Tiara N.
Yelp
This is my parents' favorite pizza spot, so I was excited to finally try it. The last time we tried to eat here was on a weekend around 6 PM, there was a 2 hour wait, so we ended up going somewhere else.
Pizzando is a small and cozy restaurant with limited indoor seating, so this time we came early on a Wednesday around 5:30 PM to try to get seated right away. The hostess initially tried to put our group of 4 outside in 50 degree weather, but she managed to combine 2 tables so we could sit inside, which we really appreciated. You could tell she was stressed even though there was only one person in line ahead of us, but I think it might be because they handle a lot of online/takeout orders and she was constantly running around. They may be a bit understaffed(?), which would explain it. She was working hard, but the quality of service felt a little affected.
We ordered the calamari appetizer, focaccia bread, beet salad, and 2 pizzas. I would probably order everything again if I came back. The calamari is not what you might expect, it's not battered and crispy but chewy and served in a delicious sauce with a nice kick from the shishito peppers, as shown in my photo. We ended up dipping the focaccia in the leftover sauce and loved it. The beet salad was light and refreshing, a good contrast to all the carbs coming our way. The pizza was great and I especially loved the margherita. You can really taste the quality in the mozzarella, and the dough was fluffy and chewy.
Overall, the food was excellent, but I would give the ambiance a 3/5. Our waitress was fine but a little clumsy, and she asked to clear our plates a few times when we were still clearly eating... There were also tiny little flying bugs that kept hovering around our table. They wer SUPER tiny, even smaller than fruit flies but clustered together, and we had to keep swatting them away from our food. I am not sure if this is a regular thing or if it was just because we were seated near the door and they flew in, but it was a nuisance for sure.