There’s a new Italian restaurant in West Boca and it’s excellent. Boca Italiana is located in Piccadilly Square (north side of Glades just west of the Turnpike), close to Jimmy the Greek and not just in physical distance. The Karaloukas family runs both restaurants.
Boca Italiana replaces Armadillo Café. The interior layout is the same, but the design changed. When you walk in the door you enter a smaller bar area:
The hostess will greet you and then seat you in the larger room:
There are about 15 tables, some for two or four, and a few larger tables for big groups.
And that brings us to the food, where a restaurant should shine and Boca Italiana does. Entrees include soup or salad plus garlic rolls. My companions had pasta fagioli and said it was good, with beans, pasta, carrots and celery. I had a salad which was fresh and colorful:
The garlic rolls were also good, and notably different from some other places as they’re not covered in oil.
We also ordered the garlic cheese bread, which was unnecessary but reasonably priced and enjoyable.
Service was also excellent. Before the entrees they offered to replace silverware and otherwise were readily available and responsive.
For entrees one companion had the veal parmigiana. It was a nice piece of meat, well prepared and with a traditional sauce.
Our younger companion was delighted with the angel hair pasta, which came with diced tomatoes and plenty of garlic.
I had the chicken scarpariello. The chef did a solid job of balancing sweet with spice, using two or three different kinds of peppers and better quality sausage than typical.
There is no standard dessert menu with the menu saying to ask the server for desserts of the day. We chose the blackberry cheesecake, which was outstanding.
Boca Italiana looks like a winner. While not cheap, the prices are competitive with other sit-down Italian restaurants in the area, and include soup or salad. A good example of the pricing is the veal parm at $19.95. There is also a lunch menu with most dishes under $10, and there’s a kids menu with dishes at $6.95.
Make reservations or call ahead. This is an especially good place to go ahead of a night at the Boca Black Box.
Boca Italiana is at 8221 Glades Road. Their website isn’t operational yet but their Facebook page is up and running. Phone is (561) 430-3170.
