Last night, my companions and I dined here. It was half-price bottle night. We split three pizzas amongst us: the margherita (as a benchmark), the Capricciosa (which is loaded with toppings - mushrooms, prosciutto, artichokes, onions, etc.) and a funghi e prosciutto. As some have mentioned, the pizza menu was truncated and there was a veritable overlap between the toppings on some of the pizzas, making them seem more alike and thus making the pizza menu seem even smaller.
Nevertheless, the pizzas were excellent versions of wood-fired, Roman-esque pizzas. I thought the topping-heavy Capricciosa was too much in the topping department, but amazingly, the crust was still crisp underneath that heft. The crust lacked a certain depth of flavor, but that's not unusual for a lot of wood-fired pizzas, I find.
Taking a cue from GWiv's post regarding GdA's
caprese, I asked in advance whether the tomatoes would be juicy and ripe, the server was quick to respond that "yes, they were" and that "they recently changed their tomatoes in the salad." The result: sublime roma tomatoes, perfectly ripe, and outstanding buffalo mozzarella. If you're hesitant about their
caprese, give it another try.
The wine list was limited. I don't quibble with that so much , but it could have had more Italian choices. The bottle of Italian white from Alto Adige was quite nice though.
The service, in a word, stunk. The server took our wine order and disappeared. The owner, who was nearby, must have heard my dining companion ask the table where our wine was because she scurried over and inquired if we had been "helped." She sent the server back, and he asked (again) if we had decided on any wine. It was a twilight zone moment because he really acted as if he had not seen us before when minutes earlier, he had actually taken our wine order from us. Even though I ordered the wine, he poured it for someone else to try. While this may be picayune, a more polished, better-trained server wouldn't have made that misstep.
It sort of proceeded that way the entire night, when Mr. Awkward would ask me to pass him the empty wine bottle to clear instead of taking four steps to the other side of the table to do it himself. And when our pizzas came, my caprese dish had not been cleared, and again, he expected me to clear it and hand it to him.
It was half-price bottle night. When the check came, what do you think we were charged? You guessed it, full price. When it was politely pointed out to him, he became defensive and claimed that the computer was supposed to automatically deduct it - it wasn't his fault. (He took it off, but I don't really care one lick why it appeared as full instead of half price.)
And so on and so forth. His service gaffes were so numerous it detracted from the whole experience. I'd go back for the food (especially on 1/2 price bottle night), but like hell would I be served by him again.