This edition of the pizza quest involves a few oldies but mostly includes new touristy pizza places. We had 5 separate sets of visitors in Rome over the past month and a half which meant many excuses to go out for dinner and try new pizza places. So although some pizza places weren't the best quality this post does make up for it in quantity. I do have a few joint and solo guest posts from my visiting pizza brother who has reviewed pizzas in Rome and is now trying pizzas in other parts of the world to help compare the differences.
Pizzeria spaghetteria Pasta e Pizza - Via Chiantigiana 33, Panzano in Chianti (Tuscany)
There are several things to keep in mind with these pizzas. One was that I had just finished biking for 36km through Tuscany which is not known for being flat, so I was a little bit hungry, and second these cost 11 Euros......Combined. I've paid up to 13 Euros for a pizza in Italy so this was pretty unique. We tried to get a table but they were booked up for a few hours (I think there were only a few restaurants in town but was still very surprised that the pizza place would be booked up) so we had take out. Each were 5.50. They weren't the best pizza's I've had by any stretch of the imagination, but they were pretty good. Also since we were in a hotel we didn't exactly have many utensils which is why we devoured these with coffee spoons....
I probably could have eaten a third.
Price: 10/10
Service: 7
Ambiance: 7
Taste: 7
Overall: 8/10
La Focaccia Via della Pace 11
http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Restaurant_Review-g187791-d788092-Reviews-La_Focaccia-Rome_Lazio.html
You really can't go wrong with this place. It has very thick crusts and big servings and most of the pizzas are only "pretty good" but you can't really beat their gorgonzola, walnut and pear pizza with a white Mozzarella cheese base.
Price 8
Service 8
Ambiance 9
Taste 9
9/10
Chicco di Grano - Via degli Zingari 5-8
http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Restaurant_Review-g187791-d1239623-Reviews-Chicco_di_Grano-Rome_Lazio.html
A perfect place in a pinch. Although this place has a pretty poor trip advisory rating (one of the recent reviewers complained that there wasn't tomato sauce.... They will be frequently disappointed by about half the pizzas in Italy then since many are "white" or cheese based - and so so good), I actually still enjoy it. The pizzas have a thick crust and aren't amazing but the location is great and they always have room. The service is pretty quick (although getting the bill is still equally long here as in other places), so its an old easy pick as it is the closest good pizzeria near our apartment.
Price 7.5
Service 7
Ambiance (indoors 6, outdoors 8.5)
Taste 8
Overall: 8/10
Da Francesca - Piazza del Fico 29
Truffle pizza!
http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Restaurant_Review-g187791-d983620-Reviews-Da_Francesco-Rome_Lazio.html
This is another famous restaurant and pretty touristy with people outside taking photos of the sign. It is tiny inside though so is always full with frequent lines. I decided to try to truffle pizza which was pretty amazing. It was a little overpowering but considering it was around 12 Euros, I'm glad that there were a lot of truffles on the pizza. Very good ingredients. Service is pretty poor and you are jammed in at your table with no room but it is worth it every once in a while.
Price 7 (considering it did have truffles on it)
Service 6.5
Ambiance 7
Taste 8.5
8/10
Wanted - Via Leonina 90
http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Restaurant_Review-g187791-d1903542-Reviews-Wanted-Rome_Lazio.html
So average. This is a big restaurant in the centre of Monti. It always seems closed but we thought we would try it as I was with a group of around 12 people and knew that it would have space (Chico di Grano also is huge inside so has space for lots of people). Unfortunately it was very average. I had the four cheese pizza and it wasn't bad but really nothing special. They did have alcoholic cider though (even if it was just Strongbow...) so that helped. Everything else was fine, service, price and setting but really not worth going back unless you are with a big group or other places are full.
Four cheese pizza
Price - ~8 7/10
Ambiance 7/10
Service 7/10
Taste 7/10
Overall: 7/10
Hostaria al Gladiatore - Piazza del Colosseo 5
Four cheese - so average
http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Restaurant_Review-g187791-d1012381-Reviews-Hostaria_al_Gladiatore-Rome_Lazio.html
This was actually worse than average. The pizza family was visiting and were staying at an apartment very close by. I came by on my lunch break so didn't have much time so we went here, despite my warnings that it was likely to be pretty bad.
