If you go
› Where: Puleo’s Grille, 6108 Artesian Circle, Ooltewah.› Phone: 423-803-2271.› Website: puleosgrille.com.› Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday.› Price range: $8-16 lunch, $12-$28 dinner entrees.› Alcohol: Full bar.
Puleo’s Grille describes itself as a fusion of Italian and American Deep South cuisines, two cultures that create the most decadent and delicious dishes imaginable.
The Chattanooga location in Ooltewah is new, but this is a chain with three Knoxville outposts and one in Alcoa, Tenn.
My lunch buddy, Rick D’Andrea, is well qualified to assess the Italian elements of just about any menu. Rick’s Nonna (grandmother) was a cook for a popular Sicilian restaurant in Manhattan’s Little Italy. And Nick paid for a chunk of his New York University tuition as a waiter at the legendary Barbetta, a 110-year-old Manhattan restaurant whose dining rooms look like a Venetian palace. Barbetta serves Piemonte cuisine from Italy’s northern region near the Alps.
Puleo’s doesn’t aim to serve dishes as authentic as either of those two venues. Instead, it focuses on the sort of ingredients lovers of Italian food would enjoy, then prepares each dish so the flavors stand out. You will find the usual staples such as spaghetti with meat sauce. But you won’t find a heavily breaded chicken parm drenched in canned cheese. Puleo’s respects ingredients too much to smother one with the other.