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Last Update: Jan 9th, 2017
Zuckerellos Fort Lauderdale

Zuckerello's Restaurant

3017 E Commercial Blvd
Fort Lauderdale FL, 33308
(954) 776-4282
Overall Rating
3.2
Food
Service
Ambiance
Value
Last Review
03/28/2016

Details

Hours: M-Thu 11:30am-10pm, Fri-Sat 11:30am-11pm
Attire: Casual
Parking: Private Lot
CC: Yes
Alcohol: Full Bar
Prices: Moderate
Outside Dining: No
Reservations: Yes
Delivery: no

Pros

Nice, Comfortable Restaurant
Fair Prices

Cons

Boring, Standard Menu
Uninspiring Food

Insider Tips

The Early Bird is crowded

Critic's Review

My cable went out at 12:45pm, so I decided to head out to lunch earlier than usual. Something new in Fort Lauderdale is that Zuckerello's is now open for lunch. They're known for their legendary early bird special; the bar is packed with blue hairs at 5pm. Don't even try to get into the place before 6pm.

At 1:30 on the Monday after Easter, the place was dead empty; so empty that I had to ask if they were open, despite the signs on the building. They put me in a booth and gave me a lunch menu.

They have a pretty nice bar here but it didn't seem to be manned for lunch.

Zuckerello's Bar Area

This place isn't owned by the Zuckers anymore; it's not clear that they ever did fully own it. It's had a deluge of ownership additions and deletions over the years; in 2010 they opened a restaurant in Aventura and closed a few years later. They had a pizza restaurant in the Best Western in Boca in the early 90s. Karen Hanlon designed the restaurant in Aventura; this place has a pretty standard layout with nice if not outdated decorations.

Zuckerello's Dining Room

A fidgety server came over and I ordered an iced tea. My extra lemon request yielded one additional wedge.

Zuckerello's Iced Tea

The lunch menu is reasonably priced, with all of the boring, obligatory items available. Anything that can be made by a line cook; there's no broccoli rabe or long hot peppers in this place. I ordered the Eggplant Parm, which is what I always order when there's nothing interesting to order.

Lunch comes with bread and a salad with creamy italian. No choice of dressing.

Zuckerello's Bread Service

They give you both pats of butter and a tub of garlic sauce; I don't get the garlic roll thing, particularly when it's jarred garlic. I wouldn't cook with jarred garlic, and I don't want it on my bread. This is the 1990s way to serve bread; Olive oil would have been better. It was pretty good bread, but with pasta I don't really need bread also.

The salad came out right away. Weeds with other standard stuff. I like red onion so this worked out.

Zuckerello's Lunch Salad

A decent dressing. I knew after eating the salad that I'd be taking some of this home.

Zuckerello's Lunch Salad w/Creamy Italian

Music is odd for an Italian restaurant: George Michael, Dean Martin and Michael Bubl.

My server waited until I was done with the salad before fetching the eggplant; it took a few minutes so they probably just throw it under the broiler to melt the cheese.

Zuckerello's Eggplant Parm

The eggplant was pretty good, although it's unusual for a restaurant to slice the eggplant crosswise. The pasta wasn't properly salted and the sauce was a bit pungent; typical South Florida "Italian" food.

Zuckerello's Lunch Eggplant Close up

A few more tables came in after 2pm; I think some of their regular clients were happy to not have to wait until 4pm to have dinner. The kind of people you see at Carrabba's at 3pm.

I asked my server to box up my leftovers and she came back without the check; asking me if I wanted dessert. Kind of strange; usually boxing up leftovers means you want the check. When she brought my check, an uncomfortable exchanged ensued:

Her: "How was everything?"
Me: "It was fine"
Her: "Just Fine?"
Me: "Yes, it was fine. Good"
Her: Something mumbled about having high expectations.
Me "I'm From NY" (saying something that I hate when other people say it, as if all food in NY is good).
Her: "All of our customers are from NY".

Dear Server: Have you ever had really good Italian food? Why put a customer in the uncomfortable position of having to praise mediocre red sauce food?

Conclusion

Food-wise, you could swap the signs at Il Mulino on Sunrise, Tedesco's and this place and you wouldn't know the difference; standard offerings, bland food. There's no Italian grandma in the kichen, nor is there one consulting, because no grandma would serve pasta cooked in unsalted water. It's a good value with the bread and the salad. Certainly a better choice than Kaluz. The food is about the same as Tedesco's, but this is a much nicer restaurant.

Review 12/28/11

Zuckerellos 2011

Zuckerello's is a friendly neighborhood restaurant with good food and a friendly staff. That being said, if you're not a regular you may feel out of place.

Zuckerello's seems backwards. You walk in on a Wednesday night, and all of the tables are empty. You get to the bar and their isn't a seat available. And its not business people eating alone at the bar; its just where the "scene" is. Now sometimes that's a good thing, but here the scene is 65 and over. Maybe 70 and over. These are the "regulars" who come here for a social scene. I'm not sure who all of the people in the video on their web site are; but they're not the people who dine here.

There's a nice big oval bar in the back with a couple of big screen TVs; the Heat game was on.

Zuckerellos inside

At 8:30 many of the blue hairs have gone home to bed, so you can usually get a seat at the bar. I'd checked the menu and decided on the veal parmesan; a "specialty" listed for $20. They start you off with a basket of crusty bread with a cup of "garlic oil", which is really a cup of chopped garlic in oil. They're sort of like garlic rolls with the garlic on the side. I like it better this way than getting rolls dripping in too much jarred garlic; you can choose how much garlic you want here. A runner brought out the veal parm; they don't leave any space on the plate here.

Zuckerello's Veal Parmesan

Everything is served with "daily vegetables", which don't really go with veal parm and spaghetti. Zucchini, squash and carrots; those veggies you spent most of your childhood trying to avoid. The veal is pretty good; pounded thin, breaded with enough cheese. The sauce here is only so-so, but overall this is pretty solid food. I ate about half of it. Considering the bread and vegetables it's certainly a meal and a half for $20.

Zuckerello's is perhaps best known for their early bird special, From 4pm to 6pm, they offer most of their menu for the regular dinner price and add a choice of soup or salad, coffee or tea and key lime pie. You can forget about getting a seat at the bar.

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Zuckerellos in 2009

Comment Policy Add Comment
Administrator
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Zuckerellos was shut down in December for food temperature issues, specifically in their salad bar. Go for the cup of soup instead.
walt len
Reply
They do not have a salad bar....Walt ft laud.
Administrator
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The "salad bar" in the kitchen; where they make the salads, I assume. Salad bar is what they called it in the report. They were assessed a $640 fine.

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