This chain has its tentacles everywhere, embodying everything that is soulless and wrong with the restaurant business: mass production of family-style food, prioritizing volume over quality without doing justice to any culinary tradition—not even to the Italian-American one. Mass-reproduced posters and faux-Old-World memorabilia are flaunted at this cluttered mess—Buca di Beppo will have your Italian grandmother rolling over in her grave to think that her descendants might think of this as somehow Italian. She’d also be appalled by the behavior of the kids—with all the running and screaming, it can look like an unsupervised daycare center. Hardly a date spot, this.

We call this cuisine “Italian-American 1.0.” Granted, Italian-American 1.0 is an authentic cuisine in its own right, but what of this attempt to look creative, too, by throwing together ill-executed dishes of trendy ingredients, like apple-and-Gorgonzola salad or grilled polenta with Gorgonzola and walnut spread? We’re not sure if that’s Italian-American 2.0, but we are sure it’s gross. Lasagne tastes reheated, its tomato sauce strangely minerally. Gnocchi are too dense, and spaghetti comes spectacularly overcooked, although fist-sized meatballs are actually surprisingly flavorful. Chicken parmigiana is the dark-horse winner here. It’s everything you want it to be: flavorful, cheesy, and delicious. For once, poultry comes through!

If you must eat this food, our advice is to starve yourself for at least two days beforehand. As Cervantes said, hunger is the best sauce.