We were in Western New York two weeks ago for a quick visit to see my parents. On the way in we always stop in Hamburg, a suburb of Buffalo on Lake Erie to stay at my sister-in-law’s condo. We were there only for a couple of days and went out to dinner one night. We wanted pizza and wings but didn’t feel like traveling far to the places we usually visit for that food. You can read about those places (Duff’s and Bocce) in past posts (see the links at the bottom of this post).
We ended up going to Butera, a newer restaurant right in the town of Hamburg. After getting the recommendation from a close friend of my husband’s sister, we looked at the menu online. It looked like it had what we wanted. We’re particular about our wings. They need to be fried to a crispy state and the sauce has to be vinegar based. We were advised to ask for them extra crispy.
After pursuing Butera’s website, we set off for the restaurant. The first question? Do you have reservations? Hmmm? It was a Monday night. It shocked us a little but were told it was a 30-minute wait and decided to stay. My husband said the website said reservations are suggested, but not required. We ended up waiting 15-20 minutes instead of thirty before we were seated. It was clear that it was a wait staff shortage that kept them from opening more tables and asking for reservations.
But, once we were seated everything moved along quickly! We tried local microbrews and wine.
The cabernet I had was delicious with berry undertones and fewer tannins than some I’ve had. And both my husband and his sibling tried a blood orange Hefeweizen of Ellicottville, the ski-country outside of Buffalo to the southeast. They both enjoyed it.
We got twenty wings, half mild and half medium, extra crispy. They came with celery, carrots, and blue cheese (of course). For the pizza, we ordered a large white pizza that had garlic, oil, tomatoes, and cheese on it. The food arrived in a timely fashion and we dug in. Everything was delicious!
Then, a funny thing happened. The owner appeared at our table with one wing! He said that he didn’t know if we had counted but informed us that we were shorted and only got 19 wings! (We had not counted.) He brought our 20th wing. You can see this on the plate in the picture to the right above. It was a funny and welcome encounter! It also gave us a chance to tell him that everything was delicious! He seemed very happy to know we enjoyed our meal and drinks!
The experience at Butera was so good that we’ll probably choose to return there on future trips to Western New York. The only thing I didn’t get to have on this trip was Beef on Weck. But, it’s good to save something to look forward to for future visits!
Ciao!
Mangia bene!
Other posts on Buffalo Wings and other some other foods local to Western New York:
In Search of the True Buffalo Wing Recipe
The Apples in My Orchard 