La Locanda

Great Italian food. Very fresh, flavorful and authentic. It’s a BYOB, so don’t forget to bring your favorite chianti to compliment a wonderful meal.

Went for lunch and they were packing up to move to a different location. The owner wouldn’t tell me where on when, and now it’s closed with no forwarding address. Strange!

This is by far the best Italian restaurant in South Jersey.
The veal Milanese is a MUST HAVE. It is the best veal dish I’ve ever had. And anything with a lamb ragu is just incredible.
I have been here 4 or 5 times and have had fantastic experiences each time. Luigi, I think he’s the owner, is a very nice, welcoming man, and makes us feel like family.
The reviewers complaining about the prices should prolly stick to «Chez Olive Garden» for their Italian dining. And anyone complaining about the quality of the food either works for a competitor, or is one of these Unilocal Warriors, who wanted a free meal for waiting 20 minutes for their food or something, but didn’t get it.
I wish I could give 6 stars!

we found several lackluster Italian restaurants during our short stint in South Jersey. La Locanda stood out as by far the most enjoyable. The owner was always friendly and engaging… though it could have been that he liked my wife… but anyway :-P The atmosphere inside is so much more than the strip mall exterior façade implies. The food is fresh and delicious. We never had a bad meal. I can’t offer the 5^th star because I did find it a bit pricey by South Jersey standards, and I’ve had some damn fine Italian food in my life, so can’t say LA Locanda is «the best,» but it is a VERY good restaurant.

Good Food — Poor service — Rude management

Wonderful from start to finish !!! A great Italian restaurant with BYOB. What a way to start Ira’s Birthday weekend.

The food is good but extremely expensive for what you get. $ 25.00 for chicken parm with mushy angel hair pasta and then charge $ 2.oo extra for another kind of pasta. Way way too many rules and regulations.
$ 5 TO SHARE, $ 2 TO SPLIT A DISH, nothing comes with the main coarse. Everything is Alacarte so it gets pricy
The bread sucks. In an Italian restaurant, come on.
Vitos pizza has amazing Italian food dinners !!! Half the price.
Oh yea, the waiter was dripping sweat from his head profusely on our food???
Not worth it for all you people that are in love with this place. I don’t get why. 3^rd time there and still think the same thing.

Perfect! Food does not get any better. I don’t think I could go anywhere else for italian food. Only issue is that I wish I knew about this place earlier. So delicious! The best! Great wait service too! Water was never empty and food came out right when you would expect.
UPDATE
Went there again and they charged me $ 9 to change my sauce from white/​red to vodka. the service is also horrible. The food was great but the over charging and the staff make me not want to come back.

La Laconda is a small Italian restaurant that uses the freshest local ingredients. Portion sizes may seem smaller than the typical chain restaurant, but that is because it is serving healthy portion sizes, as well as balanced meals. My family has been coming for years and it still remains one of our favorites in the area. The sautéed octopus app is must!

My family goes here a lot and we always are so impressed and pleased with our experience. Great food, great staff, great environment. I usually get pasta, a bunch of appetizers like pizza and salads or a steak. You can’t go wrong with whatever you chose to order because it is always done right and cooked to perfection.

This is honestly one of the best Italian restaurants I have ever been to — it’s very comparable to some of the finest Italian dining you can find in NYC. You can’t go wrong with any of their dishes as they are all really great. I won’t even begin to go into my list of favorite dishes, but they have all the traditional Italian dishes that one would expect from chicken parm to many delicious pizzas. The one food recommendation I do have to make is the sausage broccoli rabe appetizer. I typically don’t even like broccoli rabe, but this dish is on a new level.
I see that there are many complaints about the service, but I personally have never had an issue with it. I have always found everyone to be very friendly and accommodating. If you are in the area, definitely go!

Overall, not impressed. Reservation were made for a 5:30 dinner, and when we arrived the staff seemed surprised to see us at 5:30 sharp. Hmmmm. Our table was not prepared, and we waited about 10 minutes for the folks to put 2 tables together. Unacceptable.
Marco was friendly, but he did not know what the specials included when asked. The bread is joke, all 4 pieces of them. The female helper was quite rude. After we finished supper we were shown the desserts by said female, and she did not know what was in them, and gave us an attitude when we asked her to please find out.
I truly believe some the issues at hand, is a language barrier. The food was good, not great, but the service overall, and uniformed, semi-​rude staff staff made this visit painful. Don’t waste your time/​money here there are much better local options.

Five stars at all times! Food –5 stars, service-​5 stars, everything about this restaurant is very special! Every meal has been a special five star experience

Food was good service was right on, was disappointed. With a party of 8, there was a $ 3 a person. Cuting fee for a birthday cake we wanted to bring,…come on we dropped over$ 55 a person in a byob

Since Laceno Italian Grill closed or merged with La Locanda we haven’t been there since. This is going back some years ago. Italian food for us is not really an option cause we make it at home. However, on rare occasions we’ll venture out for good Italian food. Laceno was very good so we hoped La Locanda would be too.
Eh … is about all I can say. We had the Venturina pizza as an app and lobster ravioli as our entrée. The pizza was a bit bland and was more like arugola salad with cheesy dough. The lobster ravioli had a tasty sauce but the ravioli was too thick and not fresh. The portion was a bit small too.
Overall our impression was … eh. While service was friendly it was very slow. It’s a good thing we brought wine! While we had a good time it just points out how we always felt about going out for Italian. It’s just not worth it cause it’s so much better and easier to cook at home.

In a nutshell, decent expensive Italian food, disinterested service.
You can find this place in a strip mall near the old Echelon Mall.

Some of the best Italian food anywhere. I don’t know what peoples complaints are about. The food is exquisite. Everything is delicious and the prices are average for Italian restaurants in the area. The sausage and broccoli rabe is amazing and so is the fried calamari. If anything is available with lamb ragu, don’t miss it because it is phenomenal. The pumpkin cheesecake is out of this world. So light and delicious.

I was a little skeptical of trying this restaurant considering that some of the reviews are not good. At first bite, I knew I was glad to take the chance! We frequented this establishment on a late Sunday afternoon. They open on Sundays at 3:30. There were a few other patrons too.
The octopus that we ordered was cooked to perfection. It was grilled just right and full of flavor and the right combination of crispy and tender. Yum. The second appetizer we ordered was the charcuterie dish. Very nice. I was in the mood for pasta in garlic oil and jumbo lump crabmeat and I didn’t see that on the menu but the chef made it special for me. It was just what I craved. My friend ordered the Bronzino ($ 36) which she thoroughly enjoyed.
The prices were Philly prices but in their defense it was Philly quality. The service was very personable and communicative but it was a bit slow paced. Not a place to go in a rush. Top that off with it being a BYOB and now we are talking! Very good experience!

Exceptional Italian restaurant. There are loads of Italian restaurants in NJ and I only occasionally would use the adjective «authentic» when describing a place. I have to to say that La Locanda is in this rare category and it has become one of my new favorite places.
Pasta is prepared perfectly, and the meat plates are wonderful as well. The grilled calamari is some of the best I have ever had. I also have to say that there are always wonderful specials. Everything tastes fresh with a great presentation.
BYOB keeps the prices quite reasonable as well.

Maybe too much time in Philly restaurants with more energy. A beat up shopping center and a somewhat tired atmosphere inside the restaurant (although I love the Flyers stuff)
Food was good. Gnocchi was average. Pizza with prosciutto was good but did not expect the room temperature toppings. The veal Milanese was just ok. Too greasy for my liking.
At over $ 100 for 3 entered and 2 appetizers I know of much better values in the area. Still think Sapori is the best Italian in South Jersey.