Bites Nearby: Iavarone Café

You could stand on a corner and look around until a restaurant sign draws you in. But we've got a better idea. Each week, New Hyde Park Patch picks a great restaurant either in town or nearby that is worth checking out. Here's this week's choice:

Iavarone Café

Right beside the well-established gourmet food store in the Lake Success Shopping Center is their one and only affiliated sit-down restaurant, . Serving lunch and dinner seven days a week, the dining room is a hot spot in the area for quality Italian fare.

“Large portions, good prices, and the best ingredients,” is how Managing Partner Larry Caputo sums up the secret to the successful restaurant, which is now celebrating its fifteenth year in business.

All of the above is just what one would expect from a name like Iavarone; the New York institution with four total European-style marketplaces including its New Hyde Park location is known for selling top-notch foods and Italian specialties at reasonable cost.

Many of the items found on diner’s plates at Iavarone Café come right from next door.

“We use some of the finest ingredients and we get them from our partners, the Iavarone Brothers.” Caputo said.

Along with pizza and calzones, a selection of sandwiches, panini, wraps, pastas, salads and soups can be ordered for lunch or takeout.

On the more formal dinner menu you will find grilled fish, pasta dishes, steaks, lobster, veal and lamb chops. Top selections include the lobster ravioli with shrimp, and the "Orrechiette alla Barese": homemade Iavarone sausage with broccoli rabe and orrechiette pasta.

Beginning on April 3, Iavarone Cafe will be participating in Long Island Restaurant Week with a three course dinner prix fix menu for $24.95. 

Iavarone Cafe, 1534 Union Turnpike, New Hyde Park, (516) 488-5600; Monday to Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.; Sunday, 12:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. http://www.ibfoods.com/cafe/.