Don Peppe - South Ozone Park

A place that doesn’t get more authentic. Had the best baked clams of my life here. Portion sizes are big as advertised and I recommend to come with at least 4 pax to ensure you can try some of everything. The veal parm was phenomenal too. No cc which is find a bit outdated. Its 2024. Get over yourself, take the credit card.

Do not come here. as soon as we went in the owners were having an actual fist fight at the front door while the place was packed with customers. One of them even pulled a knife out on the other. Then after we waited for like a good 40 mins we finally got a table. The food was not good. The chicken came out dry as death valley and no flavor. They had bugs flying everywhere too. Then when we were getting ready to leave a male customer started yelling at the top of his lungsand cursing at the waiter about the bad service. And yes the service was bad for me too. the food should have all came out at the same time and it they brought each plate one at a time. not worth the money and the drama.

I went to Don Pepe for the first time today and we’ve had the worst experience. We were a party of 12, 9 of us arrived so I asked the host politely if we had to wait for everyone to arrive before seating us. The host then looked back to this table in the middle of the room, who was playing cards with 3 other people (I’m going to assume they’re the owners or managers) if it was ok to seat us. I then added that the rest of the party was 3 minutes away. The guy at the table then said with an attitude “then we’ll wait the 3 minutes, I’ll give you 5 minutes for support. If you sit down, you have to start ordering”. Off the bat, I should have left but because it was my brother in law’s birthday, I didn’t. Once we were all seated, we had a horrible waiter who kept reiterating that this is a family style restaurant. Yes, we get it! We know what the hell family style is. We wanted to order a lot of food (we love taking leftovers) because different people wanted to eat different things and again he kept reminding us it’s a family style restaurant. All the food came and we didn’t get enough food, we asked the waiter for another plate and he didn’t let us order more food! I’ve never been to a restaurant that didn’t let you order more food! The food was a typical American/Italian food, nothing special. There are other places that are just as good or not better and with way better service! Another thing was this place is completely rundown. The chair’s cushions were torn, the walls has marks and scratches everywhere. The whole place needs renovations, overall a terrible experience. Never again!

Very much out of the way, and probably not worth fighting the airport traffic to go there again. The linguine and clams, portobello mushrooms, and fish were as the waiter recommended: delicious and flavorful. Other than the recommendations, the waiter was a little impatient and brusque but not rude outright. They don 't have menus other than the large board in the back, which apparently has a 'typo ' about the raspberry tartufo. The other dishes we ordered: broccoli rabe, veal ala Don Peppe, peach sorbet and tortoni were just ok. Oddly it says they close at 9pm on the door but they started cleaning up around us around 8pm and by 8:30 we felt rushed to leave. It would have been fine but it also took a while for the food to get to the table after we ordered. Lastly, the air conditioning here is not great, so on a hot and humid summer night in NYC, be prepared to sweat.

*writing as a part Asian American having seen a previous comment suggesting this establishment practices racism or gives less favorable service to people of Asian descent or people of color My family and I dined at Don Peppe yesterday and could not have been more impressed. I primarily dine at a restaurant for the food first and Don Peppe did not disappoint. My family and I arrived at 5 p.m and were seated in the quiet, open dining room right away Because this restaurant is popular and can get busy, I recommend coming on a week day and before 5:30 p.m for best chance to be seated and served right away. I’m no fan of baked clams like the rest of my family who joined me for dinner yesterday, THE CLAMS WERE PHENOMENAL! We also enjoyed the linguine with white wine clam sauce (yes it’s as incredible as the reviews suggest) and we enjoyed the mussels in white wine sauce as well. The chicken parm, shrimp Luciano and Chicken Don Peppe were also excellent and I cannot say one negative thing about these dishes! My family and I would love to return and dine at Don Peppe again in the near future. I felt my family and I were treated respectfully by the Don Peppe staff who we interacted with, we were given service in a timely manner and all the food we tried was superb! The dining experience was all we could have hoped for!