Last night my cousin Amy and I went to check out Papa Razzi on route 9 which has replaced Bennigan’s. Right away you can see they’ve done extensive renovation and now have an open kitchen. 
As with any new restaurant, they were out to make a good impression. There was a team of greeters. One that opened the front door, one that opened the inside front door, the person who asked us how many and the person who sat us. All said welcome to Papa Razzi and asked how we were. It was funny to be asked that 4 times before we even sat down. Definitely a cheery group though. We were sat within hearing distance of the host desk and one of the hostesses sounded really excited when people walked in and would say “Hi! How ARE you?” and say things like “You’re getting an AWESOME table, you’ll LOVE it!” We joked that she must be exhausted at the end of the night.
Our server was nice, forgot a few things but as Amy and I have both worked in restaurants since we were in highschool, we know how mistakes can happen. Amy can be a little less forgiving, although she’s done some hard time in the business, from casual to fine dining to catering and has some amazing stories she could probably write a book about.
Before our server came over, one of the managers came over and asked how we were and said our server will be over shortly, which she was. We both ordered a wine flight. I got red and Amy got white. I felt that there might be problem with the order since our server didn’t really seem to know what a flight was. She might have been so overloaded with information from training that she got confused, but we had to explain and point out on the wine menu what we wanted since she didn’t recognize what we ordered by the name of the flight, which is fine but then she asked which wine on that flight we wanted, and that we get to pick one. We nicely explained again that it’s three wines and then she got it, but showed up to the table with two flights of white wine. I felt a little bad that one of the managers was at our table when I said I got one of the red flights, I didn’t want her to look bad in front of the manager but it was easily solved. I got the “Elegant and Fruity” flight which was really good:
The meal started off with bread sticks that our server said are handmade right in the restaurant.
I’m not one for hard, dry breadsticks but I understand that is the style these are supposed to be.
We really liked the focaccia bread though.
We decided to split a salad, they were nice enough to divide the salad into separate bowls and half was a perfect size for both us.
My half-salad:
The runner who brought the salads didn’t bring any dressing (we asked for different dressings on the side) Amy raised her hand for one of the managers who was scanning the dining room and he came right over and had someone bring over dressing.
For dinner, Amy got spinach and ricotta filled ravioli. It comes with a red sauce but she asked if she could just get olive oil and garlic on it instead, to which our server said “absolutely” and it came out just like Amy had asked.
I got the gnocchi. I always feel like it’s a gamble with gnocchi because if it’s too dense it’s like eating playdough but these were perfect. They were light and soft and the creamy-tomato sauce was very good as well:
We were too stuffed for dessert but I would definitely come back because I’d like to try their pizza. I didn’t see any pizza out in the dining room, but I’m curious to see what it’s like.
The pizza oven:
I think aside from a few little bumps like I mentioned (and Amy found cork and foil in one of her wines) I think it’s a pretty good place. The one thing I think they could work on is getting the staff to ask if you’re done with something before they take it away. A few times during the meal, different staff members would come over and quickly take something off the table without asking, like the breadsticks, the salad dressing that we were using to dip the bread in, something else-now I forget what, but things like that.
I know it’s another chain restaurant, I’d love to see a local business owner open up on a place on the strip but I think the reality is that this part of route 9 won’t financially accommodate a lot of small businesses. So for what it is, I think Papa Razzi is leaps and bounds above Bennigan’s and I’m happy with this replacement.
Here’s their website for more information: http://www.paparazzitrattoria.com
