Buon Appetito

This is not your typical pizzeria with a dining room, service, quisine, specials were amazing! My Mom had the shrimp cocktail appetizer and the filet mignon with a merlot brandy sauce, with a portabello mushroom and black orange and white carrots, I had the capresse salad and pasta putnesca, everything was excellent!

Outstanding why isn’t there a huge line here.
Your missing out Bayville. Who needs a view
Of the bay with this good.

I read mixed reviews on this restaurant and because of the severe lack of decent places in the area, my husband and I decided to give this place a try. We live in Brooklyn and have a house in the area of this restaurant. We love trying new places and dine out quite a bit. We made a reservation for a Saturday night. We brought a bottle of wine with us as we knew it is a BYOB. When we got there, the place was packed. The restaurant section is like a big private room off of the pizzeria part. The hostess asked us to give her about ten minutes to set up our table. She explained they had a large group for an event there that night. My husband wanted to leave because he really dislikes waiting when we have a reservation. I really wanted to try the food and believed that it wouldn’t take long to set up a table. What we didn’t realize is they didn’t even have a table available for us. We sat at one of the two pizzeria booths while waiting for our table. After almost 20 minutes, my husband looked in the restaurant part and could see that nothing was open. He was ready to walk. I begged him to stay because we had already waited that long. One of the waiters told us that a table was leaving and we would be seated soon. So, after almost thirty minutes, we were brought to a table. It wasn’t even ready for us as they were still setting up our utensils, etc. While we were looking at the menus, they continued to set our table. They saw our bottle of wine and brought one wine glass. We were told we would get another one soon. Then that person never came back with another glass. A waiter told us the specials and opened our wine… still no extra wine glass. We asked him if we could have another glass. He said he would get one. It was getting ridiculous. Then, a waitress came up to us to take our order and brought us some bread. She said they all work together and we wouldn’t have one specific server. So, we asked her if we could please have another wine glass. When she walked away, my husband looked at me and said they must have run out of glasses. Yes, the place is a BYOB, but come on… have enough glasses for your customers. They have live music and what looks like a nice menu. They should realize their clients are going to most likely have a bottle of wine with them. When our waitress reappeared, she had two daiquiri or maybe hurricane glasses. While I do know a decent amount about wine, I am not a wine snob. I don’t mind if my red is in a white glass or vice versa. But, I wanted to have a nice dinner out with my husband and enjoy a decent bottle of wine. I really didn’t want to drink red wine in a daiquiri glass. At that point, we had enough. We could see they were too busy to accommodate us. We didn’t trust that the rest of our dinner was going to go well. While I would not have been thrilled about it, I would rather have been told the truth when we made the reservation. We made one a few hours before and they could have said they were expecting a large group and we may have to wait. They could have said they were out of glasses. I feel they wasted our time. In that area, restaurants are not open that late. It was almost 9pm when we left there. In the end, we drove back towards our house and went to one of our regular places and had a great dinner. But, we will never go back to this restaurant again.

Ever since new owner it’s been terrible service. Something as simple as what type of bleu cheese they choose is a cheap brand you can tell. Requesting 5 dozen wings extra crispy which is beyond simple and comes mushy. They can’t get it right. Officially our last time ordering in 9 years as a resident

I have been to this place several times. The food is always amazing.

Buon Appetito has recently reopened under new management and I was truly surprised by the transformation in many ways. In conversations with people that frequented the establishment before it’s recent closure, I gathered that while the food had been very good in the distant past, the places had lost a lot of business the past few years due to poor service and decline in the quality of the products offered. About a couple of months ago, I herd there was a change of ownership and I and my fiancé decided to try the place out on a Saturday evening. I believe I saw a renaissance of a restaurant. Very good appetizers great dishes in abbondanza, looking at the plates coming out of the kitchen. I had a hard time deciding what to order, I had the broiled whole fish and my fiancé had the pork chops (huge) with peppadew peppers and othe veggies. We enjoyed the great food and what made it fabulous was the Italian singer that entertained us with a good mix of Italian and American songs. We do intend to go there often and will be posting more.
I am not related nor do I have any special or financial association to the restaurant or owners. This review is solely my opinion and I have not receive any remuneration from anyone. Go there and enjoy.

Since new ownership I am a permanent customer! The owner is friendly and appreciative of every customer, even asking for my opinion of the place and food. Dinner was delicious and fresh, the rolls were warm and soft and a large portion of food for a reasonable price. I am happy to have a place like this near me so whether it’s pizza or dinner I know I’m getting food I can look forward to eating.

