Opened in the Summer of 2011, they “specialize” in brick oven wood fired pizza. I only saw 5 specialty pies to choose from on the menu, so I opted for the Margherita. Upon further inspection of their website, they offer traditional cheese & sauce pizzas as well. All of their pies are 12”, essentially personal size or shareable as an appetizer. As you can see in the picture, this is an unusual pizza and unlike any Margherita pie I’ve ever ordered. First of all, the chef burned my original pizza, pushing it too close to the wood-fired flames, blackening half the crust & undercarriage. He quickly made me a brand new pie in about 10 minutes and was nice enough to let me keep both pies for the price of one. While the dough came out heavily charred on the second pizza, it was actually soft in the middle to go along with a crispy & supremely crunchy crust. The dough had a borderline burnt flavor & texture but not too badly. The fresh mozzarella is decently creamy, melted well with an oozy & gooey consistency; however, the flavor is overpowered by the seasoning, salt, oregano & basil. If that wasn’t bad enough, the glaring omission of sauce destroys this pie, leaving it high & dry. According to the menu, they’re supposed to use fresh Roma tomatoes on this Margherita; but these are either sliced Brandywine or Better Boy tomatoes. Along with the seasoning, these are the kind of tomatoes you’d find on an Italian sub sandwich. Even crushed plum tomatoes or San Marzano would have been more fitting. The heavily seasoned & salty flavor dominates the cheese & dough on this sauceless atrocity. While the texture is somewhat tolerable, the taste is basically unbearable. I feel bad cause the people who run this place are really nice and their other Italian food looks great; maybe their pies with marinara are way better than this abomination of a Margherita pizza. As it stands, I can’t recommend this joint’s wood fired pies based on what I’ve seen & tasted.
