!
I’ll definitely return for both the warm environment and the great food.

Nice, friendly place for lunch. Would have been nice to sit at one of their outdoor tables but it was drizzling on and off so ate inside. There are high tops and regular-​height tables — we opted for a regular-​height table.
We had a turkey panini which came with a nice mixed salad, lightly dressed. Cousin ordered the crab salad — 90% salad with interesting greens and 10% chopped lump meat crab. I had a taste of the crab salad — preferred my panini. Nice size portions. Service was attentive and friendly so will go back next time I’m in that area.

My husband, son, and I almost decided to go here while waiting in line next door at Chipotle one night, so curiosity got the best of me and I scheduled reservations for a group of 12 for a work lunch later on in the month. The management was tremendously accommodating, and overall our lunch experience was enjoyable.
The salad and panini selections were varied and the pizzas were fresh and delicious. I really liked my spinach salad with goat cheese and beets. If you initially think a salad ingredient is missing, make sure to check at the bottom of the salad – for some reason our tomatoes ended up hiding there. Many thanks for accommodating our large group!

Don’t bother ordering pizza here – it just doesn’t cut it. Try other food as the pizza is far from great – meh at best. Still looking for great pizza in this area – either people just tolerate it, or they simply don’t know what good pizza taste like and perhaps this is better than average pizza for them. Whatever, it’s not great and so it gets two stars from me.

Can here with my husband for date night and had a wonderful experience. The service was great and so was the food! I had the linguini with clams and my husband had chicken park. They both came out hot and were tasty. Before our meal we were given bread and some kind of spread. It was ok… I wasn’t really into it but it wasn’t bad. For dessert I had the zeppoles! What a great surprise to find out they made zeppoles! They came out in a brown bag with a side of Nutella! It was a perfect ending! I would def come back!

Love the attention to detail in every dish. Great BYOB place that has a very «farm to table» feel. The short rib lasagna is my fave, a must try!

Stopped in with work colleagues based on convenient meeting place mid-​day, and inviting outdoor seating. Other people seemed to have same idea.
Ordered a simple thin-​crust Margarita pizza to share. Most excellent, and close to a NY-​style oven pizza.
Would return to try an entire meal
Friendly service.
Alert: BYOB is invited.

Stoppin in for lunch, the waitress was a little rude, when I was asking her questions about the antipasta menu. She could not descibe how the portions were seved and how small/​large they were. Her response was, «Well, I dont know how much you eat…» The soup was extremely salty, I mean unedible. The other things I tried were yummy. Little hot peppers stuffed with saffron goat cheese & cold shrimp and bean salad were great!

Holy high pizza prices! I have been here twice. Picked up a pizza to go both times. I like to the pizza. Fresh, light and not greasy. Tonight I picked up a half plain, half sausage pie. It was $ 24! That is crazy for a pie that’s I believe is only 14 inches… and that’s the large. Honestly I will probably come back again because it was tasty but at these prices it will only be once in a blue moon.

Surprised the reviews aren’t better. People seem to complain about the prices, but when places use quality ingredients they can’t give them away. If you want shit ingredients, I could send you to a few places…
Anywho, went with the parents and everyone but me got pasta and practically licked their plates. I got mussels with a side of grilled veggies (I was having a Paleo day). Glad this place is near our new home, I can’t wait to try other stuff.
However, I must say I did knock them one star for how long it took to get the food. The restaurant was fairly empty when we got there and it still took almost an hour to get entrees. It seems to have been mentioned a few times in the reviews — so Process improvements folks!

First I will list the positives: Really cozy restaurant with very cute rustic décor. Their fresh crab salad is nice and gets a star on its own.
Negatives: The pizza was average at best. Wood fired pizza should be crispy and this was not. Tasted like box pizza with way too much oregano. Also, $ 27 for a pie is insane for a NJ strip mall. NYC doesn’t even charge that.
If I came again it’s because my boyfriend is a fan. I am not :-/.

Don’t think it’s just the wine talking when I say it’s superb. The staff was very chill and not pushy when some of our friends were arriving late. Ordered the rice croquette as the appetizer to share. Very tasty lightly breaded and fried croquette with meat filling and cheese on top. Our friend’s watermelon salad with prosciutto and figs was delicious as well.
Loved the wild mushroom pizza with arugula. The cheese tasted like it was freshly grated and arugula was a nice compliment. Husband’s short rib lasagna was good but he said it should have more ribs. I enjoyed everything overall. Great atmosphere, great food, friendly staff.
Btw the liquor store is just a few store down the same strip mall if you need a bottle of wine to go with your meal.

Antipasti make a fantastic lunch at Bolu! Drool over the selections at the front counter, then order 3 for $ 14 or 5 for $ 19. Asparagus wrapped in a thin slice of smoked eggplant was fantastic! Caramelized fennel was a rare treat. Mushrooms were enhanced with a bit of ham and baked until just soft, delicious. A papadew pepper filled with saffron goat cheese was delightful. The croquette (rice ball) is sliced open, topped with a bit of cheese and baked in the oven, sausage-​y and yumm-​y. Olives stuffed with goat cheese begged for a martini :) Figs on a bed of cheese and drizzled with honey are better than dessert. A spicy cherry pepper stuffed with provolone was irresistible. Just leave the tiger shrimp and white bean combo, it’s bland.
Antipasti are relatively expensive if you’re eyeballing the volume of food, no argument here, but you eat well.
The pizzas were just good in comparison. The crust was not quite brown enough on the bottom for me, no proper char, and the sauce was too sweet for me.
BYO! I can’t believe we didn’t, needed a chianti with us.
Totally minor gripe: I hate drinking from mason jars, this is a dumb choice.
Parking in this strip mall is a disaster at lunchtime, but if you drive around back there’s usually some spots in the garage.
If you’re lucky you’ll get a table outside. Inside, look for the rebuilt workbench with vises that’s now a table, then watch the kids put their fingers in the jaws LOL!