Ardente — Restaurant in Mexico City

We were planning to eat at another restaurant nearby but they closed early. We walked down the street to get pizza for our super-picky eater and this place was a disappointment in many ways.

Our server was great, but the shop was playing really incongruous music (beach boys and the beetles type oldies) for the atmosphere. That was weird enough but the prices were crazy for what we ordered. There were 5 of us and then we gained 2 more. We ordered a pizza for our younger kids. My wife and I were planning to share the ravioli and our older son got the Cesar salad. My mother and law and her friend got a pizza to share as well.

We got a focaccia to start with. It was decent, but not a focaccia (they were at least honest about it just being pizza dough) and our kids liked the crust on it.

The pizza was fine, I suppose. We ordered a pizza with just pepperoni (which meant getting an expensive specialty and taking some toppings off, since there wasn’t any make your own options). The toppings slid right off of it and our kids refused to eat it. That part wasn’t the restaurant’s fault but it was a little disappointing and messy to say the least. My wife ate the insides and our kids ate the crust. It’s a good thing she had pizza to eat because the ravioli we’d placed to share was not even enough for me- they served me 5 ravioli. 5.

Ok to be fair the insides were delicious but the pasta on the outside was quite tough and thick. Not worth $20 at all.

My son said his Cesar salad was awful. The lettuce was wilted and quite bitter and there wasn’t much to it otherwise.

So we got a focaccia, two medium sized one-topping pizzas, a salad, and 5 ravioli (plus two cokes and two limonades) for 1700 pesos.

And I’m...

Good: Margherita pizza (DOP) was excellent. Very authentic with genuine ingredients. Reminded us of the pizza we enjoyed in Italy. Carpaccio Dimanzo was fresh and good (a bit shy of excellent). Both dishes came out very quickly. It's a small, cozy place with seating inside and out in the patio. A lot of locals seem to be patrons, so that was reassuring.

Bad: When we walked in, we did not feel very welcomed (a tall, slim server barely acknowledged us). After being seated, he (nor anyone else) came by to take any orders. Rather, two parties who were seated after us were attended to first and in a friendly manner. I had to flag him down to take our orders. Only when I complimented a different server (stocky, friendly gentleman) about the pizza, did the first server seem to take interest. Another minor thing was the mineral water I ordered was flat.

As tourists, this was our first time eating at Ardente, so I can't make any permanent judgement on the server as everyone deserves a benefit of the doubt. With that said, the Margherita pizza was really delicious, so they do own the bragging rights on that. So, bottom line, go for the food, not for the service, and...

Best pizza, worst customer support!

Eat-in experience 10/10 Home delivery & customer support, bad.

I used to order 3-4 times a week for 4 months, then pizza came completely cold despite our 300 meters proximity. I complained through DiDi but the Ardente restaurant declined my complaint. No refund, no apology. I stopped ordering for about 3-4 months and I attempted again yesterday. Same problem. Pizza cold, complain request declined.

Most probably it’s not entirely their fault. I dined-in a bunch of times and their pizza is baked for only 90 seconds, as a result it gets ready way ahead of the arrival of the delivery driver hence why it might be cold. But their luck of customer support is completely their fault and it's sad to see that they have one of the best pizzas around and at the same time they don’t value their customer enough.

Recommendations to the restaurant: If you know Uber/Didi drivers usually arrive later than the order it gets to be made, then delay baking. If order is ready before the driver, then leave close by the oven/warm surface. If a customer with 50+ orders complains, then consider offering him/her a refund/coupon or at least an...