Well, I was right, but it was still worth it. The pizza tasted like it was bought frozen from Canada and wasn't much better than you could get back home. But as it was literally across the street from the Colosseum it had a captive audience (and there are very few places to eat near the Colosseum as the Forum, Circus Maximus and Palintine Hill take up a lot of space) so they probably survive off of families whose children see that it says Gladiator and it is close by.
Price 6 12!!
Service 6
Ambiance 9
Taste 5.5
Overall: 6/10
Hostaria al Gladiatore - Piazza del Colosseo 5
This gets a few extra points for being beside the coliseum,
but it really can’t make up for the quality of the pizza. This was not only my first pizza here but
also my first meal at all in Italy. As
such, you have to also factor in the fact that this was my first time dealing
with Italian service and restaurants.
I kept it simple and went with the traditional margherita
pizza, which I remember being about 12 euros.
This pizza made me wonder what the heck my brother was doing
wasting his time reviewing all this pizza.
This wasn’t a horrible pizza, certainly, but it wasn’t anything to
literally write home about.
Price – 6
Service – 6
Ambiance – 8
Taste – 6
Overall 6/10
La Focaccia - Via della Pace 11
http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Restaurant_Review-g187791-d788092-Reviews-La_Focaccia-Rome_Lazio.html
Best non traditional pizza in Rome. The people who have reviewed this place before have obviously not had the pear, walnut and gorgonzola pizza, or somehow do not know how to use computers to review pizzas.
La Focaccia
If my first pizza shook my faith in Italian food, this pizza
completely reaffirmed it. Not only was
the pizza spectacular, the location ambiance and service were all great. Nestled in beside a small church (one of the
ubiquitous Santa Marias), and in a labyrinthine ivy covered building, this
pizzeria got me excited about pizza. We
even got to sit outside on a beautiful sunny day.
I have to admit that
the pizza that my brother had (pear, walnut and gorgonzola) was really what
makes me give such high praise to this restaurant, my thick crust tomato and
mozzarella pizza was still a very high quality.
Price - 8.5 (I think 7 euro)
Service – 9
Ambiance – 10
Taste – 9
Overall 9/10 (pear and walnut would give it the 9.5)
Grazia and Graziella Largo Fumasoni Biondi 5
http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Restaurant_Review-g187791-d4020129-Reviews-Grazia_Graziella-Rome_Lazio.html
The pizza brother and I shared this pizza along with a giant salad so we are co reviewing the pizza.
Grazia and Graziella in Trastevere Largo Fumasoni Biondi 5
http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Restaurant_Review-g187791-d4020129-Reviews-Grazia_Graziella-Rome_Lazio.html
This was a busy place in Trastevere near several busy piazzas. It was starting to get cold at night so we weren't concerned about having to sit inside where there was still some seating available. It was very trendy but I felt that it was over the top and wasn't a big fan. It was also over crowded so people were bumping into each other and it was hard to get up for any reason. Still people seemed to enjoy it and the atmosphere and I had fun trying to read the vintage Italian newspapers taped to the wall talking about products from the 1950s. It really didn't seem to consider pizza as their main dish (which, although they should since pizza is a delicacy, was probably good as it wasn't that great).
It had a few toppings on it but nothing that was very thrilling.
Price 7
Service 8
Ambiance 7.5
Taste 8
Overall 8/10
An old favourite. Few places rival L'Archetto on Via Germanico
http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Restaurant_Review-g187791-d1536418-Reviews-Pizzeria_L_Archetto-Rome_Lazio.html
Hard to say much more than this place is near perfect except that it isn't across the street from my house. They may need to move.
Still the best four cheese pizza in Rome.
9/10
A true fish pizza in Vernazza - Cinque Terre
That's the way seafood pizza should look.
La Plancia SAS - Via Renato Birolli 151, Manarola - Cinque Terre
This place was great because we were on a beautiful coastal
hike through northern Italy and were happy to find a nice place down by the harbour
to have lunch. The area was well known
for making pesto and there was a pizza on the menu that was advertised as
simply a pesto pizza. What came was
quite strange, because perhaps it should have been listed as a “red sauce pizza
with mozzarella and huge piles of pesto being completely drowned in oil.”
I get that pesto sauce has a whole lot of oil in it, but
this was just excessive. We had to take
out a piece, wipe it, and then encourage the oil on the rest of the pizza to
drain into the vacancy on the plate. It ended up
being an absolutely delicious pizza once much of the oil was gone, but too much
of the oil soaked into the crust for me to give this real points. Although the pesto was amazing, the rest of the ingredients were pretty average - so combining this with a high quality pizza would be amazing.
