Given its location and the other shops around, I didn’t realize how crowded it would be on a Saturday around 2 pm. It was pretty packed and we waited for about 10 minutes or so. By the time we finished eating around 3:30 it had pretty much cleared out and we were one of a few tables left.
From the outside, it’s hard to notice. There isn’t much of a sign and nothing draws attention to it. But the inside is lovely. It’s light, clean, airy, and simple. It feels so fresh. Love the ambiance, love the decor. Nothing fancy at all, but great. I’d go back more for the ambiance than the food.
Servers are definitely nothing to write home about – they are somewhat impatient, but nothing too bad.
The zero substitutions or additions policy sucks. There is NO reason to institute a policy like that especially with something like pizza. So you want to add X to your pizza? What’s the big deal? But here you aren’t allowed to. So bizarre. Anyway, I came here thinking it was going to be Neapolitan style, but it’s like a thin, cracker style pizza thing.
We got the Rosa (this would be called a Marinara at Neapolitan places) and the Margherita – the two most classic pizzas. First, the dough is nearly flat. No fluff to it. Not moist, but not even light considering how thin it is. Pretty dry, too crispy. Not a bad flavor, but not at all delicious.
And the tomato sauce – there was NONE of it. I mean just look at the pictures. One of the pizzas we ordered was a Rosa, which is no cheese, so basically the ONLY thing on there is tomato sauce with a few herbs. There was so little sauce that the pizza was dry and utterly mediocre. It had no flavor really other than the addition of garlic and chili peppers. The garlic was really nice and thinly sliced, but so few slices were on there. Chili was a great amount, not too much, but gave the dish pretty much the only flavor it had. It also comes with fresh oregano. Oregano is not the best flavor eaten plain, particularly when it is fresh – I tried to sub basil for oregano, but of course they have a zero substitution policy, so I couldn’t. They said I had to get the basil on the side as an extra charge, which really defeats the purpose because its supposed to blend into the pizza itself. So they brought me some leaves of basil. What exactly do I do with those? I don’t really sit around eating basil by itself.
The Margherita was better – even though the crust was the same and the tomato sauce as also pretty non-existent, the oils of the cheese gave it some moisture. Made it more flavorful. Had a good taste, but definitely nothing amazing. Also, they don’t use fresh mozzarella – just shredded.
One thing is for sure, though. The ingredients are so sparse and the pizzas are not very large, so you can definitely eat all of one and still feel like you could eat a bunch more.
The food looks really presentable and when I looked at other people’s dishes, it looked great. I saw a soup in particular that seemed nice.
I somewhat like the fact that the restaurant is sort of communal. They have communal tables and more secluded tables and the dishes are really meant for sharing with a couple people. They don’t have entrees, per se, so it’s a bit of a different style. It fits with the atmosphere of the restaurant.
I will say if I didn’t love the atmosphere so much and the fact that it seems really fresh, I don’t know that I’d give it 3 stars. The quality of the food doesn’t match, but it’s a nice place to go with a few friends and chat.
