Smithtown Restaurants

After having been to Butera's restaurant in Woodbury several times, I was looking forward to having dinner at their recently-opened location in Smithtown. I'd also dined at Smithtown House numerous times, which is Butera's predecessor at 65 East Main Street. So it was interesting to discover the updates that have been made to the restaurant's décor.

The interior space seemed larger, thanks to the new opening between the two main dining rooms. The restaurant's grand, dark wood bar, ceramic tile floor, pickled wood moldings, parchment color-washed walls, and attractive stone work make for a rustic, classic-contemporary atmosphere.

If you plan on visiting Butera's for dinner on a weekend, be prepared to wait an hour or more for parties of two to five, as it can get quite crowded in the evening and the restaurant only accepts reservations for parties of six or more. We were advised there was an hour and 30-minute wait for our party of two, but that there was some seating available in the bar area.

Since it was 7:30 and we were rather hungry, we decided to brave the boisterous crowd and accept the bar table, which was right next to the front window overlooking Main Street. Although it was somewhat noisy, we were grateful to have been seated so quickly. Midway through our meal the crowd at the bar thinned out a bit and the noise level subsided.

Service was a bit slow due to our waitress having to negotiate her way through the crowded bar area to get to and from our table, but she was friendly and accommodating enough. The dinner menu includes a large selection of "new Italian" fare including appetizers; salads; pasta and salad entrees; traditional Italian-American classics; chicken, veal, and fish dishes; as well as low-carb and lighter options.

We chose the exotic mushroom sauté for our appetizer and were treated to Portobello, shiitake and whitecap mushrooms in a delicious wine sauce, tossed with diced fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil over bruschetta points. This was the highlight of our meal and we'll definitely order it again in the future. For entrees, I ordered the rigatoni chicken and spinach and my husband selected the baked ravioli classico. The former consisted of juicy sautéed diced chicken and fresh spinach in an exquisite tomato cream sauce. The jumbo cheese ravioli were smothered in meat sauce and melted mozzarella. We also enjoyed a side order of Butera's signature chicken meatballs. Our apple crustado dessert was warm and flaky and was topped off with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Butera's offers lunch and dinner seven days a week. Lunch pricing falls between $12-$22 per person and dinner from $25-$45 per person.