Crust Pizzeria Napoletana - Herndon — Restaurant in Herndon

I am a huge fan of Pupatella in Reston, so when I read all the 5 star reviews for Crust I decided to give it a try. The meal was ehhh at the best. Let me start by saying I am an actual Italian. I was born in Rome, have Sicilian parents, lived over half my life in Italy, and visit every two years to see my friends and family. That said, I was not impressed. I had already been to the Vienna location, and was definitely NOT impressed by the pizza and the steep prices, but that was years ago so I decided to give this new location a shot. This is what I ordered: bufala margherita pizza, arancini, fried artichokes, and the cannoli. First, the pizza. The sauce to mozzarella to crust ratio was off. There was way too much crust, and the mozzarella was definitely not bufala - maybe a distant cousin once removed. The pizza was boring and I found that eating it was a chore. Pizza is my once a month treat, and I was upset about having gone out on a limb and not stuck to my local favorite - Pupatella. For those of you who will say, well you got a normal cheese pizza of course it is boring, I always have margherita pizzas and, when cooked correctly, they are far from boring. The arancini. Sigh - I am not sure what the deal is with serving arancini in a pool of sauce, but you would never find that in Italy. Why you would put a deep fried ball in sauce is beyond me. If anything, put the sauce on the side to preserve the crunchy deliciousness of a fried arancini. Again here, the ratio was off. There was very little sauce, cheese, and beef -- it was mostly saffron rice, and I personally didn't think there was enough saffron. The artichokes. Given that I was born and raised in Rome, I have super high expectations about artichokes. These were fine, but nothing to write home about and not the real thing. As for the cannoli, they were also just fine. The ricotta was grainy -- which is very common for ricotta this side of the Atlantic -- and I didn't enjoy the zested candied fruit that was meshed in with the ricotta. All in all, I will be sticking with Pupatella when I go...

my husband and I tried it for the first time tonight because it had good reviews. The pizza was fine. The breading was fire cooked, so it was good, but do not get the lasagna. It was as if it was tossed together, not pre-built and baked together. it was noodles that were undercooked, some cheese that was sprinkled in there with some cold ground burger, that smelled bad so I didn’t eat anymore of it it. the hubby tried it and said it tasted like the meat was bad. it was like they just laid it in there and it was so cold. The cheese didn’t even melt so the owner was kind enough to take that off the bill and I still gave a nice tip, as if it was the full bill. they were very nice there.

update I cant find a way to reply to your reply but you said to remove the “beer” comment since i never tried it?? where do you see that?? we ordered soda from the “fountain” that didnt have diet pepsi, it was out of order, so we had to buy canned diet coke. i didnt want to mention that before, but i dont know what you are talking...

You can find good quality pizza in this store. They are new to the area, with a lot of competitors around them, which makes hard to survive the business unless you keep your quality and service in a good level. Why am I saying this? Because their quality is good, the store manager and cashier and staff are polite, But their price is high for a medium size pizza. Their cheapest pizza ( cheese) start more than 10$. Considering their price, all other factors must be kept in a high range by them to encourage the customers to visit this store again.

Getting back to the pizza, there are several options for pizza, you can choose ingredients if you want something different or more ( of course you have to pay) plus there are options to buy salad or pasta as well.

Their thin crust/bread is very good, similar to a real Italian recipe.

The store is clean, and...