You Said It: Sapori's Restaurant Week Turnout

A Taste of Collingswood Restaurant Week ended Friday, March 25, and Sapori Trattoria Italiana Chef and Owner Franco Lombardo dished about this year's turnout to Patch on Saturday.

Located at 610 Haddon Ave., Sapori has been participating in restaurant week for the past six years. 

This year, however, Lombardo said there weren't an abundance of restaurant week dining requests.

Sapori's prix-fixe, 2011 restaurant week menu included four-course options for $35 per person.

Among those choices was the Costolette di Manzo—braised beef ribs with a red-wine demiglaze sauce—served with celery, carrots, onions, mushrooms and plated with marscapone cheese-flavored mashed potatoes. 

For pasta-lovers, Sapori's restaurant week menu also offered a Gemelli al Ragu di Vitello, a gemelli pasta dish served in a veal ragu sauce; as well as Spaghetti con Sarde, which featured a saute of Mediterranean sardines, raisins, cauliflower, pine nuts and onions, served over spaghetti in a plum tomato and white wine sauce.

And while A Taste of Collingswood Restaurant Week officially ran from Sunday, March 20 to Friday, March 25, Lombardo chose to cut Friday from the equation. Sapori's restaurant week menu was offered from Sunday, March 20 to Thursday, March 24.

"We just finished restaurant week for the sixth-consecutive year," said Lombardo this past Saturday. "It was good for us to see the number of people who came in for (restaurant week). But I'm not going to say that this year was the best.

"The past few years, it seems like many restaurant weeks are (held) quite often. It seems like everyone is doing it—not just Collingswood, but Philadelphia, South Jersey," said Lombardo. "And I think we're not getting the result we've gotten in previous years because of that. We've just got to come up with another incentive."