Price – 7 (8 Euros)
Service – 6
Ambiance - 8
Taste – 6
Overall 7/10
Osteria Pizzeria di Agrippa on Via dei Cestari, 38
Pizza fungi
http://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g187791-d2301985-r127235580-Osteria_Di_Agrippa-Rome_Lazio.html
Well despite the first review on trip advisor claiming that this was the best pizza in rome, it really isn't. It's actually pretty touristy and slightly above average. I feel bad for the people who had to eat at places during their vacation that were all worse than this place. I gave the honour of taking the official pizza review photo to my pizza mum but as she is still getting used to technology and her iphone (They have the internet on computers now?) I was a little skeptical of the photo, hence the concerned look on my face. But the pizza came out fairly quickly and it was enjoyable, but nothing special at all.
Price 7.5
Service 7.5
Ambiance 7.5
Taste 7
Overall 7/10
Chicco di Grano
This was the last meal the pizza family had before leaving for pizza-less Canada.
For our last night in Rome, we went to a place in Monti that
John had been to a number of times before.
On his recommendation, I tried an interesting pizza that John describes
as “a salad on a crust.” It was
essentially a pizza but without most of the binding agents such as cheese or
thick sauce. It ended up being
delicious, having really nice fresh toppings like arugula and tomatoes and such
and the focaccia like base was brilliant.
We met a nice French man and his son from the adjacent table and I was
able to practice my French a touch.
Price – 8
Service – 7
Ambiance – 9
Taste – 8.5
Overall 8.5/10
Grazie a Dio e Venderdi - Via dei Capocci 1
http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Restaurant_Review-g187791-d2304368-Reviews-Grazie_a_Dio_e_Venerdi-Rome_Lazio.html
This is one of the higher ranked restaurants (of all kinds) in Rome at 583 out of 7 044. There is often a lineup and they take reservations for many of the customers. I went here for dinner with the newest pizza wife who strongly recommended it. It was a pretty cool place and was very busy. This pizza was huge (they seemed to be very haphazard) and had a lot of chicory on it. I have never seen this much chicory before. I think there was more chicory than cheese or pizza dough. So although all the ingredients were excellent, I felt that I was eating most of a cabbage with some bread and cheese on the side. The service was good but I think they are a bit flustered as in between ordering the pizzas and receiving the pizzas we were asked what kind of desert we would like or whether we would like the bill. We replied that we would like the pizza first and she ran off after remembering that we hadn't eaten yet.
Price 8.5
Service 7.5
Ambiance 7.5
Taste 8
Overall: 8/10
Pizzeria Libretto – Toronto
Having just returned from Italy, I (apparently not tired of
pizza) wanted to compare Italian pizza to the best Toronto could offer. There are people who will argue that there
are better pizza joints, but Libretto is extremely highly regarded and touts
itself as being authentic Neapolitan pizza, helped along by Italian owners and
a wood fired oven.
Unsurprisingly, the pizza just couldn’t compare. It was certainly identifiable as being
authentic Italian pizza but that didn’t make it good Italian pizza. I had a simple margherita pizza again (with
the twist of using buffalo mozzarella) and my dining companion had a cremini
mushroom pizza with rosemary and gorgonzola.
Both were good, certainly better than the standard fare, but just not
enough to justify the price or hype.
Price – 5 ($17)
Service – 9
Ambiance – 9
Taste – 6
Overall 7/10
Grazie a Dio e Venderdi - Thank god it's Friday
Here was another different pizza which had feta on it which is very rare in Rome. It also had onion which usually isn't an option. I'm a huge fan of a lot of different options on pizza - I love pineapple, feta, olives, broccoli and red onions on pizza and would often order that when possible back in inferior-pizza-Canada. The olives here were pretty average and for some reason they couldn't understand what I meant by Coke Zero so I got regular coke, but overall it was really good. I kept feeling that this place was amazing and that I just needed to find the right type of pizza and it would rank among the best in Rome. This unfortunately was not it, but it was still very good. Time to try a four cheese pizza here next.
Price 8.5
Service 7.5
Ambiance - very authentic and busy - 7.5
Taste 8.5
Overall 8.5/10
If you have made it this far down in the post, know that pizza wife #1 is going away from Thursday through Monday so I am taking suggestions and appointments for pizza on the evenings of Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday as well as for lunches on the weekend. Let me know if your available and where you want to try. I still have about a thousand pizza places left to try in Rome.
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