"I dined here a week or so ago at the suggestion of my old friend, who had eaten at the place with his son and was very enthusiastic about the experience. I tend to take my friend 's enthusiasms with a large grain of salt (as an example, he thinks the execrable Greg Gutfeld on Fox is the funniest, most caustically on-point social satirist since Lenny Bruce; the enlightened might not-so-kindly refer to my friend as a reactionary zombie, but...being he 's my friend since high school, and has a fundamentally good heart...I 'll just say he 's confused and let it go at that. Anyway...back to the review... , but he was right about Lupa. Great food, great ambiance, great service.It 's situated on Springfield Ave., the main artery in Berkeley Heights, and might be easy to miss if you 're not looking out for it amidst the strip malls, mini-malls, gas stations, delis, grocery stores, fast food joints, chain pharmacies, discount clothing stores, diners, Dunkin Donuts (there are now at least 6...count 'em!...6 Dunkin Donuts in a 10-mile square radius, and at least 2 Domino Pizzas , etc., etc., that dominate the main drag of this town. You can park on the street near Lupa (if you can find a spot , and there is limited parking in the back.Thankfully, my friend was driving, and we parked in the back.Inside, the walls are white (which, being myopic, I was grateful for, as it added an element of brightness to the room; I find too many restaurants go for the dark cave look , and there are black and white photos dominating the far wall, although, given I wasn 't wearing glasses, I couldn 't really make out what the subject matter was about. Tuscan villages, Italian seaports, Sicilian mountains, I imagined. At one point, my friend said, There 's a picture up there that looks like it could be Sophia Loren, but I know she never had blonde hair. Given that Loren was often the subject of my fevered adolescent fantasies, I replied, No, she never did. Could it be Sharon Tate? Why would Sharon Tate be on the wall of an Italian restaurant? She wasn 't Italian. Intrigued in spite of myself, I walked over to the picture in question, eyeballed it up close, and walked back to tell him, No, it 's Brigitte Bardot. She 's not Italian. Why is she up on the wall of an Italian restaurant? Touche. I had no answer for that one.A young, personable man (I 'm assuming he was the owner, and unfortunately, I didn 't get his name came over to make sure we were comfortable and, following my Italian-American friend 's lead, engaged him in conversation about Italy (Lupa 's cuisine is based out of the Tuscany region . The young man 's family is from Italy, and he visits there often. My friend has a tendency to babble on...and on...but the young man was able to enthusiastically engage my friend in conversation and then disengage without giving offense, evidently noticing me sitting there silently at the table, getting hungrier by the second (I 'm Irish-German, but I 've traveled through Italy, have close Italian relatives and friends, and love Italian culture, but I know better than to get in front of the runaway train of my friend 's discourses when he starts talking on...and on...about any subject . Zoe was our server, and she was pleasant, friendly, efficient.We were brought a kind of bread and a kind of cold tomato puree (not sure what the name of it was , but both were fresh and delicious, bursting with flavor. I could have made a meal of just that. We were then brought a crumbly kind of toast (which my friend may have ordered as an appetizer that also was exceedingly delicious.I can 't remember what my friend ordered, but I had the Pappardelle with Pulled Short Rib, rosemary, mascarpone cheese, and tomato sauce. I 'm not really a connoisseur of pasta, but the Pappardelle was obviously home-made, and the dish was wonderfully tasteful, satisfying, and filli"
