John S.
Yelp
It's always a bonus when an Italian joint offers capicolo, the spicy Italian ham known as gabagool on the long-running TV hit The Sopranos.
I wasn't familiar with it until I went to college in Eugene, Ore., and the old Acuardi's Old Town Pizza offered it. I love pepperoni, but it isn't even an Italian invention, but capicola is the real deal.
Miserable in this week's 100-degree weather, I decided to leave the heat off in the kitchen at home and looked up Pizzeria Sazio [Edit: apparently since this review was written, they've changed their name to Red Bench Pizza.] online. It even had a button to place an order from the computer.
It worked fine, but other than a confirmation page, I didn't get an email or any indication of when to pick it up. The whole time I was driving to the restaurant, I wondered whether I had indeed placed an order or not.
No worries. It was ready when I got there. It might not have mattered. With the blistering Marri Forno pizza oven cranking away at nearly 700 degrees, it wouldn't have taken long to cook one from scratch.
I can't say anything about service, since I got my pizza to go. Two of my fellow Yelp Elite friends, whose judgments I trust, were underwhelmed by their visits in January and February. I hope those issues have been cleared up.
While Pizzeria Sazio isn't in the same class as my favorite pizza places, Apizza Scholls and Ken's Artisan Pizza, both in Portland, they do a decent job. The $13 pizza was good.
It's nice to see a pizza restaurant at the same location that Casanova Pizzeria occupied for a dozen years. Owner Dan Guild lost his lease and shut down Casanova on Valentine's Day 2015.
The building's owner, Tom Allegrezza, thought he could do a better job offering pizza. He opened his own shop, Orbit-Fire Pizzeria, a few months after Casanova shut down. After another few months, it became Allegrezza's Italian Cuisine. The name change didn't matter. It soon closed and Pizzeria Sazio, owned by Kacey Montgomery and Shannon Lincoln, who also run Juniper on 8th Street, opened in January.