Fennel Salad Fennel Salad
Stephanie's Italian

Stephanie's Italian

283 Bloomfield Ave, 07006, Caldwell, United States

Pasta • Salad • Lunch • Italian


"I have a dear friend (named Stephanie! with an upcoming milestone birthday (cinquanta! and figured a gift certificate from here would do the trick. (But first I 'd need to do a bit of 'recon ' myself to make sure this place was legit and I wasn 't sending her to some crummy restaurant that might jeopardize our friendship, you know? It 's a relatively basic/standard menu for an Italian restaurant (plus a handful of specials and we went with some pastas, seafood and pork chops. Everyone really enjoyed their meals. Lots of flavor. I 'd ordered one of the specials linguini in clam sauce pasta cooked perfectly, plenty of sauce begging to be sopped up with a hunk of good bread. But the sauce was oddly darker than usual and I believe it was because of a weird black stuff all over the clams which I 'm guessing was fresh basil that had been stored in the fridge/freezer before being put to use. After a meal like this my grandparents would 've said, abbiocco that sleepy, contented feeling that comes after eating a big meal. (Yeah, it was that kind of delicious portion of hearty food. The restaurant is warm, welcoming and those incredible smells coming from the kitchen were divine. (The back patio lighting while it snowed felt like a scene out of a Hallmark movie. Our servers were super sweet (although they did go MIA for a long spell... maybe the restaurant starting to get busy was to blame . No gripes about the cost. BYO. Parking lot (in the back .Outdoor dining available (weather permitting . I 'm happy to report the treacherous journey to/from Stephanie 's in the very first snowstorm of 2024 was worth the risk. (Okay, driving through Caldwell during the seasonal storm was rather lovely, to be honest."