The Rest Of The World: Inspirations From New York City

Yes, Buffalo Chow is dead. (See the now-legendary Olive Garden tweets for details.) But when we decided to discontinue regular updates here, there were still a few items left on our "to do" list, and since the archive will remain...

Posted on July 1, 2011

The Olive Garden, Or, When One Door Closes, Another Opens

As you've probably heard by now, Buffalo Chow is shutting down. Readers asked why, and so we posted the following "epic" series of messages to our @buffalochow Twitter account on the evening of June 13, 2011, responding to general and...

Posted on June 15, 2011

Buffalo's 31 Club, A Classic Reborn With Style And Good Food

Reincarnating an old brand only makes sense when it was truly well-known and well-liked, and the Thirty One Club (aka 31 Club) fits that bill: from the 1940's to the 1980's, the restaurant at 31 North Johnson Park in Buffalo...

Posted on March 2, 2010

WNY Classics: Otto's Restaurant and Bar in Cheektowaga

Curiosity is one of the driving forces behind the many hundreds of reviews we've written for Buffalo Chow - a willingness to give up weekly visits to old favorites in order to sample new restaurants and actually visit ones we've...

Posted on January 24, 2010

A Strong Kitchen Helps Amaretto Bistro Shine In Williamsville

If you ever wondered how Western New York's needlessly endless construction projects - one-month jobs in California that take two years here - hurt our economy, a drive down Transit Road six months ago would have said it all. New...

Posted on December 20, 2009

Quick Bites: Bar Louie, Gate House Grill + La Scala Ristorante

As we prepare for our next major food journey outside of Buffalo - details coming soon - we wanted to fill you in on a few of our recent restaurant visits inside Western New York. The places are very different...

Posted on November 10, 2009

At Carrabba's Italian Grill in Amherst, A Nice Menu, Fine Food

In the world of chain Italian restaurants, there's a middle ground between the ubiquitous low-end Olive Gardens and the uncommon high-end Maggiano's - a territory occupied by mall and plaza places such as Bravo! Cucina Italiana and Carrabba's Italian Grill....

Posted on October 19, 2009

Dave & Busters + Updates: Carmine's, SoupHerb, Quaker Steak

We're going to make our recent drought of articles up to you with something really special in November - we promise. But for now, another very busy past week has led us to assemble another wrap-up article, including one brief...

Posted on October 19, 2009

SoCal Chow Leftovers: Meals + Snacks Worth Brief Mentions

In one week's time, Buffalo Chow's editors ate our way through so many of Southern California's restaurants that friends and family e-mailed to ask how we'd digested everything - the answer: we're not sure, but it worked. Most of the...

Posted on September 29, 2009

San Marco: Upscale Italian, In Ingredients, Plating, And Setting

Massively positive reputations precede only a handful of Western New York restaurants, and San Marco Ristorante is certainly among them. Considered one of the area's best for the better part of its quarter-century existence, San Marco brought upscale Northern Italian...

Posted on September 7, 2009

Quality, Low-Key Italian At East Amherst's Campobello's

Tucked into a corner of the same plaza that houses Jonny C's, Campobello's is easy to write off as "just another neighborhood Italian restaurant" - one more of the 200 or so Western New York mom and pop places with...

Posted on August 11, 2009

Taste of Williamsville 2009: A French Debut & Elvis, Too

How often does a Western New York food festival include the debut of an as-yet-unopened restaurant? Where else do items such as fancy french fries and a Kobe Beef Hot Dog compete with fancy gazpachos and high-end seafood dishes to...

Posted on August 4, 2009

Taste of Lancaster: Local Foods, Two Blocks, No Tickets

By comparison with the ten-day Taste of Chicago, the two-day Taste of Buffalo, or even the one-day Taste of Williamsville, the Taste of Lancaster is small - as in, it occupies both sides of two blocks on one street. But...

Posted on August 1, 2009

Update: Prima Pizza & Pasta, Shango, China Max, Mercer's

Brief but notable updates to several past Buffalo Chow reviews have been posted, along with this: a look at Berrafato's Prima Pizza & Pasta, which quickly and quietly replaced the good Molinaro's New York Pizza location at 9370 Transit Road...

Posted on July 22, 2009

Buffalo Italian Heritage Festival: Fair Fare In Little Italy

After Sobieski's conspicuous sponsorship of Dyngus Day led us to discover the company's legitimately great vodka, we were convinced: corporate sponsorship of local festivals isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sure, there's something about the "Sorrento Cheese Buffalo Italian Heritage Festival"...

Posted on July 16, 2009

In East Amherst, Sparks of Brilliance & Beauty at Falletta's

Falletta's is an outright challenge to the established business maxim that location is everything, an Italian restaurant that dares to locate itself not on a major thoroughfare but rather in the midst of a largely residential section of Clarence Center...