If only one great app (portabella mush stuffed with sausage and greens) made up for horrible service and poor meals.
Faux pas 1: watching staff flick food off a ‘clean’ plate, polish with shirt and set table using plate.
2: service stands over us with new dishes in hand, glares and huffs until we move dirty plates to make room for new ones. service doesn’t bus our table. We must ask for dirty plates to be removed.
3: doesn’t bring app plates with our apps. We wait over five minutes almost finishing apps by the time plates arrive.
4: service doesn’t bring water refilled after asked. Must ask again. Mind you, we were one of three tables in entire place. Not a busy night.
5: lemon pepper grouper special, $ 23, encrusted with the faux lemon pepper artificially colored, flavored and severely over salted stuff. Absolutely terrible dish! Never do i expect that crap seasoning when dining at a $ 20+ per plate place. When service finally came over to ask how everything was i let them know it was way too salty. Barely got a response and manager never bothered to follow up.
6: rushed us out the door after dropping check.
Overall terrible. Never again!

Let’s just say this place is BYOB… And we didn’t even care…
They bring you out a basket of fresh baked rolls with olive oil infused with red pepper flakes and rosemary. Shortly after they brought out fresh baked bread with fresh tomato sauce… YUMMMM
We ordered the appetizer special of Balsamic Calamari… A bit skeptical but after our beetle waiter Bobby said it was good we had to try and let’s just say WOW. They were great by themselves but we asked for some sauce and Bobby said «sweet, mild or hot» obvi hot… Amazing fresh hot sauce. It had whole cherry tomatoes stewed perfectly with the red peppers and deliciousness.
Onto the salad… Fresh fresh field greens drizzled with their house lemony vinagrate… fresh ground black pepper Bobby asks? Why yes thank you.
So full already and we haven’t gotten the entrée we’re sharing… Chicken Saltimbocca…
So full we couldn’t even finish a half portion. We each had two bites and Bobby had to wrap it up… It was amazing, perfect layering of chicken breast, procsutto, spinach and mozzarella… Everything so fresh and delicious… And a plus was having asked him of we could have farfalle instead of penne and they had it!
Awesomeness
(Written July 2012… Forgot to post)

New Owners (well one owner is a family member), but same Chief. Had a really great dinner, same menu, same food, some minor chances. They serve very GOOD italian food in a quiet setting. One of the things we like is you can order something not on menu in most cases. Prices are reasonable and we always enjoy our meals there.
BYOB,
Try it you will come back

One of the Best Restaurants in the area. Food is exceptional and desserts are Home Made. Good service staff and owner is always available. BYOB

Yum! Yum! Yum! This homey BYOB has excellent food, great service, huge potions. It is one of the best Italian restaurants I have been to in a long while. We started with warm bread served with herbed olive oil, complimentary homemade focaccia was yummy. The entire staff is friendly and so welcoming. We had the hot antipasto, delicious. Shrimp with pasta, Veal Saltimbocca and linguine with clam sauce. All were fantastic. The Homemade tiramisu for desert was to die for. We will be back!!!

From the outside looking in it appears to be nothing more than a Pizza joint the kind you can find anywhere. But once you enter the dining room, the service is outstanding and food is excellent. Give it a try as you will be pleasantly surprised. The veal was tender and the fish superb. The appetizers were very tasty too.

Best Italian food that I have had in Ocean County. Very pleasant atmosphere, the hostess [owner] seated us promptly and the waiter introduced himself and opened our wine. The kitchen sent out an little starter plate then some excellent rolls and 3 dipping sauces. Soup was outstanding, house salad was ok, dressing was very good. Veal saltimbocca was amazing .
Go, you will not be disappointed.

What a surprise!!! With a ton of Italian restaurants in NJ, you come to expect a certain quality of food. I’d say that Buon Appetito goes well above my expectations.
When we got there, we were seated promptly. The waiter was pleasant and chilled our wine while we read over the menus. Bread with 3 dipping sauces arrived right after. That was great because I was pretty hungry! One was a sun dried tomato oil, another was a pesto-​like oil and the 3^rd was a garlic infused oil. All pretty tasty.
The salad was fresh and crisp. The house dressing was a balsamic, mustard vinaigrette. Nothing too memorable but it was good.
My aunt and I ordered the linguine in white clam sauce. Personally, I don’t normally order this because hardly ever do your clams come out either not out of a can or like rubber. My aunt said her friend that is a darn good cook always orders it. Hmmm… Maybe I have to tempt fate. I do, and to my great surprise, it was FANTASTIC! Linguine, about 12 clams int he shells and then a TON of fresh (not canned!) chopped clams over the top. There was no way you could take a bite without it containing clams. The linguine was perfectly al dente and the sauce was buttery and garlicky. Just the way I like it! I would recommend this to anyone who loves clams.
My uncle had the chicken parmesan but it had vodka sauce instead of regular sauce. It had a different name but… basically it was just chicken parm with vodka sauce. That was tasty too!
We didn’t order dessert but after dinner, the lady who I believe is the owner, came over and asked if we would like an apéritif. She offered us home made limoncello, orangecello or chocolate liquor. It was so delicious! This alone would make me come back.
I really recommend that you try this restaurant for the linguine with white clam sauce or just so you can get a sip of the orangecello! Man, that lady should bottle and sell that stuff! She’d make a killing!