Twenty-three years is a long time to keep a restaurant open, and longer still to keep it feeling like the same place it was on day one. Besa’s has managed both. Garland’s own tourism site sums up owner Al Shala in one line: he waits on guests like he’s running a five-star restaurant instead of a casual Italian spot. Anyone who’s eaten there more than once knows exactly what that means.
Besa’s opened back in 2002 and has spent every year since being the restaurant a neighborhood quietly leans on rather than the one that shows up on anyone’s must-visit list. Family owned, family run, BYOB, no corking fee, the kind of spot where the owner knows your name and you know his. It’s grown to a few locations around North Dallas and Garland over the years, but nothing about the feel has changed. Homey. Unhurried. Built for a table that plans on sticking around. One regular’s whole review amounts to two things: the pizza’s great, and there’s a Masonic picture with the founding fathers hanging on the wall that he can’t stop thinking about. That’s the kind of detail that tells you people notice everything in a room this small, because there’s nowhere else to look but around.
The menu is long and it doesn’t cut corners. Start with the bruschetta or the fried mozzarella, then move into the baked pastas, all of which come with a side of homemade rolls: manicotti, lasagna, cannelloni, stuffed shells, or the pasta sampler if the table can’t settle on one. The tortellini alfredo keeps coming up as the regulars’ order, rich enough that skipping the appetizer entirely isn’t a bad call.
The chicken and veal dishes are where the kitchen really stretches: chicken marsala, a chicken piccata built on capers and white wine lemon sauce, chicken artichoke with sundried tomatoes, and a chicken parmigiana that regulars ask for lightly breaded rather than fried hard. Want to go bigger, there’s lobster ravioli in vodka sauce and a seafood special loaded with clams, calamari, mussels, and shrimp over linguini.
Pizza gets real attention too, thin-crust Neapolitan on one end and a 17-by-12-inch Sicilian thick crust on the other for anyone feeding a crowd. The stromboli, stuffed with sausage, Canadian bacon, pepperoni, hamburger, and cheese, is the clear standout on the sandwich side. If there’s any room left after the rolls, get the tiramisu or the limoncello cake.
Besa’s is open Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday until 10 p.m., closed Sundays. Bring your own bottle, settle in, and don’t rush it. Nobody there is going to make you.