Posted on July 15, 2009

Taste of Buffalo 2009 Guide, Pt. 1: American & Italian Food

If there's anything certain about the annual Taste of Buffalo, it's this: you're guaranteed to find plenty of American and Italian offerings to choose from, including everything from local favorites and Southern cooking to upscale items. This first part of...

Posted on July 12, 2009

Italian Institution: Chef's Small Menu Offers Big Rewards

Buffalo has its fair share of old restaurants, but ones that are classics in the best sense of that word are few and far between. Chef's is, without question, a bona-fide classic. Even though Western New Yorkers can choose from...

Posted on July 8, 2009

At Curly's, Class & Caribbean Influences Lift Lackawanna

Of the many towns and cities in Western New York, Lackawanna isn't known for the size of its population or its abundance of restaurants, but one name stands out on its list: Curly's. Alternately known as Curly's Bar & Grill...

Posted on July 5, 2009

Taste of Chicago: The World's Largest Food Festival, Part 3

If there's one thing we love about Buffalo's festivals - even the Allentown Art Festival, for that matter - it's the availability of outrageous Italian desserts, ranging from freshly assembled cannolis and pastries to lemon ice. Not surprisingly, the Taste...

Posted on June 26, 2009

The Value Play, or, Filled Up For $15 a Head at Dandelion's

"Value play" is the phrase we've taken to using when we visit restaurants that aren't extraordinary on food quality, yet deliver such quantity for the dollar that they're hard to take issue with. Tucked away for decades behind a plaza...

Posted on June 24, 2009

Allentown Art Festival Food: What & Where to Eat & Drink

As long-time fans of Buffalo's Allentown Art Festival, we make our annual trip in mid-June for the art, not the food, but there's always an initial question: what will we be eating and drinking there? The official Art Festival website...

Posted on June 14, 2009

Eat & Fly: Dining at Buffalo Niagara International Airport

Planning a visit to Western New York, or a trip outside the area? You might want to know what you can eat at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport, and we're here to help. Once very sparsely populated with dining establishments,...

Posted on June 5, 2009

At Luigi's, Lines Form For Huge Pizzas & Italian Favorites

Visit a country with enough castles or churches, and at some point, you'll undoubtably find yourself saying, "seen one, seen 'em all." Western New York's pizza places are equally numerous, but somehow, there's always a chance that an unfamiliar venue...

Posted on June 3, 2009

Sugar Artistry at Muscoreil's, A Novelty at Village Desserts

Once in a while, we're thrilled to come across a truly "national-class" local restaurant - a place that stands out from the pack thanks to superb food quality and presentation. Muscoreil's Fine Desserts in North Tonawanda is amongst these Western...

Posted on May 18, 2009

WNY Italian, Built At Guercio's, Or Cooked At Santasiero's

Look. It's right there, in the first picture. Can you guess what it is? Hint: Santasiero's has sold this item in Buffalo for decades, and we know people who actually trekked in from the suburbs to bring it home to...

Posted on May 10, 2009

Tapas at Carmine's & Sole: Marketing Trick or Inspiration?

Tapas has a specific meaning: Wikipedia accurately describes it as "a wide variety of appetizers in Spanish cuisine," and fans know it as Spain's version of Chinese dim sum - miniature plates of food that can be enjoyed as snacks...

Posted on May 8, 2009

Novel Gelatos & Good Cookies Elevate Elmwood's Dolci

How often can a person visit two similar but sharply contrasting businesses on the same street just by walking a couple of blocks? Start at the center of Elmwood Avenue - say, around the Globe Market - and locate Delish,...

Posted on April 30, 2009

Universally Enticing Salads & Sandwiches at Globe Market

No matter how stuffed we were from our earlier lunch at Pano's, there was something about Elmwood Avenue's Globe Market that really intrigued us last Saturday - enough for us to stop by on Sunday to pick up a few...

Posted on April 26, 2009

Zetti's: A Wide Variety of Decent NY-ish Pizza, By The Slice

Though SUNY at Buffalo brings plenty of Eastern New Yorkers - read: Long Islanders - to its campuses every semester, it's fair to say that many Western New Yorkers aren't exactly wowed by all things Manhattan. A self-described "NY-style" business...

Posted on April 24, 2009

Elmwood, II: Sweet Tooth, Beer Merchant & Globe Market

In the first part of our two-part visit to food and drink destinations on Buffalo's Elmwood Avenue, we started at the Burchfield Penney Art Center's Orion Cafe and made our way down to the Towne Restaurant. This part looks briefly...

Posted on April 21, 2009

For DiBella's Old-Fashioned Subs, Fresh Bread's a Big Deal

For a time, Buffalo's sub shops weren't just places that you wound up visiting on the way to or from somewhere else; their submarine sandwiches were, at least by local standards, something close to destination-quality meals. But over the past...

