L'italiano Ristorante — Restaurant in El Valle

Let's start with the parking space. Usually it would fit 7 cars, but with poor arragement and no signaling, well, it ends up being 5 at best. They have a parking lot in the rear, but it is not signalled, and the owner would like to be notified of any car parked there. Perhaps he should pay more attention to what's happening in his business front. We ordered a pizza, which was cooked in a brick oven. The mass was good, as well as the sauce used, but it was a bacon pizza, and that was almost raw. Another item is the dogs. If you want to bring a dog, they don´t mind, but they keep a pair of dogs that just sleep on the floor next to the tables, and that basically run after any trucks that happen to cross nearby the restaurant. How about keeping it clean? The helpers are good at their job, but their menu is short (as in not having certain ingredients), and the types of food stuff they offer means that their preparation requires time. Perhaps a more streamlined menu would help. Pizza place is after all an American invention by Italian immigrants to NYC. Doing the same here means you gotta make similar sacrifices to the menu. Also the prices are high. A pizza, a fruit juice, and a coke, for 19.00, not including tip. Same menu in Panama City goes for $15.00. I used to go to the restaurant that was there before, and the prior dining room is currrently used as a depot. Very dificult to miss from the current...

The food we had at dinner this evening was very good. My wife and I shared a Pizza Parmagiana di Melanzane (never had pizza with eggplant before) and a mixed salad. We also had one tiramisu, one creme caramel, and one small bottle of San Pellegrino sparkling water. It was $41 before tip. While the food was good, it wasn't worth that much. It didn't help that we were charged a dollar more for the pizza than the price on the menu and $5 for the sparkling water. It's a good thing I just ordered tap water!

I probably would have given this place four stars for very good food at inflated prices, but the waiter lied to us. When we were seated and smelled cigarette smoke and mentioned it to him, he said that it was smoke from the pizza oven. That was simply BS. The outdoor oven was 15 meters from where we were seated. Someone was in the building smoking. We were right outside a window, and the smoke intermittently wafted across our table. When I called him on it, he just smirked.

Update: leftover Pizza Parmagiana di Melanzane was great for lunch...

We ordered Hawaiian and Roma pizzas, the second of which is pepperoni, ham and chicken. The pizzas are cooked using a brick-oven. The crust is fairly thick but very light and crispy on the outside. The size is ideal for one person with a big appetite. They also had a wide selection of Italian pasta dishes. I don’t say this lightly: This was the very best pizza I’ve ever had anywhere. Each topping’s individual flavor and texture really came through. I was really blown away. There are a lot of Italian options in El Valle and unfortunately we won’t have a chance to try them all, but if you’re in the mood for pizza, I would definitely recommend that...