Piola — Restaurant in Playa del Carmen

If you’re a real pizza lover, I’d suggest giving this place a miss. We ordered two Diavola pizzas, one on a gluten-free base with vegan cheese and one regular.

The gluten-free base came at an additional 100 pesos, which is quite steep, but I was curious to try it. Unfortunately, what arrived was more like a 1mm-thin tostada with a small amount of melted vegan cheese, no tomato sauce, and just four slices of what seemed like very basic salami. It really didn’t resemble a pizza in any way and was sent back straight away. Thankfully, we weren’t charged for it, which I appreciated.

As for the regular pizza, it wasn’t much better. It looked like something from a very low-end all-inclusive buffet. The tomato sauce was unusually dark and definitely didn’t taste like San Marzano as advertised. The base was flat, undercooked, and lacked any real flavour or texture.

On the plus side, the service was excellent. The waiter was kind, attentive, and very apologetic. I really felt for him, as he did his best in a tough situation.

As an Italian who has lived abroad for over 20 years, I’ve had pizza in all kinds of settings and don’t consider myself particularly picky. But sadly, this just didn’t come close to what I’d consider pizza, especially at these prices. Piola used to be great years ago, but something seems to have changed. I won’t...

My husband and I ate dinner in PIOLA last night (corner of 38th Street and Fifth Avenue in PDC). I ordered shrimp, which didn’t smell good. I was hungry - so I ate half of it anyway. I took the rest to a homeless dog around the corner who refused to eat it. Needless to say, I was throwing up all night and came to PIOLA the next day to inform them that their shrimp is bad. Instead of apologizing and reimbursing us for the bad food, the owner Juan Mandocer said that his food cannot be bad and that I came to “blackmail” him (he probably doesn’t know what “blackmailing” means). He also said that he is recording everything , as if threatening me with a legal action. Thus, in addition to getting terribly sick, I was treated rudely and accused of “blackmailing” (whatever it means in this context is for you to decide). But one thing is clear: if a hungry homeless dog refuses to eat this food, how can you serve it to a human? And how can you not accept responsibility for your bad food but instead go on the offensive and start accusing the victim of something you do not even know what it means? Anyway, our previous visits to this restaurant did not result in food poisoning but food never tasted good there. So if you do not want to end up throwing up all night and be accused of “blackmailing”, do not...

We picked the place cos kids wanted pizza and it has good enough ambiance to attract us. That's where it ends. Server was good and attentive, Alex, but drinks and food. Gordon Ramsey would have field day with description. Frozen margaritas were so good we left them a side after 2 sips. We ordered 3 pizzas , pepperoni and Hawaiian for kids and wife and I got arugula with Parma ham and cherry tomatoes. The dough thin as hair. Tortillas are 10x thicker, pepperoni was not pepperoni but some dried salami. Pineapple, canned and definitely not DOLE. Thinking about it I do not think they bake with topings on but throw them on that dry flour sheet with drop of ketchup. Again I did this for kids they don't care by my 6 years old told me pizza from Loves gas station is 100x better. It would be all good I would just leave if our server would not point out that I didn't leave enough tip. I left $6 usd on $60 dollar bill on food and drinks I didn't like. And he had the audacity to say it's not enough. No wonder there are so many places for rent on 5th Ave. This place deserves...