If you’ve been craving the comfort of authentic Italian food, look no further than Mamma Lucrezia’s Italian Restaurant in Bellefonte. Chef Maria Albegiani is serving up classics like eggplant parmesan, shrimp and crab alfredo, pizzas with all kinds of flavorful toppings, salads, Italian sodas and more. 

Her special for Restaurant Week is fresh made manicotti noodles with a sausage and crab meat mix with mascarpone cheese, making the dish really creamy and garlicky. She tops the pasta with her famous vodka sauce. 

“I made it a couple of months ago and was like, ‘Oh my God, I have to make that again.’ So this was the perfect opportunity,” owner and Chef Maria Albegiani says of her featured menu item. 

For Restaurant Week she will have dining room service for the full week, which is a change from their current dine-in Friday and Saturday hours and to-go orders on other days. “Since Covid it’s been a real challenge to find staff,” Maria tells us. She would love to have her restaurant open for dining service more often and feels like Restaurant Week could help her move in that positive direction.  

The challenge for Maria this week? “I just have to stay away from the manicotti this week because it’s the kind of thing you want to eat all day,” she says straight faced. After sampling the decadent dish, we get it.