Angelo's Pizzeria & Ristorante — Restaurant in Florida

Highest Recommendation 9.8/10 for the pizza and 5/5 stars overall for the restaurant. I ordered the 16" specialty "Meat" option, which consists of Italian Sausage, Pepperoni, Ham, and Meatballs. I also added (fresh) Ricotta dollops and Bacon.

Crust: 3 day cold fermentation using authentic Caputo (Italian) flour. Cooked in Marsal pizza ovens at 550-575°. I asked for well done and crispy, and it was artisanal quality with a crisp and airy texture. Very flavorful and great chew. Great depth. Great structure. Great char. Perfect gluten development. 10/10.

Sauce: Homemade sauce. It was fresh and vibrant, flavorful and well seasoned. Perfect balance. Contributes to overall flavor. Tasty. 9.5/10.

Cheese & Toppings: High quality. Loaded. Best homemade Ricotta. The house made meatball was exceptional. Very good and flavorful sausage. Very good pepperoni. Ham was good, as was bacon. 9/10.

Size/Value: The pizza was the most loaded I've ever ordered, but also the most expensive at $30 for the 16" Meat, +$3 for ricotta + $4.50 for the bacon. $37.50 makes this the most expensive pizza so far, especially for a 16", but this is also the most loaded and had 2 premium toppings added to the $30 base Specialty Meat pizza. Given the in house made premium qualities, authentic imported ingredients and how incredibly loaded it is, I don't mind the price. 2 slices here would have filled me up but I had 3 because it was so incredible.

Owners Angelo Sr and Angelo Jr are a father/son duo, sharing responsibilities in operating both the Inverness and Citrus Hills locations. Angelo Sr is originally from Long Island (with family ties back to Sicily), where he worked in a variety of pizzerias and restaurants, bringing along the knowledge learned to this location. Angelo Jr mostly works out of the Hernando location currently.

They are involved in the community and partnered with the school district for a student reading program to earn free pizza by meeting teacher established benchmarks. Customer focused with the owner and manager checking in on guests and genuinely showing interest in their experience and enjoyment of their meals (Bonus +.1)

They use high quality ingredients, make their sauces/dressings in house, cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, use beef tallow in the fryers, and use fresh ingredients such as basil and parsley (no dried ingredients). The vodka sauce was the best sauce I've ever had out of any sauce in my life. (Bonus +.1)

Excellent service from April (who started at the original location many years ago as a hostess and is now married to the excellent pizza maker) with very prompt refills and Misty (shift manager) was excellent as well (she even offered me a steak knife as I'm 1 of the 8% that eats pizza with a knife and fork 😂 🍕 ❤️ Several long time employees (including JJ). They are experimenting with Detroit pizza and I was offered a sample, courtesy of Misty. Very crispy and delicious. Variety of pizza slices available. They had a pizza press years ago and Angelo Jr turned things around with a focus on quality, understanding the benefits of hand tossed. Screens are not used and are direct launched into the...

I was very generous with this score because I understand that places are having staffing issues. The real score was probably under 2 stars.

The guy at the counter was super nice. He was the epitome of customer service and this establishment is fortunate to have him working for them. I hope he's not the same guy who cooks the pizza, because the pizza was a big issue.

First of all, it wasn't an extra large but it was barely a large. Secondly, it was baked poorly. In fact, as far as a pizza bake goes it was one of the worst I've ever had, I'm sorry to say. We were at the original Angelo's just last week and we remarked how it was probably the best pizza we've had in this area. This is what makes last night's pizza so frustrating. The bottom crust was completely charred. Not the good char you might want on a pizza, the kind of char that makes it inedible. The parts that weren't charred were rubbery in texture. The top was very similar. The dough seems to have not been worked properly. That's the only explanation I can think of. If you look at the picture, you can see huge burnt bubbles on top. Normally I like a couple of smaller bubbles on my pizza, but those burnt bubbles were not something that tasted good. Overall I'd say half of the pizza was not very edible. I left it on my plate.

On the plus side, and again this is very frustrating, they do seem to use good ingredients. The sauce and cheese were pretty damned tasty, just like our experience at the original Angelo's. Also, the garlic knots were cooked fine and tasted good.

I wanted to like this place. It's relatively close to my home and like I said, the counter guy was great. I'd chalk it up to them just having an off night, but that's what the last guy said. How many off nights can we give you guys? I'll end up giving them another chance...

Best place in town for Italian, it has a simple menu that packs a punch of the classics. Service was prompt and friendly. The food is large portions that are DELICIOUS.

Fresh herbs in the marinara sauce are fresh, mushroom fresh.

Perfectly cooked in a brick oven.

Edit:

Ordered through grubhub twice now, this last time we both ordered the rizzolo rolls. I thought for grub hub markup at $14.95 it couldn't be that big. So we ordered their meatballs and sausage side and a side pasta, to be sure. This roll is the size of a newborn child! The meatballs are handmade and so is the sausage. How do I know? The sausage was cut from large links and the taste is so smooth and perfectly seasoned that you can taste the herbs as the after taste.

This Rizzolo roll I order, the chicken parm. It was a religious experience, the chicken is fresh and melt in you mouth tender and every ingredient down to the breading on the chicken hits your palate.

Its incredible that theres still small family restaurants that keep prices reasonable while delivering on HOMEMADE meats, sauces and who knows what else is in-house.

Im starting to think the bad reviews are from snowbird "italians" with a grudge. Sauce is too sour?? Balsamic vinegar is used is many marinara recipes to add depth of flavor and add brightness to the sauce. This isn't ragu, I could even detect a merlot used in the sauce as well. Notice the irregularly shaped herbs, that means it hand cut, no dehydrated herbs or limited. Another about a large party. Ive been with a large party, other local Italian restaurants ive experienced terrible service with large crowds and my meal last. Not at Angelo's, that large party was served as quickly as we were and at...