Brad B.
Yelp
When I walked in I was thinking to myself, what the heck is going on here? All of these great reviews but not a customer in the dining room. There were a couple of women slugging some wine on the patio but other than that, a total ghost town. This was at about 5:30 PM. I'll fast forward a bit to let you know that the reviews held up and the dining room was bumping only about an hour later and thankfully I was posted up on the patio with the other wine-os.
Some initial confusion came when I went to order some drinks. The cocktail menu had all kinds of cocktails and one of them was a Moscow Mule that clearly defined vodka as an ingredient, as it should. So, if you have vodka you should be able to make a vodka/soda, right? Wrong. I was told that "we only have beer and wine," which is fine, just don't tease me with my favorite cocktail ingredients. Secondly, I was offered sparkling or flat water upon being seated and after ordering flat water I was served a $7.00 bottle. Quite deceptive but I'm not one to make a scene and took the hit without saying a word, but this should be declared to the customers and not a surprise. I can see this being a bigger issue for others, but I let it slide, my fault for not asking.
I ordered two pizzas and a caprese salad from our server when it was go time. The salad came out quickly and while tasty, it was pretty ugly and seemed skimpy with the tomatoes sloppily sliced in half. Maybe it's just me but I'd like to see the ingredients for such a simple dish to be manipulated minimally. A fat slice of tomato, a fat chunk of cheese, and neatly dressed with basil and olive oil. Let me do the additional chopping, I'm okay with that.
For the pizzas...
Rustica:
Fresh mozzarella, Italian sausage, mushroom, parmesan cheese. This is my type of pizza based on the ingredients. Simple but pungent with some high quality mushrooms. You can tell the parmesan cheese was high quality and the pizza seemed to be well prepared. Stay tuned.
Prosciutto:
Tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, arugula, imported prosciutto, shaved parmesan cheese. Another pizza that totally speaks to my taste profile as I'm a big lover of arugula on pizza. It freshens things up and cuts through the heaviness of a pie. I added a chunk of burrata and it made for a nice combo.
The pizzas, while tasty did lack structure and were reallllly floppy and didn't hold up under the weight of the ingredients, both of them. This went a bit further when I went to box up the leftover pizza and they stuck horribly to the peel that they were served on. I had to scrape it free with a knife to get it into the box because the toppings bled through so badly that it almost glued the crust to the peel. Not the best end result.
The last thing that rubbed me wrong was how quickly the server came to pick up the bill after I signed it... while I was still sitting there. This, to me, comes off really, really, tacky. I've waited tables and it was taught to me that you never grab the signed check while the guests are still sitting at the table. Trust that you gave good enough service that you are willing to wait for your reward, the tip.
This review went much longer than I anticipated but I thing everything I said should be conveyed to the business to be the best that they can be in order to serve the hungry guests the best that they can.