NYCReview
photo credit: Alex Staniloff
Don Peppe
Included In
Don Peppe has no paper menu. Instead, there's a large board hanging on the back wall that is almost visible to the entire restaurant—almost. Not that you really need it, because the best way to eat at this South Ozone Park spot is to let your server decide.
Give them the reins and they’ll bring you just the right number of baked clams, advise you against ordering a salad, accost you for wearing a hat, and remind you that 12pm is a perfectly fine time for wine. And when your order arrives, they'll delicately place a few clams on each person’s plate, with one hand and two spoons.
photo credit: Alex Staniloff
photo credit: Alex Staniloff
photo credit: Alex Staniloff
Things have changed since Don Peppe opened in 1968—like the cost of a subway ride, which at the time was 20 cents—but the best parts of this cash-only, family-style Italian restaurant remain. The service is brusk, yet thoughtful, and the person calling to let them know they’re coming with a group of 22 in a few hours is treated with the confident nonchalance of a well-oiled machine.
To say that Don Peppe is strictly a big group restaurant, however, would be untrue. At lunch, you’ll see a few solo diners, drinking red wine and eating Shrimp Luciano pasta in a dining room covered in jockey uniforms and framed photos of horses. (This spot is about a mile from the Aqueduct Racetrack.) But Don Peppe truly shines when big platters flecked with sauce land on crowded round tables, so if it’s your first time here, come with a group. Hours later, after a long and lazy feast, you will stumble out onto the street, cash-poor and veal parm-rich, wondering just how many pounds of pasta this place goes through in a single day.
Food Rundown
photo credit: Willa Moore
Free Bread
photo credit: Alex Staniloff
Baked Clams
Fried Peppers
photo credit: Alex Staniloff
Shrimp Luciano
photo credit: Willa Moore