La Locanda
1220 White Horse Road
Voorhees, NJ 08049
I am sorry in advance for the length of this post, but I absolutely am in love with this restaurant. I have been there a few times. This Friday night my family and I had plans with close family friends to have dinner there because we did not get to have our usual get-together before Christmas. La Locanda is our usual restaurant for our end of the year get-together as it is a favorite of both of our families. It is hands down the best restaurant that I have been to in terms of food. It is a small Italian restaurant owned by a man from Italy named Luigi that has many Italian staff members as well. It is a BYOB, but they will serve you limoncello after the end of your meal. It does not get much more authentic than La Locanda. It is reminiscent of an Italian restaurant set in the hills of Italy
Our meal started off in a haze of appetizers. There were 13 of us at the table so we ordered quite a few appetizers, two of each, and shared them around the table. We started with broccoli rabe that was sautéed in garlic, olive oil, and served with homemade sausages. The broccoli rabe was seasoned perfectly, and the garlic and olive oil were a match made in heaven for this plate. The broccoli rabe was tender, flavorful, and it tasted exactly the way it should when it is prepared in the authentic Italian fashion. The sausage was also fantastic. It was cooked perfectly and complemented the broccoli rabe well.
We also ordered the fried calamari with hot pepper, lemon, and marinara sauce. I love fried calamari in most restaurants, and the fried calamari there is at the top of a short list of places that do it very, very well. The calamari had just enough breading on the outside to complement the tender, flavorful octopus on the inside. Drizzling a bit of lemon juice over the top of these crunchy little morsels was a fantastic addition before the perfection was completed by dunking the calamri into the house made marinara sauce.
For the first time at La Locanda, I tried the grilled octopus appetizer, and I would eat this as an entrée if I could. One of the people I was with told me that he has eaten at hundreds of Italian restaurants, and he has never tasted anything like it in his life. Knowing the man, I take that statement very seriously and I would agree with him even though I have not tried it anywhere else. The octopus was super tender, and it tasted so amazing. It was charred on the outside, but still very tender on the inside. The texture was great because it was not rubbery like it can be in other forms. The lemon juice and the olive oil enhanced the flavor to new heights.
Grilled artichokes with lemon, olive oil, and garlic is a special appetizer that is not usually listed on the menu, but is typically available to order. The baby artichokes were scrumptious. They were completely charred on the outside, and they were covered in the perfect amount of lemon juice that left them immensely citrusy, which I found amazing.
La Locanda offers brick oven pizza that I had for the very first time in my most recent visit. We ordered the Laceno pizza, which incidentally is named after the old name of the restaurant. The pizza is topped with arugula, diced tomatoes, and fresh shaved parmigiano reggiano. These flavors meld together perfectly on the crispy, thin crust.
I had ordered the Caesar salad previous to learning that the rest of the table had ordered a mountain of appetizers, so I was a bit more full than I would have liked when I ate it. Regardless, I ate the entire salad because it was magnificent. The dressing was absolutely fantastic. It was the perfect balance of cream and citrus, in a way that I had never tasted before. It had the perfect amount of croutons and shaved parmigiano reggiano on top, and the fresh cracked black pepper rounded of the entire combination nicely.
Thankfully La Locanda is a traditional Italian restaurant and serves the meal in many different courses, because otherwise I never would have been able to finish my meal. The next course was a handmade cavatelli pasta with a creamy tomato sauce. The pasta was rich and flavorful, and the sauce was delicious. It was the kind of sauce made me want to dunk my bread into over and over again until there was no sauce left!
Finally our entrees came out, (I wasn’t complaining, it just took a while because we had so many courses served to us). Last time I had been to La Locanda I had wanted to order the dish that I ordered this time, but I was distracted by a special item. This time I did not allow myself to be distracted and I ordered the papardelle telefono. Papardelle is a wide, rustic style pasta. Like all of the pastas at La Locanda, it is made by hand somewhere in Italy and then flown in to the States. The remainder of the ingredients in the papardelle telefono were meatballs in a housemade marinara sauce with melted mozzarella cheese on top. The meatballs had so much flavor! You could taste the garlic and basil in them, without having them overpower the taste of the meat itself. The sauce and cheese were a wonderful touch. They completed the dish perfectly and made it one of the best things I have ever eaten!
Naturally I had to taste what the people sitting around me ordered for dinner as well so that I would know if I should order it some time. My friend sitting next to me ordered whole wheat penne with asparagus, sun dried tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, and white wine. This had recently replaced the whole wheat orecchiette that used to be on the La Locanda menu. It was a very good dish. Sundried tomatoes and asparagus always serve great together as a combination. I would surely recommend this dish to anyone.
My brother ordered the veal sorrentina with a side of potato gnocchi. Veal sorrentina is what La Locanda calls their veal parmigiana. I have to tell you that this is the greatest veal parmigiana I have ever tasted in my life! First off, the veal was the size of a large dinner plate, and it was topped with a decent amount of sauce and mozzarella cheese. The veal was breaded in an amazing way. The breading was perfectly coated around the outside of the veal, which left each and every bite crispy and succulent. The veal on the inside of the crust was incredibly tender; it almost melted in my mouth. I have never eaten this as a whole meal, but I can tell you I will most definitely be ordering it for my meal the next time I go to La Locanda. The gnocchi was also great. I find it difficult to eat a lot of gnocchi because it is very heavy and carby usually, but this gnocchi was light and fluffy, and tasted as homemade as any pasta I had ever had.
We moved onward to dessert after some more wine and a long break following the entrée course. I ordered the bananas foster cheesecake. It sounded very original and unique, so I thought I would give it a shot. I was a little skeptical because I do not usually enjoy desserts that have alcohol in them because they usually taste too much like the booze, but this blew me away. You could not taste any alcohol; all you could taste was the banana and the cream! The cheesecake was light, fluffy, rich, and scrumptious. The graham cracker crust on the bottom was the perfect amount of crunch to go with the cheesecake. La Locanda usually serves a homemade ice cream scoop on the side of every dessert, and this night’s flavor did not disappoint. The chocolate scoop was as good as I have ever had. It had small chunks of toffee or nuts in it that were a delightful little treat with each bite.
I also tried my brother’s chocolate mousse cake which was phenomenal. The mouse was creamy, the cake was fluffy, and the whipped cream just made it to die for. I seriously wanted to take the plate from him!
I tried the canolli of my friend sitting to my right and was not disappointed there either. Through my experiences I have found that canollis are usually either very good, or very bad. This was one of the very good variety. It was a huge canolli! The cream was luscious, and the hard crust was a real treat. We washed down our desserts with the limoncello that they offer, which is incredible. As with most of the menu I am sure that it comes from Italy, so there is really no way for it to be better or more authentic.
If you have never been to La Locanda, or never heard of it for that matter, check it out. I am almost certain it will knock your socks off, so get out there and try it!
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