History has also shown that Leo doesn’t particularly help with planning these events. If I recall correctly, the last time we tried to do this he was not exactly forthcoming with setting a menu and a price for us.
3 Likes
I haven’t written up my last trip to Bulgarini from last month yet (more out of laziness than anything else), but the service was a mess.
We called ahead to make sure they were open that night and serving dinner. We were told they were. What we weren’t told was that Leo wasn’t actually physically present yet at the store.
So when we get there (around 6PM?), it was just 2 young men who were working there. We didn’t know Leo wasn’t in yet. @SpockSpork and I obviously looked at the menu in front of the one of the young men and then said we’d like to place an order for food. Young Guy 1 looked totally dumbfounded (hello? We were just staring at the menu in front of you) and said something to the effect of, “Oh, Leo’s not here yet.”
Young Guy 1 does call Leo and is told that Leo is on his way. I don’t recall Young Guy 1 mentioning that there were waiting customers or asking how much longer it would be b/f Leo would show up.
Leo come in ~1 hr later and nods at us. I don’t think either of the Young Guys told Leo that we had been waiting for an hour b/c it took another 10-15 mins (or longer) b/f we were invited in to have a seat. And then, after waiting for several minutes at the table (which was sticky), I finally had to flag down Young Guy 1 to simply get some water.
Food was brilliant as usual (the focaccia at that visit was different and much better than I had remembered it being previously), and Leo was his usual warm self but, honestly, had I not been a big fan to begin w/, the service issues would’ve killed any idea of a future visit for me.
So when @Starchtrade mentions that it’ll be a sad day when Leo is “discovered,” my own thought (w/o any type of personal experience in the restaurant biz) is that it’ll destroy him b/c, IMHO, you can’t have inept service like that and expect to have a thriving cafe/restaurant, and I’m not seeing any evidence of attention to scalability. Howlin’ Ray’s has a long line b/c there really are just that many people wanting food. The place itself, however is a (terrifyingly) well-oiled machine (as is Pasta Sisters).
I do love Bulgarini, but I’m not in a huge rush to return for anything but the gelato b/c service issues aren’t hugely applicable to that.
5 Likes
I did the tasting menu with wine/beer-gelato/sorbet pairings for $125 per person. That’s probably a safe place to start at. There were 3 pastas and 2 supplemental courses in addition to fresh focaccia that came out twice while we were dining there.
To @paranoidgarliclover’s point, Leo’s operation is super casual since he’s got minimal staff. This uneven service would be off-putting for some. Who knows if he’ll ever be “discovered.”
2 Likes
Then I think he changed the date and alot of peeps passed.
It seems when everything comes together it’s lightening in a bottle. But it also seems like a risky proposition when planning an event. We’ll see what Mrs. Bulgarini says tomorrow.
1 Like
sounds like FTC needs to BYOServers
2 Likes
Great! I would love to try his food and wines. Hope it comes off this time.
Yah we had experienced something similar once (in our many visits). After that happened, we’ve called ahead, made it explicitly clear we wanted to eat dinner (whether it was Pastas only or with a Friday / Saturday evening meat course as well), and confirmed when Leo would actually be there.
The part-time help he’s hired (I think they are local high school / college kids) are definitely only good enough to serve Gelato and collect money, unfortunately.
The good news is that these days it’s Mrs. Bulgarini that picks up the phone, and she is much more on the ball than the part-time workers were in the past.
I’d communicate to her your exact wishes, make sure Leo is there at whatever time and then, and only then would you want to drive out for dinner. 
I hope one day he makes it and can hire a real waitstaff / professional servers, but in the meantime, yes, be warned this is super casual / hole-in-the-wall.
4 Likes
The way I see it is that he’s a gelato store that happens to have skill to make a good dinner too, in a home made rustic type of way. Since full dinner is more secondary, he hasn’t managed it like a typical restaurant. It’s more like trying to go over to someone’s house to have pasta.
Case in point, one time I went for dinner, most of the menu was not available except for two pastas. Leo wasn’t there, so some young man whipped it up for us. Pasta was a bit mushy and too much sauce. It was not reflective of Leo’s cooking, but half of the time that is what you’ll get at this store UNLESS you call ahead to make sure everything is settled.
Do you recall roughly when the last time was? I totally agree w/ the general idea your post, but the store has, at some point, been rearranged. It used to be clearly a store where the gelato was primary, and it had a couple of makeshift tables (and I really do mean, like, 2), and he just happened to have pasta.
The store has been re-arranged where there are now very long high top communal tables, and I think seating capacity is probably around 20? And there’s a printed menu (IIRC). That, to me, implies that the store is trying to grow. Part of it might also be the double-edged sword of being a well-regarded eatery on FTC; we’re more aware of what Leo can offer than are most other people, and that perhaps leads to inflated expectations.
