Antico Pizza Napoletana — Restaurant in Alpharetta

I shop and dine at Avalon quite a bit and have been wanting to try Antico Pizza for a while. I had my opportunity the evening of July 12th.

To start, the menu is minimalistic and has an arrogant tone online with all of the ways that Altico Pizza will not accommodate customer needs. I wrote that off I initially as I always see that they are busy and must be good to afford the rent.

Upon arriving, my anticipation quickly went into a downward spiral. You enter and wait in a line to order pizza while tactfully telling your friends to secure some seats at one of the large, family style benches/tables. The atmosphere was relatively loud, but more so due to the constant yelling of order numbers when pizzas were ready. I guess issuing a number to a customer to have a staff member recognize and deliver the pizza would be too much work - instead- they bark out number and do very little to look for the customer (essentially you go to them). If you think you are going to make any modifications to your order, forget it. We were met with a staff that had literally zero customer service skills and just wanted to get our order and move onto the next person. $50 for 2 pizzas and a cup of wine.... They only offer one beer and a handful of wine selections that are served in cheap plastic cups. If you want a soda; get it yourself, out of the cooler occupying valuable dining room floor space....

The wait was not bad, but we had to sit next to a bunch of kids on one side and a family reunion on the other side.

Once we had our number yelled out, we were treated with 2 pizzas - both lacking any consistency as far as shape, distribution of toppings and burnt edges. The kicker here was that they delivered 2 pizzas but only got one of them right - we quickly decided that we were not going to waste our time with getting it corrected.

The pizza did taste good and the dough had a good flavor (where it was not burnt). Was it worth $50 for the food, plastic cups, endless yelling of order #'s and a horrible customer experience? Absolutely not!!

This business needs to lose the arrogance, train it's staff better and understand the importance of good customer service/experience. Sure, they will do well for a bit, but that honeymoon will not last. I will never go there again when I can go to Marlow's (10 yards away) get much better food, a comfortable table, extensive beverage selection and great customer service.

Oh, and one more thing. The fact that when you pay (by credit card) they make you sign on a tablet where you have to select a tip quantity of 10, 15 or 18% - you can put nothing but you almost feel guilty if you do not tip. So what is the tip for? The customer service? I think not.

This may be a great gimmick to take a bunch of kids out for overpriced pizza but I would recommend saving your money and visiting any of the other restaurants in Avalon to have a far...

WARNING: I visited on 10.12.23. I did not see the 83 food score until after we had eaten. I normally would not even go inside a restaurant that scores that low and take a risk.

Antico is good pizza made to order. It is better than most other pizza I've had elsewhere. The selection is limited, but the price is reasonable for what you get--large size is the only size available. You have to stand in line to order, but they bring it to the table (and the bus the table after). You have to get your own condiments at a separate station, and get your own drink out of the cooler. Beer appears to be available, but I did not realize that when I was ordering. They appear to have two beers--Peroni and maybe Coors light. But I saw some other bottles and some liquor bottles in the adjoining coffee shop. It has a European blue collar working vibe going, and there is not very much seating inside. The kitchen is viewable from the seating area, so you can watch your pie in process. The oblong pies (all the ones I saw were not exactly round) come out on a square cooking sheet with parchment paper. This is great if you have kids because the cooking sheet is not hot even when the pizza is.

Don't be mad about the three stars--it is not The Palm, so three stars is the top of the stand-in-a-line to order pizza place where you can take inventory of the to-go boxes and cleaning supplies while you eat. It is a three star vibe and there is no shame in that at all. The service was polite, but the only real "service" is taking your order, hollering your name and bringing the pan to your table then picking up after. I gave the pizza 3 stars because it tasted clean and fresh. I don't think there was anything not listed on the menu in my pizza--no preservatives, no GMO, no forever plastics. Just flour, water, cheese, and toppings. Everything you need, and nothing that you don't. But our lasagna pizza, has almost no red sauce, only a handful of ricotta cheese dollops, and the shredded meatballs were only on about 1/2 the slices, but the crust was pretty good. All-in-all it was a solid 3 star pizza but could easily go up to 4 stars with more toppings more evenly distributed.

I would go back, but I would try a different...

We ran in here for a quick bite in between movies. The place was very busy on a Saturday around 5:30 but our pizza came out quickly. Staff were friendly and efficient but we didn’t like the pizza that much and I wasn’t a fan of the seating.

First, we had the lasagna pizza. It sounded like we’d be getting a sloppy meat and cheese delight but it was quite lacking in toppings. We found it to be very light on sauce and pretty dry although the flavor of the meat was good. I can never decide if I like the slightly burnt flavor of a brick oven pizza crust or if it tastes just that… Slightly burnt. Here’s the thing. Antico has won Michelin awards for their pizza so obviously it’s critically acclaimed, but it wasn’t our bag.

The majority of the seating here is also cafeteria style, where you’ll be sharing a long table and bench seating with other people, other groups, other folk’s drama, if they’re having it. There are individual tables outside, but it was a dreary, rainy day, so we didn’t really have the option to go out there.

Don’t expect to dine leisurely. Because it was busy, people were aggressively hovering waiting for our seats. We stood to leave and a woman who’d been right over our shoulder literally hopped onto the bench beside my son before we even vacated the table to ensure no one else took the seats we were abandoning.

At the front of the restaurant there is also a coffee shop. At this hour it was quiet and warm in there, and smelled delicious, but we didn’t have a chance to sample any of their coffee or desserts.

I recognize that a lot of this review is personal preference; You may love a thin crust, lightly topped, slightly charred, brick oven pizza and you may find the imposed congeniality of food hall seating to be charming, but it just...