Posted on March 29, 2009

At Tempo, Upscale Dishes and Service Quicken The Heart

No matter how much a restaurant or critic tries to focus patrons' attention on a famous head chef or owner, the ultimate measures of a gourmet venue are not the people, but their products: the food and the overall dining...

Posted on March 27, 2009

From Traditional Italian to Modern Updates, Siena Engages

Many people love Siena with a capital "L." Many years ago, it drew crowds as the second restaurant to bring a wood-burning pizza oven to Amherst, and today - without taking reservations - it remains the sort of thriving, impressive...

Posted on January 31, 2009

Anchor Bar: A Safe And Famous But Pricey Spot For Wings

One thing you'll note about virtually every Buffalo Chow review is our strong focus on food relative to other aspects of the dining experience: we're glad to eat in any sort of venue, as long as the meals are great....

Posted on January 17, 2009

At Trattoria Aroma, Consistently Good, Classy Italian Fare

Western New York has no shortage of perpetually busy Italian-American restaurants, and though there are some exceptional places that people are willing to drive out of their way to enjoy, there are very strong others that attract steady crowds with...

Posted on January 15, 2009

Blood, Bugs, and Good Cannoli at Famed Broadway Market

The Broadway Market ain't what it used to be. After 120 years of occupying the same city block on Broadway in Buffalo - a parcel which has seen both major demographic and surrounding infrastructure changes since then - this 90,000-square...

Posted on December 28, 2008

Kauai Chow: On This Hawaiian Island, Food is No Paradise

Writing about bad meals is, at least for us, a joyless affair. Some critics revel in splashing red ink all over the fur coats of sub-standard restaurants, but we hesitate to recall sad dining experiences, doing so only out of...

Posted on December 10, 2008

Where Appetizers Thrill and Entrees Please: The Left Bank

Sometimes the name of a restaurant tells you everything you need to know about what's inside; sometimes it just throws you off. Having visited The Left Bank - both the original location in Paris, home to the famed Latin Quarter...

Posted on September 28, 2008

A Wake Up Call: Does Caffe Espresso Serve WNY's Worst Desserts?

We'll keep this entry short and sweet, both words that we wish we could use to describe our meals at Caffe Espresso, a small Italian restaurant located in the Clarence Mall Plaza portion of Transit Road's Eastern Hills Mall. While...

Posted on September 17, 2008

A Slow Pace and So-So Food Shrink Le Metro's Population

Things change. People change. So do restaurants. Williamsville's Le Metro, once known more for its coffees and baked goods than its bar and dining, has over the years evolved into a typical supper club - albeit a good one -...

Posted on August 23, 2008

At 800 Maple, Waiting For Discounted Pizzas is Wise

Strictly speaking, there's nothing wrong with 800 Maple. In fact, this restaurant - located as the name would suggest on Maple Road in Williamsville - is a competent place to order not only typical Italian fare, but also the locally...

Posted on August 21, 2008

Love at First Sight for Romeo & Juliet's Sugary Desserts

As you might guess from the continued flow of dessert reviews on Buffalo Chow, we've been on a real sweets kick over the past few weeks, thanks in part to a quest to find the area's best cannolis. Last month,...

Posted on August 13, 2008

A Pistachio Cannoli Elevates Molinaro's to Memorable

If there is any one thing that Western New York has in abundance relative to its home-grown specialty foods, that thing would be Italian restaurants - dozens and dozens of them, so many in fact that the Taste of Buffalo...

Posted on July 16, 2008

At Pino's, A Gentle Sweetness Enhances Italian Desserts

Given greater motivation, we could go on for pages about the mediocrity of the typical Italian restaurant - the high prices, forgettable food, and plates propped up with cheap pasta - but we would never, ever speak ill of Italy's...

Posted on July 4, 2008

Bravo: Hold the Applause, It's Chain-Quality Italian

In a region that's completely packed with family-owned Italian restaurants, some people might laugh at the very thought that a quality Italian meal could be found at a shopping mall. But Bravo! Cucina Italiana, located inside the recently opened upscale...

Posted on May 18, 2008

With Californian Influence, Just Pizza Reinvents Buffalo's

We do not, as a rule, lightly add new pizza parlors to our list of "favorites." To go further, perhaps 15 years have passed since we've had such a great pizza in Western New York that we'd consider it as...

Posted on April 22, 2008

Connoisseur Cannoli, at NYC's Caffe Palermo

Given what we will likely publish in the future on our quest for Western New York's best cannoli, you may be wondering where Buffalo Chow's editors go when they're looking for the perfect version of this Sicilian dessert. Though the...

Posted on February 24, 2008