IMHO, I almost think it’d be better if Leo tried to “hide” the food part of it to walk ins and would only offer dinner service to parties who makes reservations well ahead of time.
2 Likes
As it stands, Sergio must be in the house for the magic to work.
Sergio is still trying to master the marketing side of things. But the food/gelato/pairing part: Nearly flawless.
5 Likes
It was within the last year, most likely Fall of 2018, but definitely not in 2019. I did see a communal table, but don’t recall it having space for 20, maybe 8. There was a printed menu and I did see dinner advertised on both the website and on signage in the store. It was not a polished dining experience, from the seating to plates/utensils, to the service. For two plates of pasta and some gelato, I think we paid $60 with tax and tip, which is on par with casual places like Cento, except I didn’t get Leo’s best product.
That’s the lens through which I made the post above. Glad to see he’s trying to expand and improve.
Okay, Leo called me back. He can’t say the exact days in August he’ll be in Italy, but it’s not a good month to plan a dinner. They’re already starting to get bookings for July. But he thinks it’s the perfect month for our dinner and he’d be very happy to host us, if we can give him an answer soon. He said “You’ll love it”. Let me know.
7 Likes
Thanks for investigating! Sounds like I’ll have to live vicariously through your reports 
1 Like
Went last night thanks to this thread. We called yesterday for a same-day reservation, and Mrs. Bulgarini answered the phone. Looks like their system is that she takes the calls, and she texts the reservations to Leo, who is at the shop. We witnessed this happen because I had messaged one of my friends last night about how amazing the dinner was, and he promptly called for a reservation for tonight 
To answer some questions, this is the setup as of yesterday. It’s two high, communal tables that fit 10 diners each.
When we went last night, it was a full house! There was a bday party of 10 on the back table, and there was a four top on the near end on the front table. We were seated at the end. While we were eating, two separate couples walked in for dinner, and Leo was able to accommodate both of them. But if you had come in after that, you would have been SOL.
We arrived at 6:30 (which is when we had told Mrs. Bulgarini) - I’m not sure if Leo was there yet, but we waited, say 15-20 minutes to get seated. As you can see, we were the first diners at the time. All in, our meal lasted till well past 9pm. And between the service and the food, the meal was FANTASTIC. I’ll get this out of the way - this feels like going to someone’s dinner party… in Italy. If you are fairly picky about prompt service (and many rightfully are), you will probably be disappointed in your experience here. For instance, we had to explicitly ask the “servers” to get us new bottles of tap water every single time we finished one (and we downed 4-5 of them). But it wasn’t a big deal for us - because once we did ask, they brought the bottles promptly - it wasn’t as if we were forgotten. So come here when you have time (e.g., it would be a bad idea if you had a broadway show to go to after this), and if you have the patience, you’ll be rewarded with as warm and inviting a meal as you will experience this side of the Atlantic. Leo walks around and chats with all diners (we didn’t get to talk to him as much this evening as some of you seem to, but I assume that’s because it was a full house and a bit crazy). I’ll have the food pics below, but in general, this meal reminds me the most of the trattorias that I dined in when I went to Florence/Tuscany. The likes of Osteria Mozza, Angelini Osteria, etc., are rightfully lauded for their culinary excellence, but they don’t taste like home cooking the way that the food here does.
We each ordered the 4 course tasting menu. As an aside, we asked what the “Leo’s tasting menu” was - he answered that we would be there the entire night, and he would take care of us 
We decided we would save that for another night!
A hint of things to come
The absolutely decadent focaccia drenched in Sicilian olive oil and drizzles of salt. My one quibble with the food here is that we personally thought the focaccia was a tad oversalted, so we ended up wiping away some of the salt with our napkins. But the focaccia had the perfect combination of crispiness on the crust yet a nice chewiness in the middle, coupled with that ridiculous (and as others have mentioned, herbaceous) olive oil they use.
At this point, Leo gave us glasses of his home made wine. He makes a red zinfandel in SB - surprise surprise!
Ribollita Toscana - as good as everyone else has mentioned - layers of vegetables and tomato basted for who knows how long. I mentioned that the focaccia was a tad oversalted, but every single other dish here is very restrained on the salt, and instead relies on time, quality ingredients, and olive oil 
to coax the flavors. This dish was a hint of things to come - you could taste all the different vegetables individually, but as a whole came out to this amazingly flavorful stew that didn’t rely on salt for flavor.
First up - the gnocchi did patate al pesto - 'nuff said about this dish from everybody else. I’m usually not a gnocchi eater, but this was outstanding. The gnocchi were pillowy and not too rich. The pesto sauce was extraordinary - the brightness and fragrance of the basil just screamed out at you. It makes so many other pesto dishes seem like they had been frozen for 3 months before being served.
Gelato Intermission 1 - Leo had us try the peach gelato alone, which was already fantastic. Then he added a couple splashes of Spanish garnacha; we didn’t think the peach needed anything until we tried it with the wine!
Tagliatelle con sugo di carne - the most perfect, homey version of this ubiquitous Italian dish; we sat next to a couple who were just coming off a vegetarian diet and wanted to just eat vegetarian pastas + some fish; he asked if he could just serve them this “meat” dish to show them what it was about, and they assented (and were pretty glad they did!)
Il Brasato del Gronchi (short rib) - HELLO! I tend to think braised short rib is overdone these days, but I could eat endless amounts of this stuff. Stewed till it was ridiculously tender, and absorbing the flavor from the sauce (that I dutifully sopped up with the focaccia… or straight up gulped with my spoon)
Pici al aglione (handrolled pasta with garlic tomato sauce) - I’m usually partial to meat sauces, but this was my favorite pasta of the night. The pici was the perfect chewiness, and the tomato sauce was bright, just acidic enough, yet rich from the hours of cooking (and olive oil).
The before and after photos of the pistachio and bordeaux pairing
For dessert, we were told pick gelato of our choosing. The SO picked the blood orange, and I got the tiramisu. I enjoyed the tiramisu, but was jealous of the blood orange - really the essence of the blood orange, chilled and so refreshing - it was a nice end to the refreshing meal.
My favorite dishes were the braised short rib and the handrolled pasta, but if you had just “stuck” me with one of the other pasta dishes, I would have gone home a happy camper.
A few things others have mentioned - yes, the sauce to pasta ratio is pretty high, so that’s technically “oversaucing”. However, I’ve never complained about having too much sauce or meat 
, and because the salt levels in the sauce are restrained, and you actually just get waves of tomato/oil oil / other veggie flavors in the sauces, I don’t think it overwhelms the pasta. If anything, you can scoop enough sauce to match the pasta you’re eating, and you can save the remaining sauce for the focaccia. For me, oversaucing is a problem when it makes the dish too salty.
Two, yes, there are copious amounts of olive oil in each of the dishes, to the point that you can see the residual olive oil outside the sauce. I loved it, but others might be sensitive to that.
Also, one thing to add about serving size - we got the tasting menu, so you can see the sizes in the pictures. One of the couples next to us ordered full size servings - I would estimate those are about double the size of the portions we got.
Shocker - I loved this meal and loved the experience and would go back in a heartbeat.
15 Likes
Hi @NYCtoLA,
So glad you liked the meal, great report back! 
Yes, that’s a great way to put it… as if you’re going to a dinner party at someone’s house in Italy. Very casual at times, and it can drag on compared to a standard restaurant’s pacing and service.
I love their pasta sauces as well, and yes, Leo’s tomato sauce is extraordinary. Even though it’s vegetarian, there is so much flavor in there and is easily one of the best pasta vegetarian pasta sauces we’ve tried around town. There’s real soul to the cooking in this place.
You should’ve just added another 2 types of gelato to your meal to try more of the amazing flavors at Bulgarini!
And yah, Leo’s wine pairings with his gelato are stunning! Really surprising flavors that come through and change and complement each other.
2 Likes
Excellent report!
IMO it’s the best dining experience around!
I’m glad the food was delicious.
If I were peeved by having to wait 15-20 minutes past my reservation time simply to be seated at a completely empty cafe, I wouldn’t consider that being “picky,” but to each his/her own. ::shrug::
4 Likes
Great report @NYCtoLA!
Over saucing and over olive-oiling sounds like a recipe for more delicious focaccia (sans extra salt) to sop up all the goodness… problem solved.
Seems like Leo and his wonderful Bulgarini are gettin’ busy, folks. I have a call in to find out his exact dates of availability in July - then we can decide which dates work for everyone. FYI, it’s a bit like “who’s on first?”. I ask for availability and he asks how many people. Hopefully, we’ll get somewhere.
TBC…
I get that. But I give Leo more leeway since it’s just him and an assistant running the gelato shop. He also gets leeway since a dinner here is more akin to dinner at a friend’s house than a restaurant. My husband loved how casual it was.
1 Like
I will join you all in spirit! Would love to go try the food and tasting menu, only had his gelati once some years ago (and he didn’t have pistachio by the cup, only to go by the pound or more).
Does he do Trippa Alla Romana?