Santasiero's Italian Restaurant

This Italian place has been open for over 90 years and many people in Buffalo still haven’t heard of it. Three of the four of us who went just found out about it last week and went for the first time today for lunch. It originally opened in 1921 and has since stayed with the same family ownership in that spot. The restaurant is very close to downtown with it being no more than 10 minutes outside of central city.

This place has generated a lot of talk at work lately about its old fashioned food and hospitality. Many said they have never had a bad meal there. People at work have been raving about the pasta fasoola. We heard former mayor of Buffalo Anthony Masiello was known to visit there often when he was mayor.

We called ahead today to find out if they could pre-order to eat there and they said they can't do that. They also don't take reservations. We also found out they don’t have coffee and dessert didn’t appear on the menu. No salad came with the dinner meals or a side of pasta with it. The meals only come with bread. On the menu, salad is an extra 5 dollars. To upgrade to garlic bread, it is $3.50. A side of pasta is $3.25. Special sauces such as garlic & oil is expensive at $3.75 extra. Not a pleasant start knowing about it before we got there minus the tremendous word of mouth in the office, but it changed when we arrived.

We sat in the back room with the menu on the wall as there were three small dining rooms in the one restaurant... all not very big. The tables are small and most are crammed next to one another. We can imagine how busy it would be during dinner time, especially with the parking scattered around, because the place during lunch was over half full when we went. We didn't look at a paper menu and knew what we were ordering. We ordered stuffed shells, meatballs, sausage, spaghetti, and pasta fasool. We asked the waitress what chances we would be out of the restaurant in a half hour and she said very good unless you order a parm meal. Two of us were going to order chicken parm so we decided to skip out on that and get a pasta. This turned out to be the right move since the food came out in 5 to 10 minutes.

Before we got our food, several slices of Italian bread came out on a plate with packets of butter... no bread plates so we used our napkins. The pasta fasoola was loaded with beans on top. However, there was no red sauce with it like an Italian family at home would make. It went outside of the traditional red sauce or being like a soup and it was mostly beans, pasta, and broth, but still very nice. There are many variations to this Italian dish. A side of hot banana peppers came out in a cup with it which added a kick to it. With the stuffed shells dish, there were three stuffed shells on the dinner plate with tons of red sauce on top. The food was very warm and the ricotta cheese in the stuffed shells was great. There was a lot of spaghetti in its dish and the meatballs were delicious. The red sauce had a mixed response. One thought it was bland and another thought it wasn't sweet and another thought it had a nice spice to it. However, we agreed it was much better tasting than Chef's.

On top of the food, the service was great. We got out on our timed schedule. We were mostly pleased with our food and service and enjoyed our time there. It isn't at the top of being the best Italian restaurant in Buffalo due to its size and variety, but it is close due to its old style tradition. We would definitely come back for lunch another time though.

Final Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Santasiero's Italian Restaurant
www.santasieros.com
1329 Niagara Street
Buffalo, NY 14213
716-886-9197