Vecchia Pizzeria & Mercato — Restaurant in Hoover

Tried out Vecchia for lunch today. Located in the Moss Rock area of Hoover it was a little out of the way for us, but was recommended by a friend.

At first glance, from the outside, I thought that this might be a nice place. Upon entrance I was shuttled down a narrow hallway lined with drinks and wines to a cashiers desk. We placed our order and served ourselves bottled drinks, from a cooler behind us.

The prices for a 10 oz pie were $18 so I was hoping for a great find in wood fired pizza for our area.

We then went around the corner to a very table cluttered dining area. After noticing that if you asked for water that it was “self serve” from a high school style water fountain in plastic cups. No wait staff roomed the area, only the cashier and the two cooks.

When the pizza arrived it was fresh out of the wood fired oven. Nice char in spots but the bottom was still a little under cooked. I ordered the classic pepperoni but had to search to find said toppings. Scarce and unevenly distributed.

Then came the bite; the tip of my slice was soggy and limp. No crunch. The bone was nice and crisp with good flavor. The red tomato sauce was bland at best, no spices, I ended up adding salt to my slice to help the flavor. Cheese was thin but nice flavor and pull.

I looked for Parmesan, but had to go to the water fountain to find the powdered cheese shaker. (No fresh Parmesan available)

Nothing was on the tables but a beer bucket with plastic utensils and off brand napkins.

For what was told to me was a true Italian pizzeria I was disappointed. Pizza wasn’t bad but could have been so much better with some spices and flavor. And charging these prices I would expect some wait staff and fountain drinks. (Ditch the high school water fountain).

Establishment was clean and staff was nice. Food was OK, maybe even good had it been a lower price point. But Vecchie has some loyal followers and it was busy for that time of day, so others must enjoy...

The food here is absolutely amazing, make no mistake. My husband and I were driving to ATL all the time for pizza this good but thankfully now we’ve got this place 18 minutes from our house. There could be clearer instructions or signage to let you know where you need to go to order. We found some menus and sat down after standing up by the front counter because no one came up to us and no one said anything, we figured it was self seating. So, we went and sat down and then kept waiting and waiting for someone to come and take our order but no one did. Finally, I walked back up front and was like uhhh is someone gonna take our order or do we order up here and they informed us we order up there. Spent right under $100 on some drinks, a bottle of wine, a 16 inch margarita pizza with pepperoni, the chicken Parmesan, and lasagna. We spent about $40 on 12 cannolis and a 5 inch Nutella pizza. We had a little bit of each pasta dish, two pieces of pizza, and maybe 4-5 cannolis to take home. The pizza was really good but a little sparse on the pepperoni. The crust was perfect brick oven pizza. Yankee approved. The chicken parm literally brought tears to my eyes it was so good!!! Lasagna isn’t really my favorite but that was really yummy too! The Nutella pizza was interesting almost like a more mature smores but it needed more Nutella for how much marshmallow there was and how thick the crust is. The cannolis were the best I’ve had since moving down south from Pennsylvania. And I imagine they’d be way better if they were more fresh. But the pastry wasn’t flaky and soft and the filling was a bit dense and it had this weird cinnamon undertone that I can’t understand why it was there. Still really good. Just nit-picky things from a Yankee who’s had cake boss and homemade Italian food...

We don't write many reviews and when we do, it's almost always positive. Several members of our family have worked in restaurants at one time or another so we are quick to give the benefit of the doubt. We're making an exception this time:

We ate at Vecchia on Sunday, 11/21/21, at around 1:30PM. It was somewhat/average busy but not overwhelmingly so. Our experience:

Service was awful. Wow, where to start? We were essentially the only folks at the counter. We waited what seemed like forever on everything...tea, beer, etc. Took 10-15 min just to get our standard drinks after ordering. 2 people in our group were drinking water. They have a self service water dispensary. It was completely out of water. We politely asked if they could refill it. 15 minutes later, one of the containers was partially refilled. Our food took 30 minutes to get to us. It was AWFUL! For the sake of brevity, I'll give just two examples: the chicken smelled and tasted old. Half the chicken in our spinach lasagna was mostly fatty rib meat. Basically, gross. We purchased two pieces of caramel cake for dessert. One piece was marked over 2 weeks old. The other, over 1 week. Both were so dry and old, it was hard as cardboard. Service was largely rude and they acted as if it was a bother for us to be there. I am now sick - stomach. This was the only thing I ate yesterday.

On balance, an awful experience from start to finish, and after results. This was not our first bad experience there hence the reason we